Last updated: 10 November 2026
Direct answer. Since 20 November 2025 foreigners can file China's arrival card online through National Immigration Administration channels before travelling, or at the port on arrival. Seven categories are exempt, including permanent resident card holders and 24-hour direct transit passengers who stay inside the port area.
China moved the foreigner arrival card online on 20 November 2025. Here is what the immigration notices say, the seven exemptions, and what they leave out.
The arrival card is the small form you are handed before the immigration desk. It is not a visa and it is not a health declaration, and until late 2025 the only way to deal with it was a pen at the airport. China's National Immigration Administration changed that on 20 November 2025 and put the form online at every port of entry.
Three official notices in English describe the change: a Chinese embassy notice dated 28 November 2025, a Chinese consulate-general notice dated 27 November 2025, and a second consulate-general notice dated 29 May 2026 that restates the scheme. This page reads those three and separates what they establish from what they do not.
The wording in the embassy notice is narrow and worth quoting rather than paraphrasing: the National Immigration Administration "will implement online completion of the Arrival Card for Foreigners at all ports nationwide starting from November 20, 2025."
Two words carry the weight. "All ports nationwide" means this is not a pilot at three airports. "Online completion" means the form is now something you can finish before you fly, on a phone or a laptop, rather than something you queue to fill in.
The 29 May 2026 notice, published six months later, still describes the scheme as running from the same date. That is the closest thing to confirmation this page can offer that the arrangement held through the first half of 2026. It is not a statement that nothing has changed since.
| Channel | What the notices say |
|---|---|
| NIA website and government service platform | The arrival card can be completed through the government service platform on the National Immigration Administration's official website |
| "NIA 12367" mobile app | Named in all three notices as a filing channel |
| WeChat or Alipay mini-program | WeChat and Alipay mini-programs are named in all three notices |
| QR code | Scanning the arrival card QR code on a mobile device opens the filing route |
The website the notices print for online completion is `https://s.nia.gov.cn/ArrivalCardFillingPC/`; the May 2026 notice gives the longer path `https://s.nia.gov.cn/ArrivalCardFillingPC/entry-registation-home`. Typing either is the way to reach the form without going through a search engine, which matters because the phrase "China arrival card" is heavily advertised by visa agencies.
One caution we can state from direct experience: when we retrieved the portal on 10 November 2026 it returned a normal page but rendered as a JavaScript application with no readable form in the raw response. We therefore describe how the notices say to reach the form and do not describe the form itself.
The scheme is not a precondition for entry, and the notices are explicit that nobody is stranded without a phone. Three fallbacks are named for travellers who have not completed the form in advance: scanning the QR code on site with a mobile device, using the smart service terminals in the inspection area, or filling in the paper Arrival Card for Foreigners.
That last option is the one worth remembering if your phone dies on the flight. The paper form the online version replaces is still in the system.
The notices list the same seven categories. We reproduce them because the list is the part of the scheme most often summarised wrongly elsewhere.
| # | Exempt from completing the arrival card |
|---|---|
| 1 | Holders of the Foreign Permanent Resident ID Card of the People's Republic of China |
| 2 | Holders of the Mainland Travel Permit for Hong Kong and Macao Residents (non-Chinese nationals) |
| 3 | Holders of a group visa, or travellers eligible for visa-free group entry |
| 4 | Persons in direct transit within 24 hours who do not leave the port-restricted area |
| 5 | Cruise passengers entering and exiting on the same vessel |
| 6 | Travellers entering through fast-track (E-channel) lanes |
| 7 | Foreign crew members on cross-border transport vehicles |
Two of these deserve a second reading. The 24-hour transit exemption turns on staying inside the restricted area, so a transit passenger who clears immigration to sleep near the airport is no longer inside it. And the fast-track exemption describes the channel, not the passport: it applies to travellers who actually use those lanes.
This is the section that saves you from bad advice.
None of the three notices states how far in advance the form may be filed. A filing window is widely quoted on travel sites; it is not in the documents we retrieved, so we do not print one. None of them lists the fields on the form. None states a fee, and the arrival card has historically been free, but we have no retrieved sentence saying so and will not assert it. None describes what happens if the online form is filed with an error, and none states a penalty for not filing.
Nor do the notices say anything about visas, visa-free entry or transit permissions. The arrival card is described as an entry formality at the border; whether you need a visa at all is a separate question answered by a different set of documents. If you are travelling visa-free, see our visa-free China guide; if you are transiting, start with the 240-hour transit rules.
Two judgements, marked as ours. First, file it before you fly even though you do not have to: the fallbacks exist, but they put you in a queue at the one moment you want to be moving. Second, treat the QR code at the port as the authority on the current form rather than any screenshot you saved — the portal is the system of record, and our retrieval of it could not see inside the application.
Neither judgement is a sourced fact, and neither changes what the notices require.
For the wider paperwork sequence, our guides on China visas for US citizens and on Alipay for foreigners cover the parts that happen before and after the border.
No, if you completed the online form. The notices say foreigners unable to file in advance may complete the information on arrival by scanning the QR code, using the smart service terminals in the inspection area, or filling in the paper Arrival Card for Foreigners — so the paper version remains available rather than mandatory.
Seven categories: holders of the PRC Foreign Permanent Resident ID Card; holders of the Mainland Travel Permit for Hong Kong and Macao Residents (non-Chinese nationals); group visa holders and those eligible for visa-free group entry; 24-hour direct transit passengers who stay inside the port-restricted area; cruise passengers entering and exiting on the same vessel; travellers entering through fast-track lanes; and foreign crew on cross-border transport vehicles.
Through the National Immigration Administration's government service platform at s.nia.gov.cn, the "NIA 12367" mobile app, the WeChat or Alipay mini-program, or by scanning the arrival card QR code. The notices print https://s.nia.gov.cn/ArrivalCardFillingPC/ as the website route.
Yes. The notices name three on-arrival routes: scanning the QR code at the port, using the smart service terminals in the inspection area, or filling in the paper form. None of the three is described as a penalty route.
No. The notices present the arrival card as an entry formality completed at or before the border, and they say nothing about visa eligibility. Visa-free entry and transit permissions are governed by separate rules, which this page does not summarise.
All sources retrieved 10 November 2026. This page is an independent reading of the sources listed; the official pages themselves are the specification.
| Fact used on this page | Source |
|---|---|
| S1 — Online completion at all ports nationwide from 20 November 2025; four filing channels; portal URL; on-arrival fallbacks; the seven exemptions | Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Barbados, consular service notice, 28 November 2025 https://bb.china-embassy.gov.cn/eng/lsyws/202511/t20251128_11762211.htm |
| S2 — Same effective date, channels and exemption list, independently published | Consulate-General of the People's Republic of China in Penang, notice, 27 November 2025 https://penang.china-consulate.gov.cn/eng/zytz_5/202511/t20251127_11761828.htm |
| S3 — Scheme restated as running from 20 November 2025; seven exemptions; longer portal path | Consulate-General of the People's Republic of China in Lagos, notice, 29 May 2026 https://lagos.china-consulate.gov.cn/eng/qz/cv/202605/t20260529_11921302.htm |
| S4 — Portal reachable but renders as a JavaScript application with no readable form in the raw response | National Immigration Administration arrival card portal, retrieved 10 November 2026 https://s.nia.gov.cn/ArrivalCardFillingPC/ |