China extends visa-free entry to more than 70 countries to draw tourists
[July 08, 2025] By
FU TING
WASHINGTON (AP) — Foreign tourists are trickling back to China after the
country loosened its visa policy to unprecedented levels. Citizens from
74 countries can now enter China for up to 30 days without a visa, a big
jump from previous regulations.
The government has been steadily expanding visa-free entry in a bid to
boost tourism, the economy and its soft power. More than 20 million
foreign visitors entered without a visa in 2024 — almost one-third of
the total and more than double from the previous year, according to the
National Immigration Administration.
“This really helps people to travel because it is such a hassle to apply
for a visa and go through the process,” Georgi Shavadze, a Georgian
living in Austria, said on a recent visit to the Temple of Heaven in
Beijing.
While most tourist sites are still packed with far more domestic
tourists than foreigners, travel companies and tour guides are now
bracing for a bigger influx in anticipation of summer holiday goers
coming to China.
“I’m practically overwhelmed with tours and struggling to keep up” says
Gao Jun, a veteran English-speaking tour guide with over 20 years of
experience. To meet growing demand, he launched a new business to train
anyone interested in becoming an English-speaking tour guide. “I just
can’t handle them all on my own” he said.
After lifting tough COVID-19 restrictions, China reopened its borders to
tourists in early 2023, but only 13.8 million people visited in that
year, less than half the 31.9 million in 2019, the last year before the
pandemic.
30 days for many in Europe, Asia, Latin America and the Mideast
In December 2023, China announced visa-free entry for citizens of
France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Malaysia. Almost all
of Europe has been added since then. Travelers from five Latin American
countries and Uzbekistan became eligible last month, followed by four in
the Middle East. The total will grow to 75 on July 16 with the addition
of Azerbaijan.
About two-thirds of the countries have been granted visa-free entry on a
one-year trial basis.
For Norwegian traveler Øystein Sporsheim, this means his family would no
longer need to make two round-trip visits to the Chinese embassy in Oslo
to apply for a tourist visa, a time-consuming and costly process with
two children in tow. “They don’t very often open, so it was much harder”
he said.
“The new visa policies are 100% beneficial to us,” said Jenny Zhao, a
managing director of WildChina, which specializes in boutique and luxury
routes for international travelers. She said business is up 50% compared
with before the pandemic.
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A tour guide chats with a tourist as they tour the Temple of Heaven,
in Beijing on June 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)
 While the U.S. remains their largest
source market, accounting for around 30% of their current business,
European travelers now make up 15–20% of their clients, a sharp
increase from less than 5% before 2019, according to Zhao. “We’re
quite optimistic” Zhao said, “we hope these benefits will continue.”
Trip.com Group, a Shanghai-based online travel agency, said the
visa-free policy has significantly boosted tourism. Air, hotel and
other bookings on their website for travel to China doubled in the
first three months of this year compared with the same period last
year, with 75% of the visitors from visa-free regions.
No major African country is eligible for visa-free entry, despite
the continent’s relatively close ties with China.
North Americans and some others in transit can enter for 10 days
Those from 10 countries not in the visa-free scheme have another
option: entering China for up to 10 days if they depart for a
different country than the one they came from. The policy is limited
to 60 ports of entry, according to the country's National
Immigration Administration.
The transit policy applies to 55 countries, but most are also on the
30-day visa-free entry list. It does offer a more restrictive option
for citizens of the 10 countries that aren't: the Czech Republic,
Lithuania, Sweden, Russia, the United Kingdom, Ukraine, Indonesia,
Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.
Aside from the U.K., Sweden is the only other high-income European
country that didn’t make the 30-day list. Ties with China have
frayed since the ruling Chinese Communist Party sentenced a Swedish
book seller, Gui Minhai, to prison for 10 years in 2020. Gui
disappeared in 2015 from his seaside home in Thailand but turned up
months later in police custody in mainland China.
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Associated Press writer Ken Moritsugu and video producer Liu Zheng
in Beijing contributed to this report.
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