Travel to China Checklist: What to Pack and What to Clear

Most versions of the travel to China checklist are a list of socks. The things that actually derail a trip are upstream of the suitcase: an entry rule you got wrong, a cold medicine that is a controlled substance here, a power bank an airport will not let onto a domestic flight. Sort those first. The packing is the easy part, and half of it can be bought better and cheaper once you land.

Start with entry rules, not the suitcase

The old advice was blunt: everyone needs a visa or gets turned around. That has not been true since late 2023, and repeating it now sends people to a consulate they never needed to visit.

China runs a unilateral 30-day visa-free program covering 50 countries as of 17 February 2026, the date the United Kingdom and Canada were added. If you hold an ordinary passport from one of them you walk in with the passport and an onward ticket, for business, tourism, family visits, exchange visits or transit, and stay up to 30 days. Most of Europe qualifies, along with Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, the Gulf states, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru and Uruguay. The program is authorized through 31 December 2026 and will probably be renewed, but that is a policy decision rather than a promise.

The United States is not on that list. Neither is India, Vietnam, or most of Africa. Americans have two routes instead. The first is an ordinary visa, usually the L tourist visa or the M business visa. The second is the 240-hour visa-free transit, ten full days, open to 55 nationalities including the US, UK and Canada, at 65 ports across 24 provinces and regions. The condition is real and strictly enforced: you must be traveling on to a third country or region, not back where you came from, and you need the confirmed onward ticket to prove it. New York to Shanghai to Seoul qualifies. New York to Shanghai to New York does not, and trying it is treated as illegal entry.

One detail worth correcting, because a lot of older guides still get it wrong: under the 240-hour rule you can cross provincial boundaries inside the 24 eligible regions. The official visa service FAQ says so directly. Enter at Shanghai, take the train to Xi’an, fly to Chengdu, leave from Beijing, all inside one window. That was not possible under the old 144-hour scheme, and the restriction has stuck around in print long after it stopped being the rule. If your nationality or your itinerary puts you outside both schemes, our guide on whether you need a visa to go to China walks through the 12 visa categories.

The arrival card that replaced the paper form

Since 20 November 2025 the paper landing card has been replaced by an online arrival card. You file it at the National Immigration Administration site, the NIA 12367 app, or the WeChat and Alipay mini programs, in the days before you fly. Permanent residents, Hong Kong and Macao permit holders, group-visa holders, transit passengers and cruise passengers are exempt.

Paper is still accepted at the immigration hall if you have not filed, so this is a queue-saver rather than a hard blocker. The health declaration form and the negative test from the pandemic years are gone. Fingerprints and a facial scan at the e-gate are routine.

The travel to China checklist: documents, money, cards

The documents and money layer, which is the only part of the packing that cannot be replaced locally:

• Passport, valid at least six months, with the visa if you need one
• Photos or scans of your passport, visa and insurance, stored offline as well as in the cloud
• A second form of ID, a driver’s license is enough
• Two or three credit and debit cards from different networks, plus the bank told you are traveling
• Emergency cash, and some Chinese currency if you can get it before departure
• Travel and medical insurance, with the policy number written somewhere that is not your phone
• Your embassy’s address and phone number, written down
• A pen, for the customs form
• Luggage with locks, and a spare foldable bag for the things you will buy

Cards are the usual friction point. Foreign Visa and Mastercard work at international hotels and airports and are patchy everywhere else, which our page on what credit cards are accepted in China covers in detail. Tell your bank you are going before you leave, or the first ATM withdrawal will trip a fraud hold at the exact moment you have no other way to pay.

Medicine, and the pills that get people stopped

This is the section most packing lists skip, and it is the one with real consequences. China classifies several ordinary Western medications as controlled substances, and a prescription label from home is not a defense. Chinese customs applies Chinese law.

Leave these at home or expect them to be seized:

• Codeine, and anything containing it, which includes a lot of common cough and pain syrups
• Pseudoephedrine decongestants such as Sudafed, treated as a controlled precursor chemical because it can be processed into methamphetamine
• Opioids generally: oxycodone, hydrocodone, morphine, tramadol, fentanyl
• ADHD stimulants: Adderall, Ritalin, Vyvanse. Adderall is not legally prescribed to adults in China at all

The usual outcome is confiscation, a long conversation and a note on file, not a cell. Some travelers have had worse. It is not a risk worth taking for a cold remedy.

What you can bring is medication for personal use in a reasonable quantity, meaning roughly what your trip length justifies. Keep it in the original labeled packaging showing the drug name, dose and expiry, and carry the prescription or a signed doctor’s letter naming the generic drug and the condition. For controlled medication you can normally carry up to the maximum quantity on a single prescription with a diagnosis certificate from a medical institution.

The rest of the kit is the boring, useful part: loperamide for traveler’s diarrhea, oral rehydration salts, paracetamol or ibuprofen, antihistamines, motion sickness tablets, blister plasters, hand sanitizer and a small pack of tissues. Public restrooms frequently have neither soap nor paper, so the tissues are not optional. Stomach trouble is the single most common thing that ruins a week here, and how to avoid getting sick in China is worth ten minutes before you fly.

On vaccines, the CDC wants routine shots current and recommends hepatitis A and typhoid for most travelers, with hepatitis B considered for anyone not already immune. Typhoid matters more for rural travel than for Shanghai. Our vaccines for China page has the specifics, and a travel clinic wants six to eight weeks of notice.

Digital prep, which decides how your first day goes

Get this wrong and you land with a phone that cannot reach anything you use.

• An international travel eSIM, bought and installed before departure. Its data leaves the mainland through a gateway abroad, so Google, WhatsApp, Instagram and Gmail simply work with no VPN. Chinese carriers’ own eSIMs need a national ID and are not available to foreign passports.
• A VPN, installed and tested at home, if you plan to use a local SIM or hotel wifi. VPN vendor websites are themselves blocked inside China, so arriving and then downloading one does not work.
• WeChat and Alipay, set up before you go. Both now accept foreign Visa, Mastercard, JCB and Diners cards with a passport verification step. This is how China pays for everything, down to bottled water and the man selling roasted sweet potatoes.
• An offline map, because Google Maps does not work properly in China even over a foreign eSIM. Amap and Baidu Maps are what taxis actually use.
• A translation app with the offline Chinese pack downloaded, plus your hotel’s name and address in Chinese characters, screenshotted. A driver who cannot read your booking confirmation cannot take you there.
• Chargers, a power strip so one adapter serves the whole family, and the adapter you need for China.

Baggage allowances and the power bank rule

Domestic flights inside mainland China run on a weight system, not the piece system you may be used to. Economy is typically 20 kg checked and a single 5 kg carry-on at roughly 55 by 40 by 20 cm, which is far tighter than most travelers expect and is actually weighed. The same airlines switch to a piece system on international routes, usually two bags at 23 kg with 158 cm total dimensions. Check your own ticket, because a connection that looks like one journey can be governed by two different rules, and a bag that flew in fine gets weighed again on the internal leg.

Power banks deserve their own paragraph. Since 28 June 2025 the Civil Aviation Administration of China has banned power banks without a clear CCC mark, with unreadable marks, or from recalled batches, on domestic flights. CCC certification only became mandatory on power banks sold in China in August 2024, so almost nothing bought abroad carries the mark. If you have internal flights, either accept that yours may be confiscated at security or buy a CCC-marked one after you arrive. As everywhere, power banks travel in carry-on and never in checked luggage.

Clothing, by region rather than by season

China is not one climate, and the national averages other checklists quote are meaningless. Pack for the cities on your itinerary.

• Beijing and the north: January highs around 3 °C (37 °F) with nights near -8 °C (18 °F). July highs around 34 °C (93 °F). A real winter coat, or a genuinely light summer wardrobe, with nothing in between.
• Shanghai and the Yangtze: January around 5 °C (41 °F) but damp and largely unheated indoors, which feels far colder than the number. July and August average 29 °C (84 °F) and humid.
• Guangzhou, Shenzhen and the south: January around 14.5 °C (58 °F), a sweater at most. Summer is hot, wet and long, from May through September.

Whatever the season: comfortable broken-in walking shoes, because you will cover far more ground on foot than you expect, plus flip-flops for hotel showers, an umbrella that handles both sun and rain, and one layer more than the forecast suggests. Business travelers should note that factory floors and trade halls in Guangdong are hot even when the street is mild.

Personal care you should buy after you land

Toiletries are heavy, cheap in China, and available everywhere. Buy them there and save the luggage weight for things you cannot replace. Toothbrush, toothpaste, comb, shampoo, razors, towels: all trivially available at any supermarket or convenience store.

Two exceptions. Deodorant is sold, but mostly imported, mostly in big-city international supermarkets, and the selection is thin, so bring your own rather than hunt for it. And any specific brand you are loyal to, particularly contact lens solution, sunscreen above SPF 30, and skincare for sensitive skin, is worth packing, since local equivalents are formulated for a different market.

What not to bring through customs

The list is shorter than people fear but strictly enforced. Fresh fruit is prohibited. So are raw and cooked meat and meat products, aquatic animal products, milk and dairy of animal origin, eggs and egg products, animal fats, and seeds, seedlings or any plant reproductive material. The reasoning is disease control, and the enforcement does not care that it was a sandwich.

Cash has a threshold rather than a ban. Foreign currency worth US$5,000 or more, or 20,000 yuan or more, must be declared at the red channel. Keep the stamped form, because it is what proves the source when you take the money back out.

The short version

Check your nationality against the visa-free list before you assume you need a consulate. File the arrival card online. Leave the codeine and the Sudafed at home and carry a doctor’s letter for everything else. Install the eSIM, the VPN, WeChat Pay and an offline map before you fly. Pack for the cities on your itinerary rather than for the country. Buy the toiletries there.

Do that, and the trip runs. If you want more depth on any single piece of it, the rest of our China travel guide goes city by city, and if you would rather not do the ground logistics yourself, you can hire us as your tour guide in China.