Entry guide · Route check
China 240-Hour Visa-Free Transit: Does Your Route Qualify?
An A → mainland China → C route is necessary, but route direction alone does not make you eligible for 240-hour visa-free transit.
You must also hold an ordinary passport from one of the 57 eligible countries, have at least three months of passport validity, use designated ports, stay within permitted areas and carry a confirmed onward ticket to a different country or region within 240 hours.
Check every condition against the current National Immigration Administration rules and your airline before departure. Homeground can screen the route; the airline and Chinese immigration make the final decision.
The route-direction test, in two examples
New York → Shanghai → Tokyo passes the route-direction test. You arrived from the US and leave for Japan: two different places.
New York → Shanghai → Los Angeles fails the route-direction test. You arrived from the US and leave for the US. A round trip is still a round trip, even when the two American cities are three thousand miles apart.
These examples test route direction only. Nationality, passport, ticket, port and permitted-area conditions still apply.
Does the route direction pass?
| Your route | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|
| New York → Shanghai → Tokyo | Route passes | US in, Japan out |
| Seoul → Shanghai → London | Route passes | Korea in, UK out |
| London → Shanghai → Hong Kong | Route passes | Hong Kong counts as a separate region — an official Shanghai example |
| Taipei → Shanghai → Seoul | Route passes | Taiwan region counts, per the official 2026 guide |
| US → Beijing → Xi'an → Shanghai → Japan | Route passes | Enter and leave by different Chinese cities; travel between permitted areas is allowed |
| Busan → Beijing → Hong Kong, different airlines | Route passes | Beijing's official guide confirms separate airlines don't break it |
| Tokyo → Shanghai → Tokyo | Route fails | Japan in, Japan out |
| Los Angeles → Beijing → Shanghai → New York | Route fails | US in, US out — the Chinese leg doesn't change that |
| Sydney → Shanghai → Melbourne | Route fails | 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 |
This table checks route direction only. Long itineraries are judged on the sectors immediately either side of China: Shanghai treats London → Tokyo → Shanghai → London as Tokyo → Shanghai → London, so its direction passes.
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 many ordinary US mainland round trips, an L tourist visa is still required; this transit policy helps only when every condition above is met.
Where routes actually break
Even when the A-to-C direction works, three practical ticketing checks can still break the plan.
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 China is a China travel agency drawing on our planning team’s first-hand local experience. The policy conditions on this page come from the National Immigration Administration and official municipal guidance, checked 20 September 2026. We re-check 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?
- An ordinary passport from an eligible country with at least three months left, a confirmed onward ticket to your third country or region within 240 hours, and the right to enter that destination. Immigration may also require the temporary-entry arrival card and its normal inspection.
- 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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