China expands 240-hour visa-free transit to Kyrgyzstan and Vietnam

Nationals from 57 countries may now spend up to ten days in China without a visa when transiting to a third destination. Citizens of the two new countries also qualify, from the same date, for Hainan province’s unilateral 30-day visa-exemption.

Two new eligible countries as of August 20, 2026

The notice, published by the NIA on August 20, 2026, took immediate effect. Kyrgyz and Vietnamese ordinary-passport holders may enter any of China’s 65 eligible ports of entry and stay for up to 240 hours—ten days. Two stipulations remain unchanged from the program’s earlier expansion: travelers must hold an ordinary passport and present a through ticket to a confirmed third-country destination.

A simple round-trip ticket between Hanoi and Shanghai, or Bishkek and Ürümqi, does not satisfy the requirement: the facility covers transit only, not ordinary tourist visits. A traveller routing from Hanoi to Paris via Beijing may, however, stop over in China for up to ten days because the journey continues to a third destination.

How the 240-hour transit works

The expanded 240-hour transit scheme has been in force since December 2024 as an extension of the former 72- and 144-hour facilities. We previously outlined how it operates in our report on China’s expansion to 55 countries; the core rules remain the same, only the list of eligible nationalities has grown.

According to the NIA’s official page on the scheme, the 65 eligible ports are spread across 24 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, and travellers must stay within the designated permitted zones. Permissible activities include tourism, business meetings, visiting or exchanges, and family visits; working, studying and journalistic activity are still excluded, and require an appropriate visa regardless of length of stay.

The current list of 57 eligible nationalities

The Shanghai Municipal Foreign Affairs Office has published the consolidated list of 57 countries as of August 20, 2026:

Kyrgyzstan and Vietnam bring the roster from 55 to 57; Indonesia was the most recent addition, in December 2024. A number of these nationalities also benefit from China’s separate unilateral 30-day visa exemption, which has been extended through December 31, 2026. For those travellers, the 240-hour transit only comes into play when the broader exemption does not apply.

Hainan: 30-day visa-free entry extended to 61 countries

The same announcement extends Hainan’s unilateral 30-day visa-free entry to ordinary passports from Kyrgyzstan and Vietnam. Travellers may enter through any open port in the province and remain for up to 30 days without a visa, with no onward-ticket requirement. We detailed this scheme when it was expanded earlier—it now covers 61 countries as previously reported.

The trade-off is geographic: the exemption is limited to Hainan province’s administrative territory. Travel beyond to mainland China falls outside the exemption and requires a visa or another entry arrangement.