Three end dates, not one
The scheme is usually described as “China’s 30-day visa-free policy”, singular, with one deadline. It is actually a set of entries with different clocks, and the differences decide whether this page applies to you at all.
| Who | Last day | What the notice says |
|---|---|---|
| 48 of the 50 countriesThe EU states, the UK, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea and the rest of the list | 31 December 2026 | Extended once already, from an earlier end date, by a Foreign Ministry notice dated 3 November 2025. |
| RussiaRussian ordinary passports | 31 December 2027 | A separate bilateral arrangement, extended on 20 May 2026. Its clock is not the same clock. |
| BruneiBrunei ordinary passports | No end date published | The only entry on the list without a sunset clause. If you hold a Brunei passport, none of this page applies to you. |
End dates as published by the Foreign Ministry. The country list itself lives on the National Immigration Administration site and is revised more often than the notices are.
The 48-country group is the one everybody means. It has already been extended once, from an earlier end date, by a notice dated 3 November 2025. That history is why so many travellers assume a second extension is coming — and why this page exists, because assuming and knowing are different things when the flight is non-refundable.
Two things this deadline does not touch, and both come up constantly in the questions we get: the 240-hour transit route is a separate scheme with its own country list and no published end date, and Hainan’s 30-day entry runs under a different notice that also publishes no end date. Details further down.
The question the notices do not answer
Read the wording carefully. The notices set a 施行期限 — a period during which the policy is in force — and separately set the stay at “no more than 30 days per entry”. What they never do is join those two statements together for a stay that straddles the boundary.
That is not a nitpick. December is the busiest month for people booking a two-week trip that happens to fall over New Year, and it is exactly the shape of trip that lands in the gap.
| Your trip | Verdict | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| EnterOn or before 31 Dec 2026LeaveOn or before 31 Dec 2026 | Clear | Both ends of the stay fall inside the period the notice covers. Nothing here is ambiguous, and nothing changed. |
| EnterOn or before 31 Dec 2026LeaveOn or after 1 Jan 2027 | Not addressed | The case almost nobody writes about. You enter legally under a policy that is still running, then the policy stops running while you are inside the country. |
| EnterOn or after 1 Jan 2027LeaveAny date | Needs a visa | Unless a new notice extends the scheme before then, there is no visa-free entry to rely on. Apply for an L visa or use the 240-hour transit route. |
| EnterBefore 31 Dec 2026, stay runs past 30 daysLeaveAfter your 30 days elapse | Overstay | The 30-day cap is per entry and does not move because the policy is ending. A 40-day trip was never covered, deadline or no deadline. |
Two of these four rows have a clear answer. The one in the middle does not, and it is the one people are booking right now.
Notice the asymmetry in the second row: your entry is unambiguously legal. The uncertainty is all at the exit, weeks later, at a different desk, in front of a different official. That is the worst possible place to discover a rule was never written down.
Two defensible readings, and we cannot pick one for you
We are not going to pretend an official told us the answer. What follows is our reading of the wording, labelled as such, because a traveller who plans around our guess deserves to know the difference between a guess and a notice.
Reading A — the entry is the trigger
The 30 days attach to the act of entry. If you are admitted on 28 December, the admission itself grants 30 days, and the policy ending on 31 December does not retroactively shorten a permission you already hold. Under this reading you may stay until late January.
Why it is plausible: Consistent with how visa-free schemes normally work: the permission is granted at the border, against the rules in force on that day.
Reading B — the scheme is the container
The 30 days only exist inside a scheme that runs to 31 December. When the scheme stops, the basis for your stay stops with it, and you are expected to be out — or to hold some other status — by the end date.
Why it is plausible: Consistent with the wording of the notice, which sets a 施行期限 for the policy itself rather than a rule about stays in progress.
Our position: plan as if Reading B is correct. Not because it is more likely — we genuinely do not know — but because the two options are not symmetric. If you plan for B and A turns out to be right, you have lost nothing but a slightly earlier flight. If you plan for A and B turns out to be right, you are in an overstay conversation at a border, which is a materially worse afternoon.
Where the ambiguity actually bites
The reason this gap has teeth is that three different people check three different things, and only the last one is looking at what you are worried about.
| Checkpoint | Checks | Sees | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| Airline check-in | Admission on arrival | Your entry date | 28 December reads as allowed. You are boarded. |
| Border inspection, on entry | Whether you qualify today | Entry date, onward ticket | Admitted for 30 days. The entry record is what counts later. |
| Border inspection, on exit | Whether you overstayed | Exit date against permitted stay | Where Reading B would bite — weeks after everyone agreed you were fine. |
So the failure mode is not a refusal at the airport on the way in — you will almost certainly be boarded and admitted. It is a question at the exit desk about a permission that expired while you were inside. Which means: if you ask the airline and they say you are fine, you have learned something about the first checkpoint and nothing about the third.
Two schemes that are not affected
Before you rebook anything, check whether either of these covers you. Both are frequently mistaken for the 30-day scheme, and neither has a December deadline.
The 240-hour transit route. Fifty-seven countries, sixty-five ports, ten days, and it requires an onward ticket to a third country through a different port than the one you entered. The United States is on this list and is not on the 30-day list, which is why American travellers are largely unaffected by the December deadline — they were never using that scheme. If your trip is ten days or shorter and you are willing to route through a third country, this is live after 31 December too.
Hainan’s 30-day entry. Sixty-one countries, thirty days, no end date published. The condition is that you stay inside Hainan province. If your whole trip is Sanya and Haikou, the December deadline is somebody else’s problem.
The practical test: if you can fit your trip into ten days and can route onward to a third country, you may not need to solve this at all. Check your port pair before you check anything else. The entry checker on the home page runs both schemes against your passport in one pass.
What to do, in order
Five actions, ordered by when they happen rather than by how important they are. The first one resolves the question for most readers in under a minute.
- Now — Check your own exit date, not your entry date The trip is at risk only if the exit falls in January. If you fly home on 30 December you can stop reading.
- Before you book — Treat 31 December as a hard wall A stay that ends on or before the end date is unambiguously covered. A stay that crosses it is a bet on an unanswered question.
- If the trip must cross — Apply for an L visa instead of relying on the scheme A visa does not care when the visa-free scheme ends. This is the only option that removes the risk rather than managing it.
- If it is December already — Ask the airline in writing, and keep the reply Airline staff enforce entry rules at check-in and are the party most likely to refuse boarding. A written answer is the only thing that helps at the desk.
- Before 20 December — Re-check the Foreign Ministry notice page The scheme has been extended once. If it is extended again, it will be announced in the same place, and probably late.
Six ways this goes wrong
Ordered by how often they catch people who have already read a guide.
1. Treating the list as one deadline
Russia runs to the end of 2027 and Brunei has no end date. Guides that print "the scheme ends 31 December 2026" without those two exceptions are wrong for a meaningful share of readers.
2. Assuming the 30 days start on the entry date
They start at 00:00 on the day after you enter. A 30-day stay that begins on 20 December therefore runs to 19 January, not 18 January. One day is the difference between a fine and an overstay.
3. Reading "trial" as "will obviously be renewed"
It has been extended before, which is evidence that it can be, not evidence that it will be. Book the trip that works if it is not extended.
4. Confusing this with the 240-hour transit route
The transit policy is a separate scheme with a separate country list (57 countries, including the United States) and no published end date. It is not affected by 31 December 2026 — but it caps you at 10 days and requires an onward ticket to a third country.
5. Confusing this with the Hainan scheme
Hainan has its own 30-day visa-free entry for 61 countries, run under a different notice that publishes no end date. If your whole trip is inside Hainan province, the December deadline is not your problem.
6. Asking an embassy and accepting a verbal answer
Consular staff answer from the same notices everyone else reads. If the notice is silent, a friendly "should be fine" on the phone is not a rule you can rely on at a border.
Straight answers
My trip is 28 December to 5 January. Am I fine?
Nobody can tell you with certainty, including us. Your entry is unambiguously legal; your exit falls eight days after the scheme ends and no official notice says what happens then. The safe version of this trip leaves on 31 December or earlier, or is covered by a visa.
Which countries are actually affected?
Citizens of the 48 countries whose entry is covered to 31 December 2026 — most of the EU, the UK, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea and others. Not Russia (2027), not Brunei (no end date), and not the United States, which was never on this list and relies on the 240-hour transit route instead.
Will it be extended?
It has been extended once, in November 2025. As of 5 November 2026 no further notice has been published. We are not going to predict it, and you should be suspicious of anyone who does.
If I already hold a ticket for January, what now?
Two options, in order of safety: apply for an L visa now, or move the return to 31 December or earlier. If neither is possible, get the airline to confirm your boarding eligibility in writing before the airport.
Does this affect the 240-hour transit route?
No. That is a separate scheme — 57 countries, 65 ports, 10 days, onward ticket to a third country required. It has no published end date and is not part of the 31 December question.
Does the 30-day count start on the day I land?
No. It starts at 00:00 on the day after entry. Land on 20 December and your 30 days run to 19 January.
Can I just leave and re-enter to reset the clock?
There is currently no published cap on entries or total days, so a re-entry does restart the count. But a re-entry in January runs straight into the same unanswered question, so this does not solve anything.
Where this comes from
Foreign Ministry and National Immigration Administration documents, read on 5 November 2026. We are citing the notices rather than the guides that summarise them, because the whole point of this page is the difference between what a notice says and what a summary assumes. Where the notices are silent we have written that down instead of filling it in.
- Foreign Ministry — notice extending the unilateral visa-free policy — Dated 3 November 2025. The document that sets 24:00 on 31 December 2026 as the end of the scheme for the listed countries.
- National Immigration Administration — list of countries covered by unilateral visa exemption — The authoritative country list. Read on 5 November 2026; the page carries its own revision date, which is the one to trust over ours.
- Foreign Ministry — notice on visa-free entry for Canada and the UK — Dated 15 February 2026. Adds both countries from 17 February 2026, with the same 31 December 2026 end date.
- Foreign Ministry — notice extending the policy for Russia — Dated 20 May 2026. Sets 31 December 2027, which is why Russia sits in its own row.
- Embassy FAQ on the unilateral visa-free policy — The page that confirms the 30 days run from 00:00 the day after entry, and that repeat visits are allowed.