About
China Layover Guide is for one traveler: the person with 10, 24, or 72 hours in China and no idea whether they can leave the airport. Most can, under the 240-hour visa-free transit policy, and a long layover can end up being the best part of a trip.
Who writes this
Two people, both living in Beijing. That matters, because a lot of what makes a China layover work only shows up on the ground: which payment app accepts a foreign card, whether the airport Wi-Fi will send you an SMS code, how long immigration actually takes.
Nora Li
Transit visas, city trips and shopping
American who grew up in Beijing, moved back as an adult, and has used China’s visa-free transit as a foreigner.
Bokang Huang
Payments, eSIM and apps
Software engineer in Beijing who tests the payment apps and eSIM plans on this site before we recommend them.
How we verify things
Not everything on a travel site can be tested, and claiming otherwise is how travel writing goes wrong. Some details can be looked up and cited. Some can be checked by hand. We try to be specific about which is which.
Payment and eSIM guides: tested first-hand
Bokang sets up each payment app and eSIM plan on a foreign card and checks what actually works before a guide is published. This is why those pages carry details like which card types fail at which step. Payment terms and plans change often, so they are re-tested and the pages updated.
Visa and transit rules: verified against sources
Nobody can self-test a visa rule. Immigration policy is checked line by line against publications from the National Immigration Administration, plus the relevant airline or airport terms. Nora has used China's visa-free transit entry herself, which guides what the transit pages focus on, but the rules themselves are cited rather than tested.
Every factual page carries its evidence
Each guide and city page shows a last-updated date and a list of sources at the foot of the page. If a rule changes, the page is revised and the date moves with it.
What we do not claim
- We are not immigration lawyers or a government body. Nothing here is legal advice, and the final decision on entry always belongs to the officer in front of you.
- We do not claim to have personally tested every airport, port or airline policy. Where we have not, the page cites the official source instead.
- We publish no sponsored rankings. Product mentions reflect what was tested, not who paid.
Corrections
Immigration and payment rules change constantly, and we would rather be corrected than be confidently wrong. If you spot an error, or a rule has changed, open an issue on the project repository. Every correction is checked against the source before the page is updated.