so apparently you can get into most of the main chinese citys visa free for 72 hours as long as you are on a transit stay. meaning you need to have an onward ticket to a third country. has anyone done this? how easy was it? what are the cheapest and best ways to go about it?
i went to china earlier in the year and it was too much hassle for what it was worth. i got the visa from my home country, had to pay out the ass to travel to london and had to buy the plane and hotel ticket before hand. the visa isn’t cheap either. i know i could get a visa from hong kong but that still requires going to hong kong for a few days, will still cost a decent amount.
so this 72 transit thing seems like it could be a good alternative, but it seems hard to find a good way to do it. even by travelling to xiamen which is right next to taiwan i can’t find a direct flight. there is still a stop over in hong kong. is this any easier than just getting a visa or is it an equal amount of hassle?
Most of them are 72 hours starting at midnight (so not exactly 72 hours), but Guangzhou is 7 days iirc. The details can be found on a Chinese government website somewhere.
I did this a few weeks ago on my way to Italy, via Shanghai. Only stayed for one night, but better than being stuck in the airport.
Dead easy, there was one guy staffing the transit visa bit at immigration, and I was the only person to go through that way. Just showed a printout of my itinerary, stamp, in you go.
I think you’re restricted to the city/area around the airport you land in, but I never ventured away from my hotel, so didn’t test that. Certainly a lot less hassle than a tourist visa though, if you’re just after a quick look around a city.
Its easy to do. I did it for business when I didnt have time to wheat get a visa. Fly Cathay into Shanghai, changing planes in HK and then a single ticket from SH to Taipei. Works fine, apart from staff at Taipei and Hk airport both freaking out and having to make phone calls, before being assured was fine. You can stay for a week in the Shanghai area(including Suzhou and Hangzhou ) and it doesnt matter airport you fly in or out from.
The price of two single tickets, is probably cheaper than getting a visa anyway.
I have done this and 1 time caught out 1 time worked successfully. ***amended please see below but your further and original destination must not be the same. i.e. you fly from taipei you cannot fly back to taipei, must be a different country. Your flights must be direct you cannot fly from e.g. shanghai to ximen then to HK must leave the country directly.
Upon entry in shanghai e.g. there is s special counter for 72 hour visa you must produce all docs confirming you are leaving where you are staying etc and i had to have a 5 min conversation with the Supervisor not sure why.
But also like they say if you enter at 9pm day 1 that is classed as your first 24 hours once it reaches 12am so get a early flight and use it wisely.
When you check in first time they will also question and make a few phone calls but as long as you have followed the procedure this should be fine. Also make sure one of the destinations are the 72hour approved ports.
You can fly in and out of different airports in the Shanghai/Jiangsu/Zhejiang region, but nowhere else. For example you can fly into Shanghai and out of Hangzhou. A mentioned earlier,you can stay for 144 hours in this region.
but also bear in mind you have to be from a country that qualifies.
Areas Allowed to Stay
Passengers transiting in Guangzhou, Chengdu, Qingdao, or Changsha are allowed to travel in the whole province.
Passengers transiting in Beijing, Chongqing, Harbin, Guilin, Kunming, Wuhan, Xiamen, or Tianjin cannot leave the administrative area of the transit city.
Passengers transiting in Shanghai, Zhejiang, or Jiangsu can move around the three places.
Passengers stopping over in Dalian or Shenyang can travel in these two cities.
Passengers transiting in Xian Xianyang Airport are permitted to travel in the administrative areas of Xian and Xianyang.
I did the same route and got hauled over for about half an hour wait. Grilling lots of phone calls then told on your way. They get especially confused about going to HK as exit point because they like to consider it as part of China.
But it’s perfectly legal according to their regulations as it is a separate administrative area.
Next time as work pays I’ll just process the visa in time but for quick visits as long as you are flying on to 3rd destination it’s pretty cool to go visa free!
I did a transit stopover visa free 72 hour in guilin guanxi. Went OK, although I had to explain to the border guards that the visa existed. They were nice about it, but they made me wait half an hour till they ckrsred the rest of the flight. Then they stamped me through
Also some of the people working in these airports are huge dicks, especially in Guangzhou, which also is a bit of an old and dirty airport in the first place. They don’t even know their own regulations. And love to go on a power trip. Not everyone though, seems like the younger generations are much better to deal with, but occasionally there is still one of those old bastards around. The management of the airport in Guangzhou is/was a big failure!