The online arrival card

Every foreign national entering mainland China fills in an arrival card. Until recently that meant a paper slip handed out on the plane, completed in the queue with a borrowed pen. The National Immigration Administration opened an online version, and filling it in beforehand removes a step from the border.

What it is and is not

The distinction matters because the arrival card sits in the same search results as the eVisa systems of other countries, and travellers reasonably assume it works the same way. It does not: China has no electronic visa for Americans.

The card is a declaration, and the visa is a separate document that has to be in the passport before you board.

 Do not confuse the arrival card with a port visa.  Port visas exist under Article 22 of the Exit and Entry Law, for specific cases decided by the Ministry of Public Security, and an American arriving for tourism is not one of them.

Where it fits in the sequence

The order is worth having straight, because each step has a different owner. The visa is issued by the consulate for your district, weeks before you travel. The arrival card is filled in with the National Immigration Administration in the days before the flight.

Entry itself is decided by border control at the port, and neither of the first two binds it.

That is also why a transit traveller still fills in a card. The 240-hour exemption removes the visa, not the declaration, and the border will ask for the onward ticket at the same moment.

All the proceduresFees and documents