About

Why this site exists

ChinaReady Check is a free, independent tool built to help foreign travelers clear the three friction points before flying to China under the 240-hour visa-free transit policy: the airline check-in counter, Chinese immigration on arrival, and the mandatory Digital Arrival Card.

The problem we're trying to solve

China's 240-hour visa-free transit policy is one of the most generous transit programs in the world. On paper it's simple: enter through one of 65 listed ports, stay 10 days or fewer, exit to a different country or region.

In practice, three friction points get even qualifying travelers in trouble:

  • The airline check-in agent doesn't know the rule. The FlyerTalk thread documenting denied boardings now runs 29+ pages. Most cases are travelers who actually qualified — and were refused by an agent reading the first line of an outdated visa-policy database.
  • The new Digital Arrival Card (mandatory since November 2025) has been targeted by scam sites charging fees and harvesting passport data. The official service is free, but the fake ones outrank it on Google ads.
  • Edge cases trip people up. Hong Kong as a third region? Yes. High-speed rail exit to Hong Kong via West Kowloon? Yes. Different entry and exit ports? Yes. None of this is obvious from a quick read of the official policy.

What this site does

  • Eligibility checker — type in your passport, your route, your ports, your dates. We compare against the NIA policy and give you YES / NO / EDGE-CASE plus a specific fix when it's not eligible.
  • Boarding Kit generator — produces a one-page bilingual document with your specific itinerary, the NIA policy excerpt, and a QR code linking to en.nia.gov.cn. Print it and hand it to the airline check-in agent if they question your eligibility. Generated entirely in your browser — your passport number never reaches our servers.
  • Digital Arrival Card walkthrough — step-by-step instructions for the mandatory CDAC form at s.nia.gov.cn, plus how to recognize the scam sites.
  • 240h route templates — five route-compliance-first templates covering legal entry/exit pairs, HSR timings, stay-area caveats, and port-aware design.
  • Editorial guides — longer articles covering edge cases, denied-boarding stories, scam patterns, and decision frameworks. Every claim is cited.

What this site deliberately does NOT do

  • We do not fill the Digital Arrival Card on your behalf. The NIA has issued multiple warnings about third-party sites that charge for this free service. We are not one of them. We teach you the form. We never touch your CDAC submission.
  • We do not store your passport data. The Boarding Kit is generated entirely in your browser. Your name, passport number, and itinerary never reach our servers.
  • We are not affiliated with the National Immigration Administration of China, Chinese embassies, airlines, or any government body. We quote public policy and link to authoritative sources, but we have no official status and we do not pretend otherwise.
  • We do not scrape Tripadvisor / Lonely Planet / China Highlights. All content is hand-curated from public government sources and traveler reports that we cite directly.
  • We do not sell paid placements. Eligibility verdicts are not influenced by affiliate relationships. See our affiliate disclosure for the full list of partners we earn commission from when a reader chooses to use them.

Editorial process

Every eligibility rule, port list, province scope, and policy excerpt on this site is traceable to a named primary source — almost always a published page on en.nia.gov.cn or another official.gov.cn domain. We do not paraphrase from third-party blogs. Every page that quotes policy displays the snapshot date and a direct link to the source.

The current policy snapshot is dated 2026-05-18. We re-verify the NIA policy on the first business day of each month and after any announced change; see sources for the full source list and maintenance log.

Corrections and source updates: hello@chinareadycheck.com. We aim to respond within a few business days and credit reporters on the sources page when their report leads to a published correction.

How we make money

The site is free to use. We earn commissions when readers buy a recommended service through our partner links — China-friendly VPNs, eSIM, currency transfers, hotels and trains booked through Trip.com / Klook / Booking. Every affiliate link is clearly marked "Sponsored · we may earn a commission." Commissions never affect which eligibility verdict we give or which itinerary template we recommend.

See the full affiliate disclosure for partner-by-partner detail.