Before you fly: the arrival card
Since 20 November 2025 you can file your arrival card online instead of filling in a paper slip on the plane. It is at s.nia.gov.cn, run by the National Immigration Administration, and it takes a few minutes.
It is free. The NIA has issued a public warning about lookalike sites charging foreigners for this. If a site wants money for an arrival card, it is not the real one. Use the NIA site, the NIA 12367 app, or the official WeChat/Alipay mini-programs — nothing with a .com address selling you a "China arrival permit".
File it within 72 hours before you arrive. If you don't, paper cards and self-service kiosks are still available in the arrivals hall; the online route just saves you queuing.
Exempt: holders of the Foreign Permanent Resident ID, group-visa and visa-free-group travellers, 24-hour direct transit passengers who stay airside, and cruise passengers entering and leaving on the same ship.
At the border
- Health/quarantine, usually a walk-through.
- Immigration. Ten fingerprints and a facial image at the booth if you are aged 14 to 70. Under 14 and over 70 are exempt, as are diplomatic passport holders. It takes under a minute, and on later visits they usually re-check only a finger or two.
- Questions, if any, are brief: where are you staying, how long, why. Have your hotel address ready — the one you put on the arrival card.
- Baggage, then customs.
Realistically, allow 45–90 minutes from plane door to kerb at Beijing or Shanghai, longer if several wide-bodies land together.
Customs: what you can bring
Duty-free: personal articles up to ¥2,000 in value for non-residents. Twenty categories of goods — cars, cameras, computers and similar — are dutiable regardless of value and must be declared.
Cash is a hard limit, not just a declaration: no more than ¥20,000 in renminbi per person per crossing. Foreign currency has no cap, but anything over US$5,000 equivalent in banknotes must be declared in writing. If you plan to take it out again, fill in two forms and keep the endorsed copy.
Tobacco and alcohol allowances are reported inconsistently across sources — check customs.gov.cn before relying on a specific figure.
The things that genuinely catch Westerners out
These are the ones worth reading twice.
- CBD, in any form — oil, gummies, hemp cosmetics, vape liquid. Prohibited, no exceptions, regardless of legality at home or a prescription. China treats cannabis as a narcotic. This is the single highest-risk item for visitors from Canada, Thailand, Germany and much of the US.
- Stimulant ADHD medication — Adderall, Vyvanse, Ritalin, Concerta. Controlled psychotropics, heavily restricted and frequently refused. A foreign prescription is not a guarantee. If you depend on these, get written guidance from a Chinese embassy well before you travel, because many travellers simply cannot bring them.
- Strong opioids — oxycodone, hydrocodone, codeine syrups, tramadol. Restricted; declare them, bring original packaging, a doctor's letter, and a quantity that obviously matches your trip length.
- Benzodiazepines and sleeping pills — Xanax, Valium, Ambien. Usually fine in modest personal quantities with original packaging and a prescription, but legally restricted rather than free.
- Satellite phones and satellite messengers (inReach and similar) — banned without a licence.
- Drones — restricted rather than banned, but anything over 250g must be registered with the CAAC in the operator's real name, and most of Beijing, central Shanghai, and every airport and government area is a permanent no-fly zone. Drones are regularly held at customs.
Police also conduct drug testing on entry and in bar raids, and a positive test for something you consumed legally abroad is still a problem. Our safety guide covers the wider legal picture.
Ordinary over-the-counter medicine is fine in personal quantities. Keep everything in its original labelled packaging and carry a doctor's letter listing generic drug names.
If anything you carry is declarable, use the red channel. Walking the green one with undeclared excess cash is how people end up in a long afternoon.
Getting out of the airport
Beijing has two airports 70 km and about two hours apart. Check which one you are flying into — PEK (Capital) or PKX (Daxing) — and do not assume a connection between them is feasible.
Ignore anyone in the arrivals hall offering you a taxi. That offer runs two to three times the meter. Use the official taxi rank or a DiDi — and note that DiDi pickup is usually on a parking level, not the kerb, which confuses first-timers.
Airport rail is generally the fastest option into the centre: the Capital Airport Express is ¥25, Daxing's is ¥35, and Shanghai's Pudong maglev takes 8 minutes to Longyang Road before you change to the metro.