(CHINA) — China expanded its visa-free policy to 50 countries and kept the broader program in place through December 31, 2026, a move that has driven a sharp rise in inbound arrivals and widened the country’s push to revive international travel.

Chinese authorities counted 292,000 foreign citizens entering under visa-free arrangements during the 2026 New Year holiday period, up 35.8% from a year earlier. That holiday surge followed a broader rebound in inbound tourism, with inbound tourism orders in the first three quarters of 2025 rising 100%, while orders from countries covered by China’s visa-free arrangements climbed by an average of 153%.

Ordinary passport holders from eligible countries can enter without a visa for stays of no more than 30 days for business, tourism, family and friend visits, cultural or educational exchanges, and transit. China still bars employment under the arrangement, including paid and unpaid work.

Officials have cast the policy as part of a broader shift from “facilitating access” to “high-quality development” of inbound tourism. The National Immigration Administration has tied the rise in arrivals to a package of changes that goes beyond visa waivers and tries to reduce friction across the trip itself.

As of April 2026, the countries covered by unilateral 30-day visa-free entry are Brunei, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Ireland, Hungary, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Australia, Poland, Portugal, Greece, Cyprus, Slovenia, Slovakia, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Andorra, Monaco, Liechtenstein, the Republic of Korea, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Malta, Estonia, Latvia, Japan, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Uruguay, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Russia, Sweden, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

Canada and the United Kingdom joined the list in February 2026, after visits to China in January 2026 by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Sweden entered the program on November 10, 2025, extending the policy farther into Northern Europe.

Russia has a different timetable. Russian passport holders can enter China without a visa from September 15, 2025, through September 14, 2026, about three months earlier than the deadline set for the other 49 countries. Brunei stands apart again, with no expiration date on its arrangement.

China has paired the 30-day regime with a wider 240-hour visa-free transit system that allows eligible travelers to stay for up to 10 days without a visa across 24 provinces, including Beijing, Xi’an, Shanghai, and Chengdu. Tibet, Xinjiang, Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia, Inner Mongolia, and Jilin province remain outside that transit scheme.

Authorities widened the transit network again in March 2026 by adding five ports: Guangzhou, Zhuhai’s Hengqin and Zhongshan, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge, and the West Kowloon Station of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link. That raised the total number of eligible ports for the 240-hour visa-free transit policy from 60 to 65.

Another set of changes came in March, when the Ministry of Commerce and eight other departments released measures aimed at promoting travel service exports and expanding inbound consumption. Those measures called for China to “orderly expand the list of countries eligible for unilateral visa-free entry,” further refine transit arrangements, introduce electronic visas, pilot online visa applications, allow foreign nationals to complete entry cards online, and simplify approvals for foreigners attending exhibitions and sports events by removing invitation-party commitment letters.

The traffic is no longer concentrated in a handful of gateway cities. During the 2026 New Year holiday, travelers holding non-Chinese passports booked domestic flights to 97 cities across the country, a sign that the current visa-free policy is pushing foreign visitors deeper into the domestic travel market.

Several smaller or leisure-focused destinations posted the fastest gains. Haikou and Sanya led the rise in inbound flight bookings, while Dali, Xishuangbanna, Beihai, Xuzhou, and Zhanjiang each recorded increases of more than threefold. Chongqing Municipality posted a 170% year-on-year rise in inbound visitors, and hotel bookings in some commercial districts climbed eightfold.

Beijing drew more than 5 million inbound tourist visits in 2025, adding another marker of the recovery. Trip.com’s report on China’s inbound tourism in 2025 ranked South Korea, Singapore, and Malaysia as the top three source countries, while Russian visitors jumped 205% from a year earlier after the separate visa-free arrangement for Russians took effect in September 2025.

Authorities have also tried to make the visit easier after arrival. China’s online travel agencies have folded AI-powered travel planning into booking flows, while broader mobile payment access has aimed to make spending and local transport less cumbersome for foreign visitors. Those changes have run alongside the immigration measures rather than replacing them.

The opening is also feeding business and cultural exchanges. China’s visa-free entry rules now cover short business trips, cultural visits, educational exchanges, and family travel, and the shorter notice required for those trips has lowered one of the old barriers to trade event attendance and brief commercial visits.

Travelers still face limits. The visa exemption removes the visa application step, but border checks remain in place and the stated purpose of entry still has to match one of the permitted categories. Work remains outside the program, and anyone intending to take employment must secure the appropriate work visa before departure.

Beyond inbound travel, China’s outbound travel market is projected at USD 183.8 billion in 2026, rising at a compound annual growth rate of 9.6% to USD 459.4 billion by 2036. The same projections estimate 42.5 million inbound visitors generating $85 billion in revenue across 2026-2030.

Those numbers place the current travel opening in a wider diplomatic and commercial frame. By extending visa-free entry to economies including Canada and the United Kingdom, broadening 240-hour visa-free transit, and testing digital processing tools, China has turned a border policy into a larger campaign to draw tourists, business travelers, and exchange visitors back in larger numbers through the end of 2026.