Last updated: 2 November 2026
Direct answer. Security screening is compulsory for every passenger and every bag. Chinese railway rules ban guns, explosives, flammable and corrosive goods, most knives and live animals other than guide dogs, and cap aerosols, nail polish and lighters by volume. The full list is published as a nine-part announcement, not as a station-by-station policy.
What Chinese railway security screening removes, what is capped at 20 ml or 120 ml, and why the rules apply at the station door, not the train.
Most China rail guides stop at the ticket. The screening queue is where a trip actually begins, and the rules that govern it are published by China Railway as a single nine-part announcement inside its English FAQ — short, categorical, and written for the station door rather than for the train. This page walks through that announcement in the order a traveller meets it, separates the categories that will simply be refused from the ones with a published volume cap, and marks clearly where the official text is silent. Luggage weight and dimensions are a different rule set and live on China train luggage rules; they are not repeated here.
The FAQ answers the question directly: under the relevant laws and regulations, all passengers and their belongings are subject to security check. Bags go through the dangerous-goods inspector and passengers pass through the security gate. Assistance dogs are handled with a separate inspection, and the FAQ notes there may be a queue for it.
Two practical consequences follow from that sentence alone.
The FAQ presents the list as an announcement on items prohibited or restricted in a train or train station, issued under the Railway Safety Management Regulations of the State Council together with other state laws and administrative regulations. Its nine numbered parts do different jobs: the first six are categories that are not allowed at all, the seventh is the only part with published quantities, and the last two say how other items and violations are handled.
| Part | Category as published | What it covers, in the FAQ's own examples |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Guns and bullets, key components included | Military, civilian and other-purpose guns and their ammunition, plus prototypes and replicas; exceptions for personnel who must travel armed follow Chinese law |
| 2 | Explosives | Bombs, flares, incendiaries, smoke and signal devices, grenades, detonators and blasting equipment, fireworks and firecrackers, black and pyrotechnic powder, and replicas of these |
| 3 | Instruments | Daggers, three-edged knives, switchblades and other restricted single- and double-edge knives; kitchen, table and butcher knives, axes and other restricted sharp or blunt objects; batons, tear guns, tasers, nail guns, self-defence items, bows and crossbows |
| 4 | Inflammable and explosive items | Compressed and liquefied gases, flammable liquids such as petrol, kerosene, diesel, ethanol, acetone, paints and thinners, flammable solids, spontaneously igniting items, water-reactive chemicals, oxidants and organic peroxides |
| 5 | Hypertoxic, corrosive, radioactive and infectious items | Cyanide, arsenic and similar toxins, farm chemicals, strong acids and alkalis, storage batteries, mercury, radioisotopes, and pathogens of infectious disease |
| 6 | Items that endanger railway safety or public health | Strongly magnetised objects that may affect signalling, strongly smelling or foul-smelling items, live animals other than guide dogs, and items that damage or pollute stations, trains or equipment |
| 7 | Limited quantities allowed | The three caps set out in the next section |
| 8 | Other prohibited or restricted items | Handled under applicable Chinese laws, administrative regulations and rules |
| 9 | Violations | Handled under the relevant laws and regulations of China |
The structure matters more than any single row. Parts 1 to 6 have no threshold and no discretion written into them: the item is listed, or it is not. Part 7 is the only place the announcement quantifies anything, and part 8 is an explicit admission that the list is not exhaustive.
Part 7 is short enough to quote in full, and it is the part most travellers need.
| Item | Limit as published |
|---|---|
| Nail polish, declustering agent, hair dye | No more than 20 ml |
| Perm lotion, mousse, hair spray, pesticide, air freshener and other pressurised spray bottles | No more than 120 ml |
| Safety matches | Two small boxes |
| Lighters | Two |
Three things are worth noticing about this list. First, the limits are written in millilitres, not in container size — the announcement says nothing about how large the bottle may be, only how much of the product is allowed. Second, the aerosol row is a category, not a brand list: it names the types of pressurised spray and then closes with "and other pressing spray bottles", so a travel-sized can of something not named still falls under the same 120 ml ceiling. Third, the matches and lighters are counted, not weighed, and they are the only items in the announcement that are allowed in a stated number.
Nothing else in the announcement carries a figure. There is no permitted blade length, no permitted alcohol volume, no battery capacity limit and no limit on the number of bottles of shampoo.
Part 3 is the part that catches ordinary luggage, because it bans by function rather than by appearance. The FAQ lists daggers, three-edged knives, switchblades with a self-locking device and other restricted single- and double-edge knives; then, in the same part, kitchen knives, table knives, butcher knives, axes and other restricted sharp or blunt objects that may endanger the safety of other passengers; then batons, tear guns, tasers, nail guns, self-defence items, bows and crossbows.
Read as a whole, the part is aimed at what an object can do, not at whether it was bought as a weapon. A kitchen knife in a suitcase and a folding knife with a locking blade are both named. The announcement does not publish a blade-length threshold and does not carve out a category for camping or cooking equipment, so this page will not invent one — the safe reading of the text as written is that a knife in checked luggage is the same knife at screening.
Two rows of part 6 are easy to overlook because they are not about danger in the usual sense.
Part 5 adds the materials people carry without thinking of them as hazardous: storage batteries with alkaline solid or liquid, mercury, strong acids and alkalis. The announcement does not translate any of this into a watt-hour or millilitre figure for batteries, and this page does not either.
The list is a prohibition list, not a procedure manual, and the gaps are worth stating plainly rather than filling in.
The workable sequence is short. Check the bag against parts 1 to 6 first, because those items have no tolerance; then measure anything from part 7, remembering that the ceilings are in millilitres of product and in counted lighters; then treat anything sharp as a screening question rather than a luggage question. The station, not the train, is where the decision is made — which is also why the arrival margin on how to book high-speed rail in China is worth keeping even when you already hold an e-ticket.
The announcement bans daggers, three-edged knives, switchblades with a self-locking device and other restricted single- and double-edge knives, and separately bans kitchen, table and butcher knives and axes as restricted sharp or blunt objects. It publishes no blade-length threshold, so a folding knife with a locking blade is not covered by an exception.
Perm lotion, mousse, hair spray, pesticide, air freshener and other pressurised spray bottles are capped at no more than 120 ml. The limit is written in millilitres of product, and the row closes with "and other pressing spray bottles", so unnamed aerosols fall under the same ceiling.
Yes, in counted quantities: two small boxes of safety matches and two lighters. They are the only items in the announcement allowed in a stated number.
Live animals are listed among items that endanger railway safety or public health, with guide dogs named as the exclusion. The FAQ does not describe a carriage or consignment procedure for other animals.
No. Under the relevant laws and regulations all passengers and their belongings are subject to security check: bags pass through the dangerous-goods inspector and passengers through the security gate. An e-ticket changes the ticket check, not the screening.
All sources retrieved 2 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 |
|---|---|
| Security check compulsory under relevant laws and regulations for all passengers and belongings, bags through the dangerous-goods inspector and passengers through the security gate, assistance dogs inspected separately with a possible queue; ticket sales and ticket checking halted before departure with the time set by the station announcement; queue points named as ticket window, security check, ID verification counter, ticket gate and baggage consignment counter; prohibited and restricted items published as a nine-part announcement under the Railway Safety Management Regulations of the State Council and other state laws, administrative regulations and rules; part 1 guns and bullets including key components, prototypes and replicas with exceptions for personnel who must travel armed under Chinese law; part 2 explosives from bombs and flares to fireworks, black and pyrotechnic powder and replicas; part 3 daggers, three-edged knives, switchblades with a self-locking device and other restricted single- and double-edge knives, kitchen, table and butcher knives, axes and other restricted sharp or blunt objects, batons, tear guns, tasers, nail guns, self-defence items, bows and crossbows; part 4 compressed and liquefied gases, flammable liquids, flammable solids, spontaneously igniting items, water-reactive chemicals, oxidants and organic peroxides; part 5 hypertoxic, corrosive, radioactive and infectious items including storage battery, mercury, strong acids and alkalis, radioisotopes and pathogens of infectious disease; part 6 strongly magnetised objects that may undermine railway signal, strong or irritating and foul smells, live animals with guide dogs excluded, items that damage or pollute stations, trains or equipment; part 7 no more than 20 ml of nail polish, declustering and hair dye, no more than 120 ml of perm lotion, mousse, hair spray, pesticide, air freshener and other pressing spray bottles, two small boxes of safety matches and two lighters; part 8 other prohibited or restricted items under applicable laws, administrative regulations and rules; part 9 violations handled under the relevant laws and regulations of China — China Railway 12306 English FAQ, https://www.12306.cn/en/faq.html | 2 November 2026 |