How to Pay in China as a Foreigner: Alipay, WeChat Pay and Cash

Set up Alipay first. For a foreign visitor it is clearly the better option: the English interface is far more complete, the card-binding flow is designed with tourists in mind, and it includes built-in translation, transport QR codes and a Didi mini-app so you can hail taxis without a separate account.

WeChat Pay is worth adding as a backup, mainly because WeChat is how you will communicate with hotels, guides and new acquaintances anyway. Its payment side is less foreigner-friendly — the interface has more untranslated Chinese, and card binding occasionally fails on cards that work fine in Alipay.

Do not rely on either exclusively. Payment failures happen — a bank flags the transaction as suspicious, an app pushes an update mid-trip, a merchant's scanner only reads one platform. Having both plus some cash means a failed payment is an inconvenience rather than a problem.

Do this at home before you fly, on your home wifi and with your usual phone number reachable for SMS codes. Trying to register on arrival while jetlagged and without a working data connection is how people end up stuck at the airport.

When you pay with a foreign card through Alipay or WeChat Pay, transactions above 200 yuan carry a 3 percent service fee. Transactions of 200 yuan or below are free. This is the single most useful thing to know about paying in China, because it changes how you should structure spending.

In practice: pay small daily amounts — meals, metro, coffee, street food — with the card-linked wallet and you will pay nothing extra, because almost everything is under 200 yuan. For large single payments such as hotel bills, high-speed rail tickets or a full-day tour, pay by card directly at the counter if the merchant accepts it, or accept the 3 percent as the cost of convenience.

One more thing worth knowing: the threshold applies per transaction, not per day. If you are paying a 380-yuan dinner bill for a group, splitting it into two 190-yuan payments avoids the fee entirely. Merchants are used to split payments and will not find the request strange.

Legally, yes — refusing cash is against Chinese regulations, and the central bank has run campaigns reminding merchants of this. Practically, it is awkward. Many small shops genuinely do not hold change, taxi drivers may not have small notes, and self-service machines at metro stations increasingly accept only QR codes.

Carry 300 to 500 yuan in a mix of 20s and 50s as a genuine emergency reserve. Avoid 100-yuan notes for small purchases — you will get refusals not out of unwillingness but because the vendor cannot break it. Keep the cash separate from your phone so a lost phone does not leave you with nothing.

ATMs work with foreign cards at major banks — Bank of China, ICBC and China Construction Bank all reliably accept Visa and Mastercard. Expect a fee of 15 to 30 yuan per withdrawal from the Chinese bank, plus whatever your home bank charges. Withdraw a larger amount once rather than small amounts repeatedly.

Declines are common on the first day and almost always have a mundane cause. Work through them in this order rather than assuming the app is broken.

Tipping is not part of Chinese culture and is not expected in restaurants, taxis, cafés or bars. Bills do not include a tip line, service staff are not paid on a tipped model, and leaving money on the table may cause genuine confusion or a waiter chasing you down the street to return it.

The exceptions are narrow: high-end international hotels where porters and housekeeping accept 10 to 20 yuan, private tour guides and drivers hired for a full day where 50 to 100 yuan per day is a reasonable thank-you, and spa or massage services where staff sometimes expect a small amount. Outside these, do not tip.

One related habit worth adopting: expect the merchant to scan your code in small shops rather than the other way round. Both directions exist and either is normal — follow the merchant's lead rather than insisting on scanning their sign.