240-Hour Visa-Free Transit in China: the complete guide

What it actually is

The 240-hour visa-free transit lets an eligible traveller enter Chinawithout applying for a visa in advance, stay up to240 hours (10 days), and then continue to a third country or region. You do not fill in any online form months ahead. You simply arrive at a participating port, show your passport and your onward ticket, and the border officer stamps a temporary entry permit into your passport.

The logic is simple: China wants people who are passing through its cities to have time to actually spend money there. It is atransit privilege, not a tourist visa — the onward ticket is the whole deal.

How long?

Up to 240 hours — commonly described as 10 days.

Cost?

No application fee; you pay nothing at the border for the permit itself.

Apply in advance?

No. You request it on arrival at a participating port.

Do I have to book a hotel beforehand?

Not required, but you need a real address for the registration form.

Can I leave the airport city?

Yes — travel across provinces inside the permitted area is allowed.

Can I extend it?

Generally no. Only genuine emergencies via the local exit-entry authority.

Who qualifies — the five hard checks

Every one of these must be true. If one fails, you need a real visa instead.

Your nationality is on the eligible list
The list has been expanded repeatedly — most recently in August 2026 — and now covers 57 countries. Check the current NIA list before you book; do not trust any blog post (including this one) for something that changes this often.

The 57 countries (as of 20 August 2026)

Europe (40): Albania, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom.

Americas (6): Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Mexico, United States.

Oceania (2): Australia, New Zealand.

Asia (9): Brunei, Indonesia, Japan, Kyrgyzstan, Qatar, Singapore, South Korea, United Arab Emirates, Vietnam.

Separately: Hainan province runs its own30-day visa-free entry scheme covering 61 nationalities, including several South-East Asian countries not on the 240-hour list. If Hainan is your destination, check that scheme too — you may get three times the days with fewer conditions.
You hold a valid ordinary passport
It should have enough remaining validity for the trip; many airlines and officers want at least three months beyond your departure, and at least one or two blank visa pages.
You have a confirmed onward ticket to a third country or region
Date and seat confirmed, departing within 240 hours. “Confirmed” means a real ticket, not a placeholder reservation you intend to cancel later.
You enter through a participating port
65 ports across 24 provincial-level regions accept the scheme — essentially every major international airport, plus a number of seaports and land crossings. Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Xi'an, Hangzhou, Kunming and Qingdao are all included. Your exit port does not have to be the same as your entry port, but it should also be an open port.

Need to check something specific? The National Immigration Administration runs a 24-hour hotline, +86-12367, with service in Mandarin, Cantonese, English, Russian, Japanese and Korean. It is genuinely useful and very few travellers know it exists.
No adverse immigration record
Previous overstays, deportations or bans in China will very likely get you refused at check-in or at the border.

The “third country” rule is where people fail You must bepassing through, not making a round trip. Flying London → Shanghai → London does not qualify, because your onward destination is the same country you came from. London → Shanghai → Tokyo does. Whether Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan count as the required third “region” for your specific itinerary is a question of current practice — ask your airline in writing before you rely on it.

Step by step: booking → boarding → landing → leaving

1 Check the listConfirm your country and your port on the NIA site.

2 Book the triangleHome → China → third country, all within 10 days.

3 Check in earlyThe airline verifies your documents; arrive 3 h early.

4 Land & applyTransit desk, fingerprints, temporary entry permit.

5 RegisterAccommodation registration within 24 hours.

6 Leave on timeExit before your permit expires, to your third country.

1. Before you fly

Screenshot or print the official policy page and your onward ticket. Paper still wins arguments.
Book your first night's accommodation in advance — you will need the address on the arrival form.
Make sure the name on the ticket matches the passport exactly.
If your trip touches more than one Chinese city, keep the domestic leg bookings too; officers rarely ask, but hotels and stations occasionally do.

2. At the airport of departure

The airline — not the Chinese government — decides whether to let you board. Agents check your documents against a database (Timatic). If the agent is unsure, they will call a supervisor. Bring printed copies of the onward ticket and the policy page; it genuinely speeds this up.

3. On arrival in China

Follow signs fortransit / visa-free entry — do not queue at the normal visa-on-arrival or foreigner channels unless directed. You will fill in a temporary entry registration card, be photographed and fingerprinted, and the officer will stamp a temporary entry permit showing the expiry.Check the stamp before you walk away. If the date is wrong, ask immediately.

4. During your stay

If you stay in a hotel, the hotel files the registration for you at check-in — that is the normal case and it costs you nothing. If you stay in an apartment, a friend's home, or anywhere unregistered, you are legally required to register at the local police station within 24 hours (72 hours in some rural areas). Hotels that refuse foreign passport holders are rare in big cities but common in small towns — book accordingly.

5. Leaving

Exit through an open port, before the expiry stamped in your passport, and continue to the third country on your ticket. Keep your onward boarding pass until you are through exit immigration.

How the 240 hours are counted, and where you can go

In practice the clock is normally treated as starting at00:00 on the day after you arrive, and it runs until the expiry date the officer writes on your permit. Do not do arithmetic in your head from your landing time —the stamp is the only thing that matters. If you land at 23:30 on the 1st, you still have essentially the 2nd through the 10th.

A useful consequence:landing late in the day is slightly better than landing early, because the day you arrive is largely not counted.

Where you can travel

You are not locked into one city. The scheme allows travel across provinces within the permitted area — a Beijing → Xi'an → Shanghai loop is a normal, completely legal 10-day itinerary. Tibet and some border regions have their own extra permits and paperwork; treat them as a separate project and confirm well in advance.

Practical takeaway Ten days is comfortably enough for two or three bases with one or two overnight trips, and desperately tight for “see all of China”. Pick a region — the east-coast classic (Beijing–Xi'an–Shanghai) or the southwest (Chengdu–Chongqing–Yunnan) — and go deep instead of wide.

What you must not do

Overstay. Even by a few hours it can mean fines, detention, and a re-entry ban.
Work. Paid or unpaid work, internships and “volunteering that looks like a job” all need a proper work permit.
Journalism and professional filming. Reporting and commercial shoots require accreditation; tourist photos are fine.
Enrol in long-term study. Degree programmes and long language courses need a student visa.
Drop the third-country leg and fly home instead. This is the classic way to get flagged on your record.
Fly a drone without permission. Registration and, in many areas, explicit approval are required.
Assume a “grey area” is safe. Border officers have wide discretion; being polite, consistent and documented is your best strategy.

On “gaming” the system Booking a fake onward ticket you never intend to use, “visa running” across a land border to reset the clock, or working remotely for a foreign employer while on a transit permit are all ways to turn a great trip into a ban. The legitimate optimisations are on the next section — they do not require lying to anyone.

Legal ways to get more out of your 10 days

This is the part most guides get wrong. You do not need tricks; you need to stop wasting your own time.

Check unilateral visa-free first
China has granted unilateral visa-free entry (typically 15–30 days) to a long and growing list of countries, and holds mutual visa-exemption agreements with others. If your passport is on one of those lists, you may not need the transit scheme at all — and you get more days with fewer conditions. Always check this before you build a 240-hour itinerary.
Land late, leave late
Because the arrival day is largely not counted and the clock is set by the officer's stamp, an evening arrival plus a late-evening departure on day 10 is the maximum legal stay. Never cut the departure fine — a missed flight is an overstay.
Choose your entry port strategically
Entering in the region you actually want to see saves a domestic flight. Flying into Chengdu for a Sichuan–Yunnan trip, or Shanghai for the Yangtze delta, beats landing in Beijing and burning a day on connections.
Use refundable tickets, honestly
A genuinely refundable or changeable onward ticket is completely legitimate — buy it, hold it, and if plans change, change it. What is not legitimate is a throwaway booking you intend to cancel before boarding.
Open-jaw instead of backtracking
Enter in one city, exit from another: fly into Beijing, leave from Shanghai. You see more and waste no days retracing your route.
Have a plan B that is legal
If your nationality or route does not fit the transit rules, apply for a normal tourist (L) visa. It takes time but removes every constraint above: longer stay, round trips allowed, and no third-country requirement.

If you don't qualify: the alternatives

Route in	Typical length	Notes
Unilateral visa-free	15–30 days	Available to a growing list of nationalities. No onward ticket needed. Check the current list.
Mutual visa exemption	30 days (varies)	Bilateral agreements; length depends on the passport.
Tourist visa (L)	30–90 days typically	Apply at the Chinese embassy/visa centre before travelling. Round trips allowed.
Hainan special policy	Up to 30 days	Visa-free entry for many nationalities when travelling to Hainan, with conditions.
Cruise visa-free	Up to 15 days	For passengers arriving on organised cruise ships at designated ports.
Group tours	Varies	Organised tour groups from certain countries have their own simplified arrangements.
APEC Business Travel Card	60–90 days per visit	For qualifying business travellers from APEC economies.

Rule of thumb: if you want a relaxed trip with no onward-connection stress and your passport allows it, a normal visa or unilateral visa-free beats the transit scheme every time. The transit scheme shines when you genuinely are passing through the region.

The mistakes that actually get people refused

Round-trip ticket instead of onward travel to a third country.
Onward leg departing after 240 hours — even by one day.
Arriving at a port that does not participate in the scheme.
Passport with too little remaining validity or no blank pages.
No hotel booking and no address for the arrival card.
Telling the officer “I might go back home instead” — be consistent with your ticket.
Assuming the airline's website reflects current rules; they update slowly.
Forgetting the 24-hour registration when not sleeping in a hotel.

Official sources

Verify everything here before you spend money:

National Immigration Administration (NIA) — policy announcements, port list, country list.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Chinese embassy/consulate in your country.
Your airline's document-check desk — ask in writing and keep the answer.
Within China, the 12367 immigration hotline can answer questions in Chinese (and limited English).