eSIM or a local SIM in China

The law that decides it

Almost everything on this page follows from one short regulation, and its exact wording is worth having because the common summaries of it are wrong in both directions.

• The dutyArticle 6 of the Provisions on the Registration of Telephone Subscribers' Real Identity Information (电话用户真实身份信息登记规定), Order No. 25 of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, published 16 July 2013 and effective 1 September 2013: when a telecom operator handles network access for a subscriber, it "shall require the subscriber to present valid documents and provide true identity information, and the subscriber shall co-operate". Article 3 defines network access to include opening a mobile phone account. This is why a shop will not sell you a card informally, and why the request for a document is not the assistant's personal rule.
• The document that mattersArticle 7 lists the documents an individual may present, and item four is "foreign citizen passport" (外国公民护照), alongside resident identity cards, military and armed police cards, and the mainland travel permits for Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan residents. The opening words are "may present one of the following valid documents" — a choice, not a combination. On the face of the regulation, a passport alone is the document.
• The refusal clauseArticle 10 says an operator "shall not" handle network access for anyone who refuses to present valid documents, refuses to give the information on them, uses another person's document, or presents a forged or altered one. Read together with Article 7, this cuts both ways: a passport is acceptable, and a photocopy or a friend's document is not.

One honest limit applies to the whole section. The regulation settles which documents are acceptable in law. It does not describe how a shop verifies them, and the city-level guides below add steps — a face capture, a background check against immigration records — that the 2013 text does not mention.

Where you can apply, and who must be there

The practical conditions come from city and provincial communications administrations of the industry ministry, which publish guides for inbound visitors. They agree with each other closely, which is why they are useful.

• The channel, and only the channelTianjin's communications administration guide, published 14 April 2026, states that foreign nationals in China may apply at the self-operated business halls of the carriers using a permanent residence card or a passport, and lists the channel again under its own heading: carrier-owned halls. Henan's Hebi city tells inbound visitors the same thing on 1 September 2026 — bring a passport or permanent residence card to a China Mobile, China Unicom or China Telecom own hall — and describes the reform that merged network access, document verification and immigration checks into one errand of at most a day.
• You must go yourselfThe Tianjin guide answers the question in terms: can someone else apply on my behalf? "No. The applicant must apply in person with valid identity documents." A proxy is not an option, whatever a hotel offers to arrange.
• The handset has a requirement tooThe same guide requires a phone that supports 5G or VoLTE, and Heilongjiang's government service entry for the same procedure repeats it in its checklist alongside a clean credit record. An older or unusual handset can fail here before any document is examined.
• The quantity limitsTianjin states that one subscriber may hold no more than five active mobile cards with the same carrier nationwide, and that once a person's total across the industry reaches ten, further cards may only be issued through a hall's own staff account. This is an anti-fraud rule aimed at bulk registration, but it is the reason a suspiciously helpful stranger offering to register cards for you is a bad idea.
• The document check is a background checkHeilongjiang's entry spells out that when a foreign national opens a card at a carrier's hall, the operator passes the document information to a background check. Expect the process to feel closer to immigration than to retail.

The Ministry of Commerce's investment guide for 2025, in its section on obtaining a telecom card, gives the same instruction in one sentence: take your passport or permanent residence card to the own business hall of China Telecom, China Mobile or China Unicom. Five separate administrations describing one procedure is as close to a consensus as this subject gets.

eSIM: how far the support goes

eSIM is where the market and the rules diverge most, so it is worth separating three claims that sound alike: that the carriers support eSIM, that you can activate it as a visitor, and that you can buy it as a product. Only the first is unambiguously settled.

• The carriers do support itApple's official support page on using eSIM with an iPhone in mainland China, published 9 September 2026, states that China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom all support eSIM. That is a dated confirmation from a first party, and it is the reason "eSIM does not work in China" is now out of date as a blanket statement.
• Activation runs through a shop, with a document checkThe same page is explicit that to activate an eSIM in mainland China you must visit your carrier's store, that store staff handle "a required ID check", and that you bring "a government ID or passport". There is no remote or purely online activation described anywhere in it.
• The long restriction, and what it actually coveredThe reason eSIM was absent for years is documented, and it is narrower than folklore. Three approvals from the industry ministry — China Unicom's dated 13 December 2019, and China Mobile's and China Telecom's both dated 24 September 2020 — authorised eSIM in the "internet of things and similar fields" and then limited it: data services plus related directional voice and SMS only, 13-digit internet-of-things numbers only, and the carrier's own channels only. Those approvals govern industrial and wearable eSIM, not a consumer phone subscription, and they are the origin of the idea that China had no phone eSIM.
• The phone eSIM that does exist is a different productChina Mobile's own service agreement for what is called one-number-two-terminals (一号双终端), updated and effective 3 September 2026, describes an eSIM that pairs a wearable or companion device with your main number. Its conditions exclude most visitors outright: the main number must have completed real-name registration "using an individual's 18-digit resident identity card", and, in the agreement's own words, "numbers registered with other types of document are not supported for the time being". It also requires the eSIM device to be a mainland China hardware version, and excludes SMS and international roaming from the companion device. Read that as a rule about that specific product, not as a sentence about every eSIM in China.

The gap between those four paragraphs is the honest answer to "can I get an eSIM in China": the networks support it, activation is in person with your passport, and the products described in carrier paperwork are aimed at residents and their watches. What a visitor can buy as a phone subscription is not stated in any dated first-party document we could find.

The installation line you cannot cross later

This is the single most useful fact on the page, and it is the reason the choice below is not a matter of taste.

Apple's support page states it plainly: "eSIMs from non-China mainland carriers can't be installed while located in China mainland." The surrounding passage explains the permitted case — travelling outside the mainland, you can activate a local carrier's eSIM on a mainland-purchased iPhone with location services enabled — and then closes the other door. Combined with the same page's second constraint, that "other iPhone models, including those purchased outside of China Mainland, are unable to install an eSIM profile from carriers in China mainland", the position is symmetrical and unforgiving: a travel eSIM bought for China must be installed before you arrive, and a mainland carrier's eSIM cannot be installed on a phone bought abroad.

Two consequences follow, and they are practical. Download and activate the travel eSIM at home, on your own wi-fi, with time to test it, because the moment the wheels touch down is too late to fix a failed activation. And do not plan to solve the problem the other way round at the airport, because the carrier eSIM route on that page requires a trip to a store and a handset bought in the mainland.

Tourist cards and the price nobody prints

Official confirmation that visitor-oriented packages exist is recent and comes from one place, but the numbers attached to them are absent everywhere, and the reason is itself official.

• Short-term packages are confirmedChongqing's communications administration reported on 13 April 2026 that, for the different lengths of stay and purposes of inbound visitors, the carriers had introduced tiered plans: short-term cards covering 7-day and 15-day packages, including data and a local number, with automatic account closure, and a three-month plan for business and longer residence. It also lists 880 outlets serving inbound visitors and a dedicated telecom desk at the inbound service centre at Jiangbei International Airport.
• The granularity is real; the figures are not thereThat report gives package lengths and no price, no data allowance and no validity detail beyond the length. It is the only official description of visitor packages we located, and it stops exactly at the point a buyer needs it.
• The silence is a policy, not a search failureTianjin's guide answers the cost question in terms: service rates are "subject to the official rates published by the telecom operators". The regulator is telling you to ask the operators, which is why we will not print a tariff table and why any table you find elsewhere is someone's screenshot rather than a rule.
• What the carrier pages do confirm, and why it is unquotableChina Mobile maintains an English guide for foreign customers that walks through ten steps including a face capture, states that the number is deactivated automatically when the plan expires, and states that after out-of-plan charges reach ¥500 access is suspended again. Every one of those is useful, and none of it is dated: the page shows only a copyright year, so it cannot carry a rule on its own. Treat the ¥500 figure as one carrier's number rather than a national one.

Buying at the airport

Airport counters exist, and the pattern of which ones we can source is worth noting, because it is narrower than the phrase "at the airport" implies.

• ChongqingThe Jiangbei International Airport inbound service centre has a dedicated telecom desk, described by the Chongqing communications administration on 13 April 2026 as part of a network covering the port of entry, business districts and online channels.
• Taiyuan and YunchengShanxi's communications administration reported on 17 August 2026 that counters able to serve foreign nationals have been opened at Taiyuan Wusui International Airport and Yuncheng Salt Lake International Airport, forming what it calls a first-stop telecom window on arrival, with bilingual guidance and a national government service site showing the outlets.
• Beijing Capital, with a caveatThe Beijing municipal government's English page for the airport says you can submit an application online and collect the card offline, and that a China Mobile card can be collected at the "Beijing Service" counter while a China Unicom card is collected at that carrier's own counter. The page carries no publication date, so it is evidence of a channel rather than of current service, and it does not say which document you must bring.

What that list does not support is the general claim that China's major airports all sell SIM cards to foreigners on arrival. Three airports are sourced; Shanghai Pudong, Guangzhou Baiyun, Shenzhen Bao'an and Chengdu Tianfu are not, in any first-party page we could reach, and we have left them out rather than assume.

Which one you actually need

The two paths do not substitute for each other, and the reason is mechanical rather than financial: one gives you a mainland number and requires a shop visit, the other gives you data and requires forethought.

• The case for a local cardA mainland number is what the ecosystem is built around for voice calls, for receiving verification messages, and for anything that treats a phone number as an identity. It is obtainable on a passport, in person, at a carrier's own hall, and the short-term packages are designed for exactly this stay length. The cost is the errand: a shop, a document, possibly a face capture, and a handset that supports 5G or VoLTE.
• The case for a travel eSIMIt is data without a queue, installed at home, and it leaves your number at home still able to receive messages from your bank. Its limits are the line above — install before arrival — and the absence of a mainland number.
• The claim about a missing number, correctedEnglish advice often states that without a Chinese number you cannot use Chinese apps at all. The Ministry of Commerce's 2025 investment guide contradicts the blanket version: in its instructions for enabling mobile payment it says to register the app with "a foreign or domestic mobile number". The honest form is narrower — some Chinese apps ask for a mainland number at registration or at an identity step, and which ones do changes with the app, so treat it as a case-by-case check rather than a rule.
• The official word on roamingMost government pages stay neutral about roaming, but one does not. Hohhot's foreign affairs office, in an English-language city guide published 19 March 2025, tells visitors that using a home phone internationally "might be expensive, but it is always the most reliable way to help you stay connected", and advises checking before buying a local card that the device is unlocked and compatible with the local network. A government page recommending roaming as the reliable option is worth noting, because you will not read it in a shop.

Who to call

Complaints about phone service in China go to the industry ministry's own channel, which is separate from the consumer line used for shops and payments. The ministry operates a telecom subscriber complaint centre, reachable online and by the 12300 number, with the site listing user complaints, complaint tracking, withdrawal of a complaint, access to the operator's information and the complaint procedure. It does not publish service standards or deadlines on the page you land on, so treat it as the route to escalate through rather than a promise about timing.

For everything else, 12345 is the government services hotline, and it is the number to keep for questions about the procedure itself: Heilongjiang's entry for the inbound telecom-card service lists 12345 as the consultation channel alongside a 24-hour service. Start with the carrier, though, because the operator is the party that holds your registration, and both the Tianjin and Hebei pages describe returning to the counter or the carrier's app and online hall for top-ups and account matters.

What we could not verify

The gaps below are the reason this page is a rules explainer rather than a comparison, and several of them are gaps in the official record rather than in our searching. If any acquires a dated first-party source, the section above it will change and the source will be named here.

• Any price, data allowance or validity figure for a tourist SIM or a travel eSIM. One regulator answers the question by deferring to the operators' published rates, and the carrier pages carry their prices in images rather than text.
• Whether a foreign visitor can buy a phone eSIM as a standalone subscription with a passport. The carrier paperwork we can date describes a companion-device product and excludes numbers registered on non-resident-ID documents; nothing dated answers the visitor's question.
• The 2025 approval for phone eSIM commercial trials. Searches of the ministry's own site return only the 2019 and 2020 internet-of-things approvals, and the site's own results page repeatedly reports that results are withheld under law. As far as published documents go, that approval is not retrievable.
• Whether a passport alone is accepted without a second document in practice. The regulation says "one of the following"; no guide describes the counter experience, and the face capture and background check appear only on undated pages.
• Which Chinese apps actually require a mainland number. The official wording points the other way for payment apps, so the popular blanket claim is unsupported and the specific list is unpublished.
• Terms, coverage or speed of any international travel eSIM brand. Vendor marketing is not a source for this site, and the only official fact about them is the installation restriction above.
• Whether authorised reseller halls, as distinct from carrier-owned halls, can register a foreign passport. The guides name own halls, and no page answers the question for the other kind.
• Arrival counters beyond the three airports named. No first-party page covers the other major hubs, so their absence from this page is not evidence that they lack a counter.
• The annex listing the inbound telecom-card service among the State Council's 2026 priority items. The notice text and its issue date are available, but the annex itself was not retrievable, so the item's own wording rests on provincial reprints.
• The full text of the eleven-department implementation opinion on digital services for inbound visitors. Only official summaries were available, and they do not mention eSIM or visitor packages, so it supports a direction of travel rather than a rule.

Common questions

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