China’s visa-free boom picks up steam as entries soar in 2025

China’s expanded efforts to encourage visitors continued to pay off in the first half of 2025, with the number of visa-free foreign entries rising by more than half compared to the same period a year earlier.

Foreign nationals made 38 million trips in and out of the country, a 30 per cent increase year on year, according to the administration.

“Visa facilitation measures have effectively attracted large numbers of foreign visitors for tourism and business, driving sustained growth in inbound consumption,” administration spokeswoman Lu Ning said.

A previous long-standing policy allowed travellers without a Chinese visa to transit through the country visa-free for up to 24 hours if they held valid travel documents with onwards confirmation to a third country, consistent with international practice.

In the 2010s, Chinese cities such as Xiamen and Kunming introduced 72-hour or 144-hour visa-free transit to attract foreign visitors, though travel was restricted within those individual cities.

In late 2023, after three years of tough pandemic restrictions under the zero-Covid policy, China began expanding its visa-free entry policy to lure foreigners in a bid to boost tourism, stimulate a sluggish domestic economy and encourage people-to-people exchanges.

  

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