China’s tourist visa costs Westerners up to $200 to visit. But there’s a loophole: the elusive, confusing, barely navigable transit visa.
Story and Photos by Jenna Kunze
When I first found out, I lost it. I felt like a pioneer tapping my boat into new land. “Did you know about this?” I asked my expat friends. They didn’t. Nobody did. Everybody should.
Granted, the information about China’s free transit visa came to me secondhand, through my friend Brennan, who had visited while I was living in South Korea. He used it while travelling from West Africa, where Ethiopian Airlines kept him from boarding his flight. “No visa, no flight,” they told him. Even they didn’t know about it.
The People’s Republic of China allows tourists from 53 countries (Canada and the US included) to transit through 18 of their airports for as few as two days, and as many as six, depending on the location. It is a loophole for an otherwise 10-year, $150–200 document. This transit visa is free, great and unbelievably ambiguous. So elusive that, when I called officials to confirm these facts to avoid a travel mishaps, four different Chinese embassies in three different countries (China, the US and South Korea) all claimed ignorance, weren’t qualified to answer, or redirected the call to a number that rings infinitely.
There’s an embassy website, but it lacks clarity and details for a policy that, like its country, mandates very specific rules and regulations.
Relying on yahoo answers, a few blog posts and the grace of God, I intentionally booked layovers through China three separate times, to three separate airports—Beijing, Xiamen and Kunming—where I’ve taken advantage of the transit visa (which frighteningly requires no pre-application; just bring a copy of your outbound flight and follow the signs).
And so, in the same way people pass on good recipes they’ve made, I offer you this: the free pass to China. Tried, tested and true.
You Need a Third Country for this Visa
To qualify for China’s transit visa, it’s necessary to travel to a third country. This means not a round trip with China in the middle.
Seoul – Xiamen – Seoul can’t and won’t happen. Seoul – Xiamen – Manila – Seoul, however, is how I made my first trip to China possible.
If you want to return to your original country (and I’m assuming you do), you must tack on another destination outside of China, which validates the “transit” nature of this visa. It’s a two-prong trip, meant as a hack to utilize layovers and extend a vacation while seeing a new place.
What is Considered a “Third Country”?
I spent roughly 24 hours contacting embassies to navigate this one, and still wasn’t 100 percent I wasn’t breaking the rules until Chinese authorities stamped my visa.
Hong Kong, a special administrative region (along with Macau), and Taiwan, an autonomous region, both fit the bill for third countries. Which is advantageous, because flights on budget airlines from mainland China to these destinations are the cheapest.
When I wanted to hike the Great Wall, I made Beijing my main trip for 72 hours, travelling to Hong Kong as sort of an afterthought. Just remember that whatever city you fly into is the city you must fly out of: China’s transit visa bans you from travelling outside of designated limits in most places.
The Chinese Transit Visa Changes Depending on Your Arrival City
How the time is counted depends on the city you fly into. Excluding Beijing, every other airport doesn’t begin counting on-the-ground visa time until midnight following the day of arrival, which can sometimes allow you a whole extra day, if you’ve book a morning flight.
Beijing Capital International Airport, however, starts counting the visa from the scheduled arrival time of your flight. If you want to maximize your time and don’t care about the city, Shanghai is exceptionally generous with their transit time, allowing 144 hours—six full days.
Similarly, if you have a multiple-layover flight within China, make sure each airport you land in hosts the transit visa policy. This is important because, since China is so huge, often flights (especially within Asia) will have multiple layovers at different Chinese airports. I fell prey to this when travelling from Seoul to Manila, even though I already knew the policy. I overlooked the dual layover and booked the cheapest flight, without realizing that one of the airports did not support transit visas. An expensive mistake.
When, like Brennan, a Chinese airline didn’t let me board my flight because I didn’t have a hotel booked (which isn’t a national policy, I later learned, but rather a rule specific to certain Chinese airlines), I suddenly knew no other words than profanities.
Though it is frustrating not to have all the information, nor an English-speaking help line, nor professionals who are experienced with this very niche subject, the very things for which I’ve cursed China are simultaneously the entire appeal of a country that was almost wholly closed off to foreigners until the ’70s. In many ways, the country is still unequipped to deal with them.
Though China now welcomes tens of millions of foreign visitors annually, and is home to more than a billion people, whenever I visit, it feels like uncharted territory. Like a pioneer tapping a boat into new land, where Facebook and Instagram remain banned by the government. Where alligators chopped in thirds are sold, still moving, at the local market. Where the Great Wall stretches like a dinosaur’s back as far as your eyes can see, then farther. Where, on each flight you take, an intercom announcement will continuously warn you that Chinese aviation law bans all electronics from being powered on (even in-flight mode) onboard, and any violation is punishable by five years’ imprisonment. Where you repeatedly think: So this is China.
6 comments
Wow, this post is really nice and I want to thank You a lot for sharing it as it has been very helpful
It is NOT a transit visa. A transit visa is something completely different that you need to apply for from a Chinese embassy/consulate. It is transit WITHOUT visa. It’s nothing special or secret at all. It’s not a “loophole”. If you refer to “transit visa” you will only confuse agents at airports and airlines. It is simply a “transit WITHOUT visa”. It’s not a visa. You should change your article because it’s wrong and confusing.
My girlfriend and I are travelling to Bali, Indonesia via Xiamen airlines. On our way from LA we have 2 stops, the first is a 12 hour layover in Quingdao (TAO) and the second is a 21 hour layover in Xiamen (XMN). We are wondering if we would need to obtain a Chinese Visa if we were leave the airport. Would we need to report to anyone if we stayed in the airport without a visa?
Both Quingdao and Xiamen are listed as eligible cities for the 72 hour transit. However, the tricky part is finding out if we can obtain this if we depart 1 Chinese city to another Chinese city before leaving the country. Lastly, does the 24 hour visa (outside of Beijing also start at midnight the day following arrival? If so that would count for only 18 hours of ground time in the country in 2 cities since we arrive in Quingdao at 5am day 1 before departing for Xiamen 12 hours later and then leaving Xiamen at 6pm on day 2.
We have been instructed by the Embassy to contact the immigration office in both Quingdao and Xiamen which I have tried to do. However, neither speaks English and we are feeling very lost.
Thanks in advance,
Brian
Hi Jenna,
Does this apply only to flights or also cruises. We are leaving on a cruise from Tokyo (Yokohama) with a stop in Xiamen, for 7 hours, then going on to Vietnam, Hong Kong, Taipei, and eventually back to Tokyo. We’ll be traveling to enough countries to qualify, but I can’t tell whether this applies to cruises as well as flights. What do you think?
Thanks in advance.`
Hi Kathy,
For cruises, only 2 ports: Tianjin Cruise Terminal and Shanghai Cruise Terminal.
You can reach one of the ports by plane, then leave from one of the airports in the same area.
With the visa waiver policy, you have to stay in certain area depending on your entry port. If you enter by Shanghai cruise terminal, you can only leave from Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou & Ningbo Airport as those areas are considered as one area in terms of visa waiver.
Hi Jenna! Thanks for your post :) I’m still a bit confused by ‘third-country’ requirement. For example, I’m flying from Taiwan, then a layover in Xiamen for 8 hours, and then on to LAX. It’s the same for my return flight: LAX –> Xiamen (7 hours) –> Taiwan. I don’t plan to leave the airport at all. It sounds like I’ve got a 3rd country – I don’t plan on even leaving the airport. I’m just worried because some friends of mine traveled from Thailand to LAX with a layover in Xiamen. However, the airport agent would NOT let them get on the plane, even though my friends had checked ahead of time to make sure they didn’t need a visa. I’m not sure if I’m still unclear about the policy. Do you think I’ll be okay to get on my planes? Thanks in advance!