Visa-free entry to China, explained

The 30-day scheme is written into law only to 31 December 2026.

Two separate schemes now let people into mainland China without a visa. They cover different passports and run for different lengths, and one of them carries a condition the other does not. Both get called visa-free in English, and that alone accounts for most of the confusion. Mixing them up is the most common planning error we see.

The destination this site covers is Moganshan: a mountain in Deqing County, part of Huzhou prefecture, Zhejiang Province, about 60 km north of Hangzhou and 200 to 240 km from Shanghai. You cannot reach it without getting into China first, so we track the entry rules closely.

This page separates the two schemes and carries the full country list, dated tranche by tranche. Only one section below is about the mountain. (One warning on the name. Moganshan Road is an art district in Shanghai’s Putuo District, about 200 km from the mountain, and it dominates the search results.)

One line before the detail. This is general information, not immigration advice. Rules change without notice. Only a Chinese embassy or consulate, or the National Immigration Administration, can tell you what applies to your passport on the day you travel.

The two schemes, side by side

Which scheme applies to you

Work through it in this order and stop at the first yes.

If you qualify under both, use the unilateral scheme. It gives you three times the stay, and it puts no condition on your ticket or on where you go.

Scheme one: 30 days, no visa, 50 countries

China began a trial in late 2023. Six European and Asian countries were let in visa-free on 1 December 2023. Before that, only Singapore and Brunei held this kind of one-way exemption. One-way means China waives the visa without asking for the same in return.

The list grew from there in ten further rounds, the last on 17 February 2026. In November 2024 the permitted stay was doubled, from 15 days to 30. That doubling turned the scheme from a long weekend into a real trip, and the 30 days apply to every country in the table below.

You arrive with a passport and you are admitted.

Stay length and the pre-2023 baseline, BeyondBorder Group Ltd primary research, 1 to 5 August 2026.

The full list of China’s visa-free countries, with dates

Everything above turns on whether your country appears in this table. It was accurate on 5 August 2026.

We publish the dates rather than a bare alphabetical list because the dates are what let you check us. A country list with no dates cannot be audited, and this one carries eleven separate start dates.

That table adds up to 50, and that is where the headline figure comes from. Other sites publish 52, and both counts are defensible.

Either way the practical answer is the same. Find your country in the table, or you are on the other route.

A table on a travel site is not an immigration ruling. Put your own passport to a Chinese embassy or consulate before you book.

Two names are worth a second look. Canada and the United Kingdom were added on 17 February 2026. Plenty of published advice has not caught up, and still tells Britons and Canadians to apply for a visa. And the United States is not on the list at any date. Americans read “China is visa-free now” and assume it includes them. It does not.

Country list and dates of addition, BeyondBorder Group Ltd primary research, 1 to 5 August 2026.

Scheme two: the 240-hour transit rule

If your country was not in that table, this is your route. On 17 December 2024 China replaced its old 72-hour and 144-hour transit rules with a single 240-hour scheme. Ten days, counted in hours, for 55 nationalities.

The United States is among the 55, which is the nationality everyone asks about. We do not hold the other 54 names, and guessing at them would be worse than leaving the gap open. Check the complete list with the National Immigration Administration before you rely on it.

The onward-ticket condition

You must hold a confirmed ticket onward to a third country. Check this one first. A return flight home is the normal way to book a trip, and it does not work here.

The allowance is also written in hours, not in calendar days. Ten days sounds like ten dates on a calendar, and 240 hours is a clock that starts when you are admitted. The exact moment the count starts is not something this page can pin down, so plan against the shorter reading and leave a margin at the end.

Where the 240 hours let you go

The area rule is what saves the scheme from being a long airport layover. You land at one of the 65 ports. From there you can move across all 24 covered provinces and municipalities, instead of being stuck in the city you flew into.

You are also not free to go everywhere. Twenty-four provinces leaves plenty of China outside the scheme, and a route that leaves the covered area needs a visa. Match your intended stops against the covered list first, then buy the internal transport.

Transit scheme conditions and coverage, BeyondBorder Group Ltd primary research, 1 to 5 August 2026.

What the transit rule allows on a Shanghai trip

All of the above is abstract until you put it on a map. Shanghai is a municipality. Zhejiang is a province. Both are inside the 240-hour area, and Moganshan sits in Zhejiang.

Run a China visa free itinerary from Shanghai to Hangzhou to Moganshan and you cross exactly one provincial line. The scheme lets you cross it. It is the reason the mountain works on a transit stop at all.

The rail legs are short, and neither leaves the covered area.

Getting here has the full timings, and our five-day Shanghai, Hangzhou and Moganshan route puts them in order.

The arithmetic, if you are on the 240-hour clock, runs like this. Door to door from Shanghai Hongqiao to the mountain takes about 2 hours 45 to 3 hours 30 by rail, and the same again coming back. Two nights on the mountain is the sensible minimum, so budget three days of your ten for the Moganshan leg. That still leaves a week for the two cities. If you want the trip built around the transit rule specifically, the visa-free China itinerary page does that.

The end date nobody has moved yet

The unilateral visa-free regime is currently legislated only to 31 December 2026. As of August 2026, no extension had been announced.

Our own read is that a lapse looks unlikely. The list has only ever grown, never shrunk, and the traffic backs it.

Unlikely is not a booking policy, though. Nothing has been legislated past 2026, so plan against the date that exists.

Scheme end date and 2025 inbound figures, BeyondBorder Group Ltd primary research, 1 to 5 August 2026.

What visa-free entry does not solve

Getting in is the easy part now. Three things still catch visitors, and none of them depend on which scheme you used.

That directive came jointly from the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Commerce and the National Immigration Administration. It is two years old. Refusals have not stopped. Moganshan runs on minsu (民宿), small owner-run guesthouses rather than hotel chains, so ask rather than assume the rule settles it. Money and payments covers the card setup.

Once the entry question is settled, plan your trip takes over, from picking dates to what the week costs.

Payment and accommodation rules for foreign visitors, BeyondBorder Group Ltd primary research, 1 to 5 August 2026.

Both entry schemes were verified on 5 August 2026. They can change without notice, and the 30-day scheme has no legal life past 31 December 2026 as things stand.

Last checked 9 August 2026 by Cyril Drouin. Prices, timetables and entry rules on this mountain move without notice, so confirm anything you are booking around.

Photographs on this site are representative illustrations, not documentary images of the specific building, property or service described.