Visas for China

You do not need a visa for stays of up to 30 days — provided you travel on a passport from a country on the unilateral visa waiver list. The rule has an expiry date, though, and it is worth confirming before you buy your ticket.

The waiver currently in force

China has extended its unilateral visa waiver policy until 24:00 on 31 December 2026. It covers holders of ordinary passports from 45 countries on the list — including Portugal and Brazil — entering for tourism, business, family visits, exchange or transit, for up to 30 days per entry.

What the waiver does not cover: stays of more than 30 days, paid work, study, journalism and long-term residence. Any of those requires a visa applied for in advance.

A second provision is worth knowing: the 240-hour (10-day) transit exemption, valid for citizens of 55 countries, including Portugal. It allows entry through one of 60 ports across 24 provinces and travel within those regions, provided you hold a confirmed ticket to a third country. It works well if you are combining China with Japan, Korea or Southeast Asia on the same ticket.

Documents at the border

Four things are asked for on arrival, and there is no point arguing:

1. Valid passport — for at least three months beyond your intended departure date, with two blank pages.
2. Return or onward ticket — an open-dated flight may not be accepted.
3. Proof of accommodation, at least for the first night. On our tours we hand over a letter with the full itinerary, which settles the matter in one go.
4. Completed arrival form, filled in on the plane or in the terminal.

We recommend three practical precautions: carry the itinerary printed on paper, have your guide’s contact details written in Chinese, and allow 45 to 90 minutes for immigration at Beijing and Shanghai airports at peak times.

Fingerprints from all ten fingers are collected at border control, and at some ports a photograph as well. It is quick, but it means taking off gloves and having dry hands — in Harbin in January that is no small detail. Anyone travelling with children should know that babies and minors go through the same procedure, one at a time, with a parent present at the counter.

When a visa is needed after all

Four common cases:

• Trips of more than 30 days, such as our 20-day Grand Crossing extended with add-ons.
• Passports from countries not on the list, including dual nationals travelling on the “wrong” document.
• Non-tourism purposes: volunteering, internships, professional filming, work.
• Tibet, which requires a regional permit even with a valid visa or waiver.

The tourist visa (L) is applied for online, with an appointment at the Chinese visa centre, submission of the passport, a photograph and fingerprint collection. As a rule it allows stays of 30 to 60 days per entry and takes three to seven working days. We handle the process end to end when a client books a package tour: forms, invitation letter, bookings and follow-through until delivery.

Deadlines and costs when a visa is required

Where a visa is required, the process has fixed stages and does not tolerate haste. It starts with the online form, which asks for passport details, address, occupation and the complete itinerary — including domestic flights, hotels for every night and the names of the cities you pass through. Next comes submitting the documents to book an appointment at the visa centre, where in-person fingerprint collection is mandatory, along with a recent photograph against a light background.

We always allow two to three weeks between starting the process and getting the passport back, plus travel time to the centre. No serious agency promises less, because the timeline depends on the consulate and can stretch during periods of high demand such as July and August.

The single-entry visa is the most common and is enough for a package tour. When the itinerary leaves the mainland and returns — the case for anyone going to Macau or Hong Kong mid-trip and coming back to the mainland — a double-entry visa is required, and it is important to say so on the form from the outset, because changing it later means starting the process again.

We handle the visa in full for our tour clients: invitation letter issued by our company in China, genuine bookings and follow-through until collection. It is an included service, because a paperwork mistake always costs more than the visa.

Business, study and volunteering: visas that are not tourist visas

None of these are covered by the waiver, and they are precisely the ones that create the most work at the last minute:

• Business (M visa). Requires an invitation letter from a Chinese company, bearing the entity’s seal and the contact’s details. It covers meetings, trade fairs and supplier visits. Paid work (Z visa) is a different matter and requires a separate work permit — never travel for business on a tourist visa.
• Study (X1 for over 180 days, X2 for under). Requires an acceptance letter from the institution and a school form; the X1 requires residence registration within the first thirty days.
• Journalism and professional filming. Require specific authorisation and equipment declared on entry. A drone in your luggage turns a holiday into a bureaucratic case.

We flag these cases to clients at least a month ahead, because that is the minimum time to assemble the paperwork without paying for expedited service.

Why we always reconfirm in the week before

The unilateral waiver is a policy with an end date, not an acquired right: it has been extended several times and has at points been suspended for public health or reciprocity reasons. The same applies to the 240-hour transit exemption, whose list of eligible ports and covered provinces has been changed without prior notice.

Hence our routine: we check nationality and document validity six weeks out, and we re-check the policy in force in the week before the flight. Five minutes prevents losing an entire trip — not least because the airline checks documents at boarding and insurance does not cover tickets lost for want of a visa.

Before you fly: what we do

• We confirm each traveller’s nationality and the validity of their document six weeks before departure.
• We check the policy in force in the week before the flight — because the waiver has an end date and can change.
• We prepare the border dossier: itinerary, bookings, agency letter and local contacts.
• We flag the cases that require a visa at least one month in advance.

The golden rule is simple: visa-free entry is not an acquired right, it is a policy with an expiry date. Confirming before you buy the ticket takes five minutes and saves the trip.