Seven further nations are set to be added to China’s visa-free entry regime, in the country’s ongoing bid to ease access for tourists worldwide and boost its economy.
Background
With entry/exit data still sitting at only around a third of pre-pandemic benchmarks following one of the toughest and longest Covid-19 lockdown restrictions in the world, at the end of 2023 China put in place a so-called “exceptional regime”. Seeking to rebuild tourism, it began unilaterally removing visa barriers to incite travel from selected nations.
The thinking behind the relaxation of immigration rules was “to facilitate the high-quality development of Chinese and foreign personnel exchanges and high-level opening up to the outside world,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told media at the time.
Starting in December 2023 then, citizens of five EU countries (The Netherlands, France, Germany, Italy and Spain) as well as Malaysians, were granted 15-days visa-free in which to visit China.
The new list of visa-free countries
That list of visa-exempt countries has already been expanded in several phases, growing over the last year to its current extent of 20 nations. But the seven new additions of Andorra, Finland, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Slovakia, and South Korea will mean that from 8 November 2024, nationals of 27 countries, 24 of them in Europe, will be permitted to visit China for 15 days without requiring a visa.
The full list is as follows:
| Andorra | Australia | Austria | Belgium | Cyprus |
| Denmark | Finland | France | Germany | Greece |
| Hungary | Iceland | Ireland | Italy | Liechtenstein |
| Luxembourg | Malaysia | Monaco | Netherlands | New Zealand |
| Norway | Poland | Portugal | Slovakia | South Korea |
| Spain | Switzerland |
The exceptional regime looks likely to remain in place for those nations for at least a year, according to a Chinese spokesperson who said: “From November 8, 2024 to December 31, 2025, ordinary passport holders from these [new] countries can be exempted from visa to enter China and stay for no more than 15 days for business, tourism, family visit and transit purposes”.
Removing red-tape and investing in marketing and tech
In addition to the 15-day visa-free access, China has targeted potential visitors with numerous and imaginative promotions of its culture, history and destinations, including in partnership with Trip.com. It has even benefitted from tourism driven by gaming, with the release of Black Myth: Wukong, in which ancient Shanxi region temples featured as locations.
And the People’s Republic has also looked to tech and investment to enhance tourist experiences, from making international e-payment mechanisms and travel guides more available, to drone-delivery of takeout to tourists at the Great Wall of China.
