Entry guide · Route check
China 240-Hour Visa-Free Transit: Does Your Route Qualify?
Only one thing decides it: where you fly after China must be a different country or region from where you flew in from.
Not your nationality. Not where you live. Not where the trip eventually ends. Just the two international flights either side of mainland China — and whether they point at two different places.
Get that right and you have ten days in China with no visa, no application, no fee. Get it wrong and you find out at the departure gate.
The rule, in two examples
New York → Shanghai → Tokyo qualifies. You arrived from the US, you leave for Japan. Two different places.
New York → Shanghai → Los Angeles does not. You arrived from the US and you leave for the US. A round trip is still a round trip, even when the two American cities are three thousand miles apart.
That is the whole test. Everything below is about the cases where it gets less obvious.
Does your route qualify?
| Your route | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|
| New York → Shanghai → Tokyo | Qualifies | US in, Japan out |
| Seoul → Shanghai → London | Qualifies | Korea in, UK out |
| London → Shanghai → Hong Kong | Qualifies | Hong Kong counts as a separate region — an official Shanghai example |
| Taipei → Shanghai → Seoul | Qualifies | Taiwan region counts, per the official 2026 guide |
| US → Beijing → Xi'an → Shanghai → Japan | Qualifies | Enter and leave by different Chinese cities; travel between permitted areas is allowed |
| Busan → Beijing → Hong Kong, different airlines | Qualifies | Beijing's official guide confirms separate airlines don't break it |
| Tokyo → Shanghai → Tokyo | No | Japan in, Japan out |
| Los Angeles → Beijing → Shanghai → New York | No | US in, US out — the Chinese leg doesn't change that |
| Sydney → Shanghai → Melbourne | No | Australia in, Australia out |
| Tokyo → Hong Kong stop → Shanghai → Tokyo | Ask the airline | Depends whether Hong Kong is a real connection or just a stop on one through-flight |
Long itineraries are judged on the sectors immediately either side of China. Shanghai treats London → Tokyo → Shanghai → London as Tokyo → Shanghai → London, and it qualifies.
First — do you even need this?
If you hold a UK, Irish, Canadian, Australian or New Zealand passport, probably not.
Those passports currently get 30 days visa-free for tourism with no third-country requirement at all. No A-to-C puzzle, no onward ticket to prove. Check your own end date, then stop reading this page and go plan the trip.
This page is for everyone else — most notably US passports, which are not on that 30-day list. For Americans, a round trip means an L tourist visa; the transit policy is the only way in without one.
Where routes actually break
Three things trip people up, and none of them are the A-to-C rule.
Connections versus through-flights. A stop in Hong Kong on a single through-flight is not the same as connecting through Hong Kong on separate sectors — and it can change what counts as your A. Only the airline can tell you how your ticket is written.
Separate tickets. Not disqualifying in themselves. But you need both carriers to actually see and verify your onward journey, and separately-booked flights have a way of not talking to each other at check-in.
The airline decides before China does. Your documents get checked at the departure gate by an airline agent, hours before any Chinese official sees them. If the agent isn't up to date — many pages still say 60 ports when it has been 65 since 5 November 2025 — show them the current announcement.
Inside China: not everywhere
Twenty-four provincial-level regions take part, and you can travel between the permitted areas. But “the province is on the list” does not always mean the whole province.
| Where | What's actually open |
|---|---|
| Beijing · Shanghai · Chongqing | The whole municipality |
| Xi'an | All of Shaanxi |
| Zhangjiajie | All of Hunan |
| Guangzhou · Shenzhen | All of Guangdong |
| Chengdu | 11 named Sichuan cities only |
| Guilin | 12 named Guangxi cities only |
Chengdu and Guilin are where plans quietly fail. Check the official port-and-area table for every stop.
The clock starts tomorrow, not now
The 240 hours are counted from 00:00 on the day after you enter — not from the moment you land.
Arrive in Shanghai at 3pm on 1 August, and the clock starts at midnight going into 2 August. You have until the end of 11 August. In practice that is closer to eleven days than ten.
Follow the deadline immigration actually gives you at the port, and leave slack for a cancelled flight.
Written and checked
Homeground is an independent China trip-planning studio with our own ground team. Every figure on this page comes from the National Immigration Administration and official municipal guidance, checked 24 July 2026. We re-check monthly, because ports and country lists change.
We screen route structure. We do not decide immigration eligibility, file visa applications, or guarantee entry — the airline and Chinese immigration make those calls.
Official sources
- National Immigration Administration — Announcement No. 4 (2025): 65 ports, conditions, next-day clock
- National Immigration Administration — current 240-hour transit policy
- National Immigration Administration — 30-day visa-free list
China Immigration Service Hotline 12367 for a route no page can settle.
Updated:
Questions
- Does Hong Kong count as leaving China?
- Yes. Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan region all count as third regions — confirmed in the official 2026 multi-agency guide. You still need to be admissible to wherever you're going.
- Can I enter at Beijing and leave from Shanghai?
- Yes, provided both are eligible ports and every stop in between sits inside a permitted area.
- What do I need to show?
- A passport with at least three months left, a confirmed onward ticket to your third country within 240 hours, and the right to enter that country. That's the list — ignore blogs telling you to bring bank statements.
- Is this a visa?
- No. It's processed as temporary entry when you land. There's nothing to apply for beforehand.
Once the entry path is settled
Then the real question starts: whether the days actually work.
Ten days sounds generous until you price in the flight from Beijing to Zhangjiajie, the afternoon lost to a hotel change, and the fact that your last day ends at an airport. Send us the route you're considering — the cities, roughly when, and where you're flying onward to. We'll tell you what fits in the time the policy gives you, and what to drop.
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