How to pay in China as a tourist

Four layers

Build a payment stack, not a single solution

The State Council’s guide for foreign visitors and the official payment-service guidance both describe mobile payment, bank cards and RMB cash as available options. Treat them as layers rather than as one method you have to get perfect, because each layer fails in a different way.

• 1 · A mobile wallet with a linked international cardAlipay, WeChat (Weixin Pay) or the UnionPay app. Official guidance for foreigners says you can register with a foreign or Chinese mobile number and bind a card carrying the Visa, Mastercard, UnionPay, American Express, JCB, Diners Club or Discover logo. This is the layer you will use most days.
• 2 · Your home e-wallet, if you already have oneOfficial guidance lists AlipayHK, WeChatPay HK, mPay, Kakao Pay, Touch ’n Go eWallet, HiPay, Changi Pay, OCBC, Naver Pay, Toss Pay, TrueMoney, GCash, Kaspi and NayaPay as wallets that can pay in China by scanning a QR code, without installing a Chinese app. If one of these is yours, you may need no setup at all.
• 3 · A physical bank cardCards are accepted where the checkout displays the payment network’s logo. UnionPay cards are accepted at merchant point-of-sale terminals across the mainland, and a 2024 circular led by the People’s Bank of China required domestic and overseas bank cards to be accepted at three-star and above hotels, 5A and 4A attractions, national and provincial tourist resorts and national tourism and leisure districts.
• 4 · RMB cash in small notesLegal tender and the layer that needs no battery, no signal and no approval from an issuing bank. Exchange at banks, licensed money changers and self-service machines, or withdraw from an ATM with an international card.

Two further routes exist and are worth knowing even if you do not rely on them. The UnionPay app lets you apply for an E-Money Card or Tour card and top it up with your own bank card before using its QR code at ordinary merchants. And the e-CNY app, China’s digital currency, can be registered with an international phone number and linked to a Visa or Mastercard for top-up as you pay — though official guidance describes it as available in selected pilot areas rather than everywhere.

See which apps handle each of these jobs, and the order to install them →

See the full pre-trip checklist for when to do each of these →

Before departure

Set up the wallet while you can still receive SMS

The single most common first-week failure is arriving with an app that was never finished. Do the setup at home, where you can receive a verification code, read a support email and retry on a bad day.

1. 1

   Register with a number that receives codes

   Download Alipay or WeChat from your phone’s official app store. Official guidance says a foreign or Chinese mobile number can be used for registration, and Weixin Pay states that no mainland +86 number is required as long as your number can receive SMS verification codes. Alipay’s published instructions also allow registration with an email address.

2. 2

   Complete the passport identity check

   The instructions for both wallets ask you to verify your identity with your passport. Enter your name exactly as it is printed on the data page, in the same field order the form asks for. Expect to be asked for a passport image; do not invent a domestic ID number to avoid the step.

3. 3

   Link a card your bank will actually approve

   Binding a card is verified by the issuer, not only by the wallet, and the official guidance for foreigners says a failed binding should be taken up with the payment product or the issuing bank. A card that works at home can still be declined abroad by its own fraud controls, so tell your bank where you are going and keep the issuer’s international collect-back number saved.

4. 4

   Add a second card and a second route

   Supported brands, payment limits and charging standards differ between payment products. A second card on a different network, and a second wallet, mean one declined approval does not stop a purchase.

5. 5

   Make one low-value test before you depend on it

   Pay something small in a setting where a failure costs you nothing. If the app shows an identity status or a limit message, read it now rather than at a station turnstile with a train to catch.

Follow the step-by-step Alipay foreign-card setup here →

On the ground

What a payment looks like at the counter

Mobile: two directions, one idea

Official guidance describes exactly two motions. Either you scan the merchant’s collection QR code, or you show your payment QR code for the merchant to scan. Merchant-presented codes are the more common arrangement at shops and stalls. Whichever direction is used, the money still moves through the card or balance you linked, so the same approval rules apply.

The same wallets also carry in-app services — taxi hailing, hotel booking, scenic-spot tickets, public transport and currency conversion — and Alipay has expanded its interface translation from Chinese and English to 16 languages, which is why some travellers can complete a local service without reading Chinese.

Cards: read the logos, then ask

A physical card is accepted where the checkout displays the logo of a payment organisation your card belongs to. UnionPay is the broadest single brand on the mainland. Where you see no familiar logo, official guidance is blunt: ask the cashier before you commit to the purchase.

What an international card will not do

Weixin Pay’s published guidance for international cards describes them as usable for everyday purchases within the mainland, and states that certain features such as red packets and person-to-person transfers are not supported with an international card. Plan on the card paying merchants, not moving money between people. If a friend offers to send you a refund, expect to arrange it some other way.

Layer four

Cash, exchange and small notes

Cash has legal standing

RMB is legal tender, and the People’s Bank of China said at its March 2024 briefing that it would uphold that status, take action under the law against merchants that refuse cash, increase the supply of small-denomination notes and require commercial banks to provide small change. That does not mean every vendor welcomes a large note. It does mean you are entitled to pay in cash, and that the practical obstacle is usually the denomination rather than the principle.

Where to get RMB

• Before you travel. Official guidance allows each visitor to bring up to RMB 20,000 in cash into or out of the country per trip, and permits exchanging foreign currency for RMB in advance.
• On arrival. Banks, licensed money changers and self-service exchange machines at international airports and land, sea and other ports of entry, and elsewhere, identified by an Exchange logo.
• From an ATM. Withdraw RMB with an international bank card wherever the machine shows your card network’s logo.
• For small change. Bank counters provide exchange into small notes, and the guidance describes a change-purse product holding a set of equivalent RMB denominations — a reasonable way to start a trip with usable notes instead of three large ones.

What to actually carry

A modest amount in small notes covers a market stall, a taxi that cannot take your QR code, or a phone that died at 90 per cent. Split the cash across bags, the same way you should split your cards.

Numbers, with dates

Limits, fees and who decides them

Start with the rule that outranks everything else on this page. The official guide for foreigners states that the scope of accepted card brands, payment limits and charging standards vary between payment products, and tells you to read the prompts on the payment page and the service agreement. Any figure below is what an authority published on a given date, not a promise about your account.

Mobile payment caps for overseas visitors

At a State Council Information Office policy briefing on 1 March 2024, the People’s Bank of China said it would guide Alipay, Tenpay and other major payment institutions to raise the single-transaction limit for overseas visitors using mobile payment from USD 1,000 to USD 5,000, and the annual cumulative limit from USD 10,000 to USD 50,000. The same figures were restated in the official payment-service guide published in April 2024. The briefing also described the reason: travellers were reporting that payments failed when they spent more than a certain amount.

Identity rules below a threshold

Official guidance from April 2024 states that no additional ID information is required for transactions under a certain amount when foreigners use mobile payments such as Alipay and WeChat Pay. The published note does not give that amount, which is why small payments can succeed before you have completed any verification step.

The 3% international-card fee

The Beijing municipal government reported on 28 May 2025 that WeChat Pay applies a 3% transaction fee to payments made with international bank cards, and that every single transaction under CNY 200 is exempt from that fee. The same announcement described a promotion for users linking an international card for the first time: the 3% fee is fully waived on daily transactions under CNY 1,000 for 60 consecutive days from the first transaction, capped at CNY 30 saved per transaction. It also lists Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover Global Network, JCB, Diners Club and UnionPay as the supported issuing brands.

We could not confirm Alipay’s current fee treatment from a dated official source at the time of writing, so no figure is given for it here. The amount is shown in the payment page when you check out.

Exchange rate

Weixin Pay’s guidance for international card users states that the exchange rate is calculated from the rate applied by your card organisation and your issuing bank — not by the wallet. Two cards on different networks can therefore cost different amounts for the same bowl of noodles, before any transaction fee.

Make the plan survivable

On arrival day, run the layers in order of trust: one low-value mobile payment at a staffed counter, then confirm your backup card is approved for the trip, then note the cash you still hold. A failure you discover buying a bottle of water is an inconvenience. The same failure discovered at an intercity ticket gate is a lost day.

Common questions

Related guides