Where visa-free transit actually lets you go

No. Of the 222 Chinese destinations we cover, 140 are inside the permitted stay area of the 240-hour visa-free transit scheme and 56 are not. Whole provinces are outside it — Tibet (Xizang), Xinjiang, Qinghai, Gansu, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia and Jilin — and six more are open only in named cities, which is how Pingyao, Wuyuan and Daocheng-Yading end up off limits while the province around them is partly open.

222 destinations · verified 2026-08-07 against the official NIA permitted-area table

Why a list of place names is not enough

The official table names prefecture-level cities, not tourist destinations. Sichuan is open in Chengdu, Zigong, Luzhou and eight others — and Dujiangyan, which is a county-level city that Chengdu administers, is inside Chengdu even though the table never says the word. Yangshuo is inside Guilin. The Stone Forest is inside Kunming. Read the table as a list of names and you will wrongly rule out three of the most visited places in the country.

So the verdicts below are not name matches. Every destination in a partly-open province was resolved through its administrative parent chain, and anything that could not be resolved with evidence is listed as undetermined rather than guessed. The reasoning behind each verdict is recorded in the repository that generates this page.

Off limits on transit 56

Going to any of these on the transit scheme is a violation of its conditions, not a grey area. Several are among the best-known places in China, which is exactly why this list is worth reading before you book an internal flight.

The two reasons a place is off limits

The whole region is outside the scheme

Tibet (Xizang), Xinjiang, Qinghai, Gansu, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia and Jilin. These need a full visa. Tibet additionally needs a Tibet Travel Permit arranged through a registered agency, so independent travel is not possible there on any visa-free basis.

The province is open, but only in named cities

Six provinces are partly open. Entering at one of their ports does not open the rest of the province:

Shanxi
Open in Taiyuan and Datong. Outside it: Pingyao ancient city, Mount Wutai (Wutaishan) and Wang Family Courtyard.
Heilongjiang
Open in Harbin. Outside it: Snow Town (Xuexiang) and Mohe / Arctic Village.
Jiangxi
Open in Nanchang and Jingdezhen. Outside it: Wuyuan and Mount Lu (Lushan).
Guangxi
Open in Nanning, Liuzhou, Guilin, Wuzhou, Beihai, Fangchenggang, Qinzhou, Guigang, Yulin, Hezhou, Hechi and Laibin.
Sichuan
Open in Chengdu, Zigong, Luzhou, Suining, Leshan, Deyang, Neijiang, Yibin, Ya'an, Meishan and Ziyang. Outside it: Jiuzhaigou, Huanglong, Yading / Daocheng and Danba (Aba & Garze prefectures are NOT permitted).
Yunnan
Open in Kunming, Yuxi, Chuxiong, Honghe, Wenshan, Pu'er, Xishuangbanna, Dali and Lijiang. Outside it: Shangri-La (Diqing) and Tengchong (Baoshan).

Inside the permitted area 140

You may travel between these freely on the scheme — the official table allows crossing province boundaries as long as you stay inside permitted areas.

Undetermined 26

We hold no reliable province for these, so we will not put them on either side. Treat them as needing a check rather than as permitted — that is the safe direction of a guess, and we would rather show you the gap than close it with one.

Before you rely on this

This is our reading of the official permitted-area table, resolved through administrative hierarchy. It is the most careful version of this list we know of, and it is still a reading. Where the answer decides whether you board a flight, confirm on the National Immigration Administration page and check your own case in the transit checker. The entry point matters too — see all 65 ports.