TL;DR: On 17 December 2024 China extended 72-hour and 144-hour visa-free transit to 240 hours (10 days). Confirm a third-country onward ticket with a date and seat before you fly, then stay inside the permitted areas listed by the National Immigration Administration.
Search results still say "72-hour" and "144-hour" because those were the official names for years. The current rule is 240 hours. You do not apply at a Chinese embassy in advance. You present your documents at a designated port, and the immigration inspection authority handles temporary entry.
What happened to the 72-hour and 144-hour visa-free transit?
On 17 December 2024 the National Immigration Administration (NIA) fully relaxed the visa-free transit policy. The stay duration for eligible foreign nationals moved from 72 hours and 144 hours to 240 hours, which is 10 days. The same notice added ports and expanded the allowed stay areas to 24 provincial-level regions. Read the English announcement here: China's Visa-Free Transit Policy Fully Relaxed and Optimized.
Two later updates matter if you are booking in 2026.
First, Indonesia joined the eligible-country list on 12 June 2025. That took the count from 54 to 55. The Chinese Consulate General in Chicago restated the NIA notice: Indonesian nationals may use 240-hour visa-free transit from that date.
Second, on 5 November 2025 the port list grew from 60 to 65. The five added ports are Guangzhou Pazhou Passenger Port, Hengqin, Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, Zhongshan Port, and West Kowloon Station of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link. The State Council English release published on 4 November 2025 confirmed the 65-port figure and the 5 November start date.
Third, NIA announcement No. 4 (20 August 2026) added Kyrgyzstan and Vietnam to 240-hour visa-free transit, bringing the country count from 55 to 57. Ports stay at 65 and stay areas stay at 24 (Xinhua / SCIO).
Current core numbers are 57 countries, 65 designated ports, 24 provincial-level regions, stay up to 10 days. See the Chinese policy interpretation and the English policy interpretation. The English NIA interpretation still shows 55; NIA announcement No. 4 (20 August 2026) is the current count.
If an airline desk or an old blog still talks about 72 hours or 144 hours, treat that as outdated language for the same transit scheme. Some ports used to offer 72 hours and others 144 hours. Those two clocks were replaced, not run in parallel. The duration you should plan around is 240 hours.
There is no consulate application form for this policy. "Apply" in official wording means you apply to the immigration inspection authority at the port when you arrive. If you need a longer stay, a return to the same country, work, study, or news reporting, this is the wrong tool. Those cases need a visa.
For a fuller 10-day routing walkthrough, use the 240-hour visa-free China guide.
Who can use 240-hour transit, and what documents do you need?
You need three things at the same time: an eligible passport, a genuine transit route, and a confirmed onward ticket.
Eligible passports. NIA lists 57 countries. Kyrgyzstan and Vietnam are the newest additions (20 August 2026). The official English grouping is:
- Europe (40): Albania, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, the Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom
- North America (2): Canada, United States
- South America (4): Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico
- Oceania (2): Australia, New Zealand
- Asia (9): Brunei, Indonesia, Japan, Kyrgyzstan, Qatar, Singapore, South Korea, United Arab Emirates, Vietnam
If your passport is not on that list, 240-hour transit does not apply. Check the NIA list, not a screenshot from 2023. France and Germany sit on this transit list and also have a separate unilateral visa-free policy. Those two tools are not the same. Do not mix their country counts or stay lengths. See the last section.
Transit route. You must be going from one country or region, through China, to a third country or region. A round trip that starts and ends in the same country is not transit. The Chinese Embassy in the United States restated the third-country rule when the 240-hour policy took effect.
Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan count as third regions in standard NIA and embassy practice. A route such as Los Angeles to Shanghai to Hong Kong is a transit. A route such as Los Angeles to Shanghai to Los Angeles is not. The same logic applies to a London to Beijing to London ticket. You need a third place on the far side of China.
Onward ticket. The ticket must show a confirmed date and a confirmed seat. NIA wording is "onward tickets with confirmed seats and departure dates" or "interline tickets with specified date and arrangements." An open-date ticket or a reservation without a seat is a weak document at both check-in and the border. Flights, ships, and trains can all be onward transport if the booking is confirmed.
Allowed activities. Tourism, business, visits, and family visits are fine. Work, study, and news reporting still need prior approval and the correct visa. Do not treat 240-hour transit as a work permit or a student entry.
Print the onward ticket and keep an offline copy. LocalKey's ground team sees airline desks ask for the third-country ticket before they will issue a boarding pass. That check happens in your departure city, not only in China.
| Rule | 2026 fact | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Eligible countries | 57. Kyrgyzstan and Vietnam added 20 August 2026 (was 55). | NIA announcement No. 4, 20 August 2026, Xinhua / SCIO |
| Duration | 240 hours (10 days). Replaced 72-hour and 144-hour on 17 December 2024. | NIA English notice |
| Ports | 65 designated ports in 24 provincial-level regions. 60 to 65 on 5 November 2025. | english.www.gov.cn |
| Stay area | Permitted areas only. Cross-province travel inside those areas is allowed. | NIA Dec 2024 |
| Onward ticket | Confirmed date and seat to a third country or region. Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan count as third regions. | NIA policy page; US embassy notice |
| Activities | Tourism, business, visits, family. Not work, study, or news reporting. | NIA Chinese policy page |
Where can you stay, and which ports count in 2026?
You enter through one of the 65 designated ports. Official sources confirm the total of 65. They do not publish a breakdown that you should treat as a fixed airport-versus-seaport split. Use the 65-port figure.
The five ports added on 5 November 2025 are:
- Guangzhou Pazhou Passenger Port
- Hengqin
- Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge
- Zhongshan Port
- West Kowloon Station of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link
You do not get the whole of China. You stay in the permitted stay areas. NIA's December 2024 notice named 24 provincial-level regions:
Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Liaoning, Heilongjiang, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian, Shandong, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Chongqing, Sichuan, Yunnan, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hainan, and Guizhou.
Most of those regions are open as a whole province or municipality. A few are not. The details that trip people up are:
- Anhui, Hainan, and Guizhou: the whole province.
- Shanxi: Taiyuan and Datong only.
- Jiangxi: Nanchang and Jingdezhen only.
- Fujian, Hubei, and Shaanxi: expanded to the whole province in the December 2024 update.
- Guangxi: Nanning, Liuzhou, Guilin, Wuzhou, Beihai, Fangchenggang, Qinzhou, Guigang, Yulin, Hezhou, Hechi, and Laibin.
NIA states that travelers may make cross-province trips within those allowed areas. A Shanghai entry and a later train or flight to Guangzhou is inside the permitted list. So is a Beijing-to-Xi'an hop, because Shaanxi is now a whole-province stay area. So is Shanghai to Chengdu, because Sichuan is on the list. Do not treat the old port-cluster lock (the idea that a Shanghai entry traps you in the Yangtze Delta) as current NIA wording.
What is out: Tibet, Xinjiang, and any province or city that is not on the permitted list. If a city is not named for Shanxi, Jiangxi, or Guangxi, do not add it to the route. If a province is not in the 24, do not book a hotel there.
Practical route checks our clients run before they pay for trains:
- Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Nanjing: all sit in whole-province or municipality areas on the list.
- Guilin: named on the Guangxi list.
- Datong: named on the Shanxi list. Other Shanxi cities are not.
- Jingdezhen: named on the Jiangxi list. Other Jiangxi cities are not.
- Lhasa or Urumqi: outside the permitted list.
- A province that never appears in the 24: outside the permitted list.
Keep the itinerary boring on paper. Hotels, trains, and the onward ticket should all point at permitted places. That is the file you show at check-in and at the border.
For payment once you are through, set up Alipay before you fly.
What do you do at the airport, and how is the 10-day clock counted?
NIA says eligible travelers apply to the immigration inspection authority at the port. The authority handles temporary entry formalities. The stay period is calculated from 00:00 on the day after you enter.
If you land in Shanghai at 14:00 on 1 June, counting starts at 00:00 on 2 June. Plan the exit so you are through a port and on the way to the third country or region inside that 10-day window. Do not cut it to the last hour. A delay on the last day is a problem you cannot fix at the gate.
At the airport, use this order:
- At check-in in your departure city, show your eligible passport and the confirmed onward ticket to the third country or region. Airline staff can refuse boarding if the transit file looks incomplete.
- On arrival at a designated Chinese port, join the immigration inspection queue and say you are applying for 240-hour visa-free transit. Have the passport and the onward ticket with date and seat ready, plus a hotel name inside a permitted area.
- After the officer completes temporary entry formalities, keep the entry stamp or permit with the passport for the whole stay. Exit through a designated port before the 240-hour window ends, on the confirmed onward service.
Carry paper copies. Phone batteries and airport Wi-Fi fail at the wrong moment. Our clients who move fastest are the ones who can hand over the ticket and the first hotel without unlocking a screen.
If you only need to change planes and you will not leave the port zone, you may not need 240 hours at all. See the 24-hour rule below.
A longer pre-travel checklist lives in China 240-hour visa-free transit: what to know before you travel.
How is this different from 24-hour transit and unilateral visa-free?
Three China entry tools get mixed up in search results. Keep the numbers apart.
240-hour visa-free transit is the policy this page covers. 57 countries. 65 designated ports. Up to 10 days in the permitted stay areas. Confirmed third-country ticket required. This is the replacement for the old 72-hour and 144-hour schemes.
24-hour visa-free transit still exists. NIA applies it at all open exit-entry ports for nationals of other countries. You need valid travel documents and onward tickets with confirmed seats. You stay no more than 24 hours and you do not leave the restricted area of the port. If you need to leave that zone, you apply for a temporary entry permit at the port immigration inspection authority. This is a same-day connection that stays inside the port, not a 10-day trip.
Unilateral visa-free is a different policy. Some passports, including France and Germany among others, can enter China without a visa under a separate exemption. That scheme has its own country list, its own stay length, and it is not a transit rule. Do not add those country counts to the 57, and do not add those stay days to the 240 hours. If your passport has unilateral visa-free access, read that policy on its own terms. If it does not, 240-hour transit is the one that may still apply.
If the 10-day window is for a custom independent trip, LocalKey books the trains and hotels and keeps the route inside the permitted areas. The product is unbounded custom independent travel: a public-transport roadbook with WhatsApp and WeChat support, or a private car and guide. It is not a first-timer toolkit and not a traditional group tour.