Updated 2026-07-31
The 240-hour transit exemption only works if you both enter and exit through a designated port. There are now more than sixty of them across 24 provinces, which gives you enormous routing flexibility โ but a single wrong airport can invalidate the whole plan. Here is where you can and cannot use it.
If you are flying in on a long-haul route, you will almost certainly arrive at one of these, all of which are covered by the policy.
Several land and sea ports are included, which matters if you are combining mainland China with Hong Kong, China or Macao, China, or arriving by ferry from Japan or South Korea.
Covered crossings include the Shenzhen ports connecting to Hong Kong, China (Luohu, Futian, Huanggang and Shenzhen Bay), the Zhuhai Gongbei and Hengqin crossings to Macao, China, plus a number of seaports in Shanghai, Tianjin, Dalian, Qingdao, Xiamen and Haikou.
One important nuance: rules for land and sea crossings are not identical to those for airports, and some ports allow entry but not exit under the scheme, or vice versa. If your plan involves a land border, verify both legs specifically rather than assuming symmetry.
The real value of the 240-hour policy is that it lets you fly a straight line through China instead of doubling back. A classic ten-day routing: land in Beijing, three days for the Great Wall and the Forbidden City, high-speed train to Xi'an for the Terracotta Army, fly to Chengdu for pandas and hotpot, then depart from Chengdu to Bangkok or Seoul. Four cities, no backtracking, one exemption.
Another strong option for a first trip: Shanghai in, two days in the city, train to Hangzhou and Suzhou, then fly out of Shanghai or Nanjing. Distances are short, the high-speed rail is excellent, and everything is within the covered provinces.
When booking, check three things in order: is my arrival airport on the list, is my departure airport on the list, and is my final destination a genuinely different third country from where I started. All three must hold.
Tibet and Xinjiang are outside the scheme entirely, regardless of which port you entered through. Smaller regional airports that only handle domestic flights are also not designated ports โ you cannot exit the country from them at all.
The port list is revised periodically as new airports open international routes. Because an incorrect assumption here invalidates your entire entry, confirm the current list on the National Immigration Administration site close to your travel date.
Yes. Both are designated ports and both sit within the 24 covered provinces, so an open-jaw itinerary between them is entirely within the rules. This kind of routing is the main reason the policy was expanded โ travelling in one direction through the country rather than returning to your arrival city.
No. Tibet and Xinjiang are excluded from the transit exemption, so neither Lhasa nor Urumqi can be used to enter or exit under the scheme, and you cannot travel to those regions during a visa-free transit stay even if you entered elsewhere. Visiting either requires a regular Chinese visa, and Tibet additionally requires a permit obtained through a licensed travel agency.
Several Shenzhen crossings are designated ports, so entering mainland China from Hong Kong, China by land can work under the transit scheme. But land-border rules differ in detail from airport rules, and your onward journey must still be to a genuinely different third country or region. Confirm your specific crossing and routing with the immigration authority before you commit to the plan.
City guides where everything above applies on the ground.
Once the visa is sorted, browse the city guides and the on-the-ground toolkit.
This page is for general guidance only. Policies change periodically โ always confirm with the National Immigration Administration or your nearest Chinese embassy before booking.
Our team of China travel researchers combines on-the-ground contributor insights, official government sources, and traveler community feedback to create the most detailed English-language China guides available. Every guide is fact-checked against primary sources (NIA, 12367, official attraction websites, Railway 12306) before publication.