What it is
If you are travelling from country A to country C and passing through China, you can stop in China for up to 240 hours — 10 days — with no visa. It is open to 57 nationalities at 65 ports of entry, covering 24 regions.
This is the single most underused travel policy in Asia. It is also the most misunderstood.
The three rules that disqualify people
- You must be going to a genuine third country or region. A→China→A does not count. Your onward flight has to be somewhere other than where you came from. Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan count as separate regions for this purpose, which is what makes the trick so usable.
- You must enter and leave through eligible ports. Not every airport qualifies. Check yours specifically.
- You must have the onward ticket already booked, dated within the 240 hours, and show it on arrival.
The clock
The 240 hours start at 00:00 on the day after you arrive. So landing on a Monday evening gives you Monday night plus ten full days. That is more generous than people expect.
Where you can go
The scheme covers 24 regions: 18 whole provinces or municipalities, and 6 where only certain cities count. You must stay inside them. In practice this covers almost everywhere a first-time visitor wants to go — Beijing, Shanghai, Xi'an, Chengdu, Guangdong, the whole eastern seaboard.
Leaving the permitted area breaks the terms of your entry.
Who gets transit but not the 30-day entry
Some nationalities are eligible for 240-hour transit but not for 30-day visa-free entry — the United States, Mexico, Ukraine, the Czech Republic and Lithuania among them. For an American, the transit scheme is currently the only way into China without a visa, which makes it worth structuring a trip around.
How to use it deliberately
Book a trip that ends somewhere else. London → Beijing → Tokyo is a transit. London → Beijing → London is not. The onward leg can be cheap; what it buys you is ten visa-free days.