Visiting China? Things You Need to Know About Visas & Immigration
Visiting mainland China is an amazing opportunity but it takes a bit more planning that some other international vacations. Today Lisa is sharing her experience with obtaining a Chinese visa plus what it was like at the borders entering and leaving China. If you are thinking about a trip to China, this in one episode you won’t want to miss.
Getting a Chinese Visa
If you will be visiting mainland China for more than 144 hours (10 days), you will need to obtain a Chinese visa before your trip.
These are the documents you need to collect to apply for a visa:
Passport (valid for 6 months after trip + at least 2 blank pages)
Visa application
Passport style photos
Invitation Letter (we got our from our Chinese travel planner)
Flight interary
Trip Itinerary
Proof of accomodations
Copy of drivers license
The processing time for an expedited visa was a couple of weeks. I recommend applying for your visa once you have finalized your trip plans.
There are 5 Chinese Embassies in the US and you can make an appointment and show up in person with all of your documents to apply for the visa. They are located in New York, New York, Chicago, San Francisico, Los Angelos, and Houston.
If you don’t live near an embassy (like me!) you can go through a 3rd party. We use CIBT VISAS and were happy with the results. I still had to do most of the work gathering all of the information but they took the info to the embassy for us and then mailed our passport with the visa to us.
Lisa + Ward in the line for the train from Hong Kong to Guilin
Chinese Entrance and Exit
We started our China adventure in Hong Kong which is not part of mainland China. The immigration process in the Hong Kong airport was similar to other international airports. Nothing special that you need to be prepared for other than patience with long longs and have your passport ready.
We entered mainland China via a train from Hong Kong to Guilin. The great thing about the immigration process was that everything was done at the Hong Kong train station for leaving Hong Kong and entering China. Once we arrived in Guilin, we just had to scan our passport to exit the train station and we were on our way.
In the Hong Kong train station, be prepared for an airport style security check, going through Hong Kong immigration, going through China immigration, and then scanning your passport before you can go to the train platform.
When it was time to return to the US, we flew out of Beijing. First, you need to go to the airline check in desk to obtain a boarding pass. You need to do this even if you are not checking any bags.
Then head to security. They want to have all chargers out of the bag so I suggest packing all of them together in one pouch so it’s easy to pull them from your bag.
After security, you will line up and pass through a Chinese immigration checkpoint. They will scan your passport and verify that your visa is valid. You will need to present your passport one last time at the boarding gate.
Ready to go at the Guilin airport!
Are you planning a trop to China? Is it on your bucket list? I hope this episode helps give you confidence and knowledge to make the trip happen!
If you have any questions, reach out here in the comments or send me a DM on Instagram.