Planning a trip to China? Visa-free entry is now available for 74 nationalities
By Fu Ting with AP
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Travellers from dozens of nations – together with a lot of Europe – can now enter China with no visa, because the nation opens up in a bid to revive tourism.
Residents from 74 international locations can now enter China for as much as 30 days with no visa, a giant soar from earlier rules.
The federal government has been steadily increasing visa-free entry in a bid to spice up tourism, the financial system and its mushy energy. Greater than 20 million international guests entered with no visa in 2024 – greater than double from the earlier yr, in response to the Nationwide Immigration Administration.
“This actually helps individuals to journey as a result of it’s such a problem to use for a visa and undergo the method,” Giorgi Shavadze, a Georgian dwelling in Austria, stated on a current go to to the Temple of Heaven in Beijing.
China’s tourism trade gears up after years of gradual restoration
Whereas most vacationer websites are nonetheless filled with much more home vacationers than foreigners, journey firms and tour guides are actually bracing for a much bigger inflow in anticipation of summer season holidaymakers coming to China.
“I’m virtually overwhelmed with excursions and struggling to maintain up,” says Gao Jun, a veteran English-speaking tour information with over 20 years of expertise. To satisfy rising demand, he launched a brand new enterprise to coach anybody concerned with turning into an English-speaking tour information. “I simply can’t deal with all of them by myself,” he stated.
After lifting robust COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, China reopened its borders to vacationers in early 2023, however solely 13.8 million individuals visited in that yr – lower than half the 31.9 million in 2019, the final yr earlier than the pandemic.
30-day entry for a lot of in Europe
In December 2023, China introduced visa-free entry for residents of France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Malaysia. Nearly all of Europe has been added since then.
Travellers from 5 Latin American international locations and Uzbekistan grew to become eligible final month, adopted by 4 within the Center East. The entire will develop to 75 on 16 July with the addition of Azerbaijan.
About two-thirds of the international locations have been granted visa-free entry on a one-year trial foundation.
For Norwegian traveller Øystein Sporsheim, this implies his household would not must make two round-trip visits to the Chinese language embassy in Oslo to use for a vacationer visa – a time-consuming and expensive course of with two youngsters in tow. “They don’t fairly often open, so it was a lot tougher,” he stated.
Europeans driving a tourism rebound
“The brand new visa insurance policies are 100 per cent helpful to us,” stated Jenny Zhao, a managing director of WildChina, which specialises in boutique and luxurious routes for worldwide travellers. She stated enterprise is up 50 per cent in contrast with earlier than the pandemic.
Whereas the US stays their largest supply market, accounting for round 30 per cent of their present enterprise, European travellers now make up 15–20 per cent of their shoppers – a pointy enhance from lower than 5 per cent earlier than 2019, in response to Zhao.
“We’re fairly optimistic,” Zhao stated. “We hope these advantages will proceed.”
Journey.com Group, a Shanghai-based on-line journey company, stated the visa-free coverage has considerably boosted tourism. Air, lodge and different bookings on their web site for journey to China doubled within the first three months of this yr in contrast with the identical interval final yr, with 75 per cent of the guests from visa-free areas.
No main African nation is eligible for visa-free entry, regardless of the continent’s comparatively shut ties with China.
Transit stays supply another choice for non-eligible international locations
These from 10 international locations not within the visa-free scheme have another choice: coming into China for as much as 10 days in the event that they depart for a distinct nation than the one they got here from. The coverage is proscribed to 60 ports of entry, in response to the nation’s Nationwide Immigration Administration.
The transit coverage applies to 55 international locations, however most are additionally on the 30-day visa-free entry checklist.
It does supply a extra restrictive possibility for residents of the ten international locations that aren’t: the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Sweden, Russia, the UK, Ukraine, Indonesia, Canada, the US and Mexico.
Except for the UK, Sweden is the one different high-income European nation that didn’t make the 30-day checklist.
Ties with China have frayed for the reason that ruling Chinese language Communist Occasion sentenced a Swedish bookseller, Gui Minhai, to jail for 10 years in 2020. Gui disappeared in 2015 from his seaside residence in Thailand however turned up months later in police custody in mainland China.
