Last updated: 6 November 2026
Direct answer. Yes — a station counter accepts the original or a copy of the passenger's ID, and 12306 lets you book for anyone in My Passengers whose status reads "verified" or "ready to be verified". A passport holder marked "to be verified" must verify in person before collecting a paper ticket.
Buying China train tickets for someone else: the counter rule, the My Passengers statuses, the one-ticket-per-ID limit and the passport verification step.
Most questions about Chinese train tickets are about the traveller: which seat, which train, which station. This page is about a different person — the one doing the buying. Parents booking for a student, a colleague booking for a visiting engineer, a guide booking for a group, a friend in Shanghai booking for someone landing in Beijing: in each case the ticket is bought by one person and used by another, and 12306 treats that as a specific procedure rather than an obvious one.
Everything below comes from the English FAQ published on `www.12306.cn`, read on 6 November 2026. Where the FAQ is silent — and it is silent on several points that matter — the silence is stated rather than filled in.
The FAQ's answer on buying for others starts with the physical channel: at the station you can buy tickets for other people at the ticket counter by bringing "the original or copy of the passenger's valid ID document". A copy is explicitly acceptable. That single sentence removes the most common assumption — that the passenger must be present, or that the physical passport must travel to the counter before the traveller does.
Two limits sit around that permission rather than inside it. Ticket sales at counters are staffed services with their own hours, and the FAQ does not publish a national counter timetable; it points to stations. And a counter sale is still a real-name sale, so the identity document you hand over is the one the ticket will carry.
| Route | What the buyer provides | What the passenger must have done |
|---|---|---|
| Station counter | Original or a copy of the passenger's valid ID document | Nothing in advance |
| 12306 online | Name, document type and number, entered in My Passengers | ID record at "verified" or "ready to be verified" |
| Paper-ticket collection, foreign passport | The original passport, presented at a station counter | Passport verified at the counter before collection |
The online route is where most confusion lives. On 12306, the FAQ says, registered users whose own ID information is "verified" or "ready to be verified" can buy tickets "for themselves or others". The mechanism is the My Passengers list: after logging in you add the other person by name, valid ID document type and number, entered accurately.
The ticket purchase then depends on that passenger record reaching an acceptable status. The FAQ's wording is that once the person's ID information "becomes 'verified' or 'ready to be verified'", you can buy "according to the corresponding prompts on the website". In other words the constraint is on the passenger, not on the buyer: a buyer in good standing still cannot book for a passenger record that has not cleared verification.
One passport-only rule applies to the English site. Question 9 of the same FAQ states that on the English-language 12306 site "only valid foreign passports useable according to related regulations are accepted". A buyer using that interface is therefore adding passport-holding passengers; other document types are outside what that page describes.
Real-name ticketing produces a hard ceiling that catches group organisers: a valid ID can be used to buy "only one ticket for the same train on the same date of travel". The same person cannot hold two seats on the 09:00 departure, whether the second ticket is a backup or a booking made by a second helper.
There is one documented exception, and it is about children rather than adults: for children who do not have ID cards, the accompanying adult's identity information can be used to buy child tickets "under the same order". That is a route for families, not a way to duplicate an adult booking.
If two people are both trying to help — say a relative abroad and a colleague in China — the practical consequence is that the second successful booking attempt must fail, not that it silently produces a second seat. Coordinate before either of you submits.
The FAQ devotes a whole question to the messy case: a passenger in My Passengers whose status is "to be verified" and who holds a foreign passport. After a ticket has been bought for that passenger, someone must take "the valid original passport used to buy the ticket" to the station ticket counter for identity verification. When the status has changed to "ready to be verified", the paper ticket can be collected.
Note what that sequence implies. The ticket can be bought while the record is still unverified, but the paper ticket cannot be picked up until the passport itself has been seen at a counter. For a trip where the traveller lands days before departure, that is workable. For a same-day arrival it is not, and the FAQ offers no remote alternative.
Three gaps are worth naming, because the internet fills them confidently and this page will not.
First, the status vocabulary is not defined anywhere in the FAQ. "Verified", "ready to be verified" and "to be verified" are used as if their order were self-evident, yet question 5 treats "ready to be verified" as good enough to buy, while question 12 treats "ready to be verified" as the state reached after a counter check. Both sentences are quoted above as published; the FAQ does not reconcile them, and no buying decision should rest on a guess about which reading is current.
Second, the FAQ never states how many passengers one account may hold, or whether a buyer can book for a passenger who is not travelling with them. Nothing in the text forbids it; nothing authorises it either.
Third, the FAQ warns that `www.12306.cn` is the official site of the China Railway Customer Service Center and that "the railway department will not handle ticketing problems that occurred on other websites". A ticket bought for you by a third-party site or an agent is therefore outside the support path this document describes — a point worth raising before anyone volunteers to "handle it for you".
At a station counter, yes: the FAQ accepts the original or a copy of the passenger's valid ID document. Online, you need the passenger added to My Passengers with their name, document type and number, and the record must read "verified" or "ready to be verified".
No. One valid ID can be used for only one ticket for the same train on the same date of travel, so a second booking for the same person and departure cannot succeed.
The FAQ describes buying for a passenger in that state and then taking the original passport to a station counter for verification; only when the status becomes "ready to be verified" can the paper ticket be collected.
For children who do not have ID cards, the FAQ allows the accompanying adult's identity information to be used to buy child tickets under the same order. It is not a general substitute for another adult's ID.
No — the English site accepts only valid foreign passports usable under the relevant regulations. Other document types are not described there.
All sources retrieved 6 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 — Buying for others at a station counter with the original or a copy of the passenger's valid ID | China Railway Customer Service Center, 12306 English FAQ (retrieved 6 November 2026) https://www.12306.cn/en/faq.html |
| S2 — Online purchase for self or others by users whose ID information is "verified" or "ready to be verified"; My Passengers entry with name, document type and number | China Railway Customer Service Center, 12306 English FAQ (retrieved 6 November 2026) https://www.12306.cn/en/faq.html |
| S3 — One valid ID yields only one ticket for the same train on the same date of travel; children without ID cards may use the accompanying adult's identity under the same order | China Railway Customer Service Center, 12306 English FAQ (retrieved 6 November 2026) https://www.12306.cn/en/faq.html |
| S4 — "To be verified" foreign-passport passengers must present the original passport at a station counter; paper ticket collected once status is "ready to be verified" | China Railway Customer Service Center, 12306 English FAQ (retrieved 6 November 2026) https://www.12306.cn/en/faq.html |
| S5 — English site accepts only valid foreign passports usable under the relevant regulations | China Railway Customer Service Center, 12306 English FAQ (retrieved 6 November 2026) https://www.12306.cn/en/faq.html |
| S6 — www.12306.cn is the official site; the railway department will not handle ticketing problems that occurred on other websites | China Railway Customer Service Center, 12306 English FAQ (retrieved 6 November 2026) https://www.12306.cn/en/faq.html |
| S7 — Itinerary sheet and reimbursement receipt cannot be used as tickets (cross-reference only, not restated) | China Railway Customer Service Center, 12306 English FAQ (retrieved 6 November 2026) https://www.12306.cn/en/faq.html |