China's 240-hour
visa-free transit

In December 2024 China extended its transit-without-visa scheme to 240 hours — ten days — replacing the older 72-hour and 144-hour versions. For a certain kind of trip it removes a visa application entirely. For another kind it is irrelevant. Knowing which one you have before you buy flights is the whole game.

The four conditions, all of them

1. Your passport is on the eligible list. The list runs to dozens of countries and has been expanded repeatedly. Do not rely on a list you read last year — ask us to check your nationality against the current one.
2. You are genuinely in transit. You need an onward ticket to a third country or region, different from the one you arrived from. London → Chengdu → London does not qualify. London → Chengdu → Bangkok does.
3. You enter through a designated port and stay within the permitted area attached to that entry. Chengdu, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xi'an, Kunming and dozens of others qualify; the full list of ports differs from the list of stay areas, and they are not interchangeable.
4. You leave within 240 hours. The clock starts at 00:00 the day after arrival. Extensions are not something to plan around.

The most common failure is not at Chinese immigration — it is at the check-in desk in your home airport, where an airline agent looking at your booking cannot see a qualifying onward flight. Print everything.

What "third country" really means

Your onward destination must be different from your arrival country. Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan count as separate destinations for this purpose, which makes a great many itineraries work that otherwise would not — flying into Chengdu and out to Hong Kong, for example, is a qualifying transit.

Itinerary	Qualifies?
London → Chengdu → Bangkok	✅ Yes
London → Chengdu → Hong Kong → London	✅ Yes (Hong Kong counts as a third destination)
London → Chengdu → London	❌ No — same country both ways
London → Chengdu → Beijing → London	❌ No — no third country involved
San Francisco → Chengdu → Tokyo → San Francisco	✅ Yes

How the 240 hours is counted

The clock starts at 00:00 on the day after arrival, not at the moment you land. Land on Monday afternoon and you effectively have all of Tuesday through the end of the following Thursday. In practice that is closer to eleven days of usable time.

Do not book a departure that depends on the last hour. Weather closes airports across western China more often than visitors expect, and an overstay is a serious matter. We build a full day of margin into any transit-based itinerary.

⚠️ The part almost nobody explains: this does not cover Tibet

This is where people lose money. Visa-free transit removes the requirement for a Chinese visa. It does not touch the Tibet Travel Permit, which is an entirely separate authorisation for the Tibet Autonomous Region and is required of every foreign passport holder, no matter how they entered China.

• The Tibet Autonomous Region is not inside the permitted stay area for visa-free transit.
• Travelling to Tibet still requires a visa, a permit filed by a licensed agency, a guide, a licensed vehicle, and entering and leaving as one organised group.
• A foreign passport holder cannot apply for that permit personally — see our Tibet Travel Permit guide.

So: visa-free transit is excellent for Sichuan. It is not a route into Tibet, and any agent who tells you otherwise is selling you something that will fail at the airport.

What it is good for

Trip	Visa-free transit?	Notes
Chengdu + pandas, 3–5 days	✅ Excellent fit	Chengdu is a designated port; pandas, old town, Sichuan opera, a hotpot evening — all within a few days
Sichuan overland, 7–9 days (Siguniang, Danba, Yading)	✅ Usually works	Stay within the permitted area; confirm your entry and exit ports with us
Yunnan, 6–8 days	✅ Works via Kunming	Check that your port and stay area line up
Tibet / Lhasa / Everest / Kailash	❌ No	Visa plus Tibet Travel Permit, filed by a licensed agency
Long overland across several provinces	⚠️ Case by case	Crossing between permitted areas is where itineraries break

Your paperwork, printed

• Onward ticket showing a clearly different third destination, with dates inside the 240-hour window.
• Hotel bookings for every night, or a letter from us confirming your arrangements.
• A day-by-day itinerary — this is what immigration actually looks at when they ask what you are doing.
• A printed summary of the policy for the airline check-in desk.
• Proof of funds, occasionally asked for; a card or some cash is enough.

On arrival you will complete a temporary entry card. Your hotel registers your stay with the local police within 24 hours — automatic when you check in with a passport at a licensed hotel, which every hotel on our itineraries is.

Six ways this goes wrong

• Check-in staff refuse boarding. Most common failure by far. Print your onward ticket; arrive early; ask for a supervisor if the agent is unsure; call us and we will speak to them.
• Onward flight is to the same country you came from. A round trip does not qualify.
• Exit port outside the permitted area. Entering in Chengdu and leaving from a port that is not part of the scheme means an overstay the moment you try to board.
• Assuming it covers Tibet or other restricted regions. It does not.
• Departure booked on the final day with no margin. One weather closure and the trip becomes a problem.
• Relying on a list from last year. The eligible nationalities, the ports and the stay areas have all changed more than once.

What we do for you

• Check your nationality against the current list before you buy anything.
• Confirm that your entry port, exit port and stay area all line up.
• Issue a confirmed itinerary letter for the airline and for immigration.
• Tell you plainly when a plan does not work — including when the honest answer is "get the visa instead".

Questions we get asked most

This policy changes often. Nationalities, ports, stay areas and the duration itself have all moved in the last two years, and they will move again. Before you commit money to flights, send us your passport country, your dates and your intended route — we will tell you whether transit works, or whether you should simply get the visa.