First, let’s talk about foreigners. There are four types of visas for ordinary passport holders entering China:

① Apply for a paper visa, ② 240-hour visa-free transit, ③ unilateral 30-day visa exemption, ④ mutual visa exemption

The most common and widely used method now is the 240-hour visa-free transit for 55 countries.

It has evolved from the original 72-hour and 144-hour transit, currently allowing foreigners to stay for 240 hours during transit, which is a full 10 days.

The following is the list of countries eligible for the 240-hour visa-free transit, including the limited stay cities and entry/exit ports (based on my observations over the past few months, it seems that foreigners are not strictly restricted to the designated activity areas in China; for example, when I returned to my hometown, there were foreigners on the high-speed train and planes, and Jilin Province is not on the list of areas where foreigners are allowed to operate).

Europe (40 countries)

Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Monaco, Russia, United Kingdom, Ireland, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Albania, Belarus, Norway

 

Americas (6 countries)

United States, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile

 

Oceania (2 countries)

Australia, New Zealand

 

Asia (7 countries)

South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Brunei, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Indonesia

 

Then there is the second type, which allows visa-free entry for 30 days.

Before September 15, there were 47 countries, but the new announcement released yesterday states that from September 15, Russia will be granted unilateral visa-free entry, so it should now be 48 countries.

This is 6 countries less than the 54 countries with transit visa exemptions mentioned above, but these 6 countries are not simply a matter of addition and subtraction; the two lists do not have a simple inclusion relationship.

 

There are 34 countries that are eligible for both types, 15 countries that can stay for 30 days without a visa but cannot transit visa-free, and 21 countries that can only have a 240-hour transit visa.

The third type is the countries that have mutual visa exemptions.

As for the list of countries with mutual visa exemptions for ordinary passports, there are currently a total of 28 countries (which is 12 more than the previously released incorrect version), granting 30 days of treatment for the corresponding countries to enter China.

Albania, United Arab Emirates, Azerbaijan, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Bahamas, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dominica, Fiji, Grenada, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Qatar, Maldives, Malaysia, Mauritius, Samoa, Serbia, Seychelles, San Marino, Suriname, Solomon Islands, Thailand, Tonga, Uzbekistan, Singapore, Armenia

The last type requires a Chinese paper visa (the visa from our country looks like this).

 

Excluding the aforementioned unilateral visa exemptions, mutual exemptions, and transit exemptions, there are still 80 countries worldwide that require a paper visa to enter China. Currently, only Europe is completely exempt, while the other four continents consist mostly of poor countries based on their names.

Africa (54 countries)

Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo (Brazzaville), Congo (Kinshasa), Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Africa, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Asia (24 countries)

Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, East Timor, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Laos, Lebanon, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Palestine, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Vietnam, Yemen

America (20 countries)

Belize, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela

 

Oceania (7 countries)

Kiribati, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu, Vanuatu