Do I need a visa to visit China?
It depends entirely on your nationality. Around fifty countries currently have 30-day visa-free entry, a separate and larger list can use 240-hour visa-free transit if they are travelling on to a third country, and everyone else needs a tourist (L) visa. Most of the visa-free schemes expire on 31 December 2026, so check your own case against an official source.
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The single most useful thing to know is that the answer changed repeatedly in the last two years, and that most of the visa-free arrangements currently in force carry an explicit expiry date.
Work through it in this order: are you from a country on the unilateral visa-free list; if not, are you genuinely transiting to a third country; if not, does Hainan or a cruise scheme apply; if none of those, you need an L visa.
Our full entry guide covers each route, the documents involved and the current fees.