China Visa-Free for Malaysians, Singaporeans, Thais and Indonesians

The three ASEAN passports that are already sorted

If you hold an ordinary Malaysian, Singaporean or Thai passport, you do not need a visa for a normal holiday in mainland China. All three countries have mutual agreements with China giving 30 days per entry for tourism, business visits, family visits and transit. No visa centre, no invitation letter, no onward-ticket requirement.

Bruneian passports get the same 30 days under China’s unilateral visa-free list. Between them that covers most of the region’s leisure traffic — and it is why we can put a full China itinerary together without anybody visiting a visa centre first.

Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam are the exception

None of the three is on the 30-day visa-free list for a standalone holiday, and this is where most of the confusion comes from. Travel agents and blog posts tend to lump all of Southeast Asia together, and the rules are not remotely uniform.

Indonesian, Filipino and Vietnamese passport holders have three realistic ways in: a standard L tourist visa from a Chinese visa centre; 240-hour (10-day) visa-free transit, if the routing genuinely qualifies; or the 30-day Hainan island waiver, which does cover these nationalities but confines you to Hainan Province.

The group routes: six visa-free days in Guilin or Xishuangbanna

This is the least-known option, and it is the one most relevant to Southeast Asian travellers. China runs regional policies for ASEAN tour groups: all ten ASEAN nationalities, ordinary passports, parties of two or more, arranged in advance through a licensed Chinese travel agency and entering and leaving together as a group.

Guilin, Guangxi: up to six days, arriving and departing through Guilin airport, with the whole stay inside Guilin municipality — which includes the Li River and Yangshuo.

Xishuangbanna, Yunnan: up to six days, arriving and departing through Xishuangbanna Gasa International Airport or the Mohan rail and road crossings, with the stay limited to Xishuangbanna Prefecture.

Both are counted from midnight on the day after you arrive, so six days means six full days on the ground. This is the kind of arrival we arrange, and it is worth knowing about if you hold an Indonesian or Filipino passport and want a short China trip without the visa paperwork.

Hainan: thirty days, no group required

Hainan runs its own scheme for 61 nationalities — including Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and Brunei, plus the United States, Canada, Australia and most of Europe. Thirty days, no onward ticket, no agency filing, no group. The one condition is that the entire stay must be inside Hainan Province.

For passports that the national list leaves out, this is the easiest no-visa option there is, and it pairs naturally with the beaches of Sanya and the rainforest inland. If you want to see the rest of China on the same trip, though, you will need a visa or a qualifying transit routing.

240-hour transit: what actually qualifies

The transit waiver gives most nationalities, Indonesia and the Philippines included, up to 10 days in China — as long as the route runs Country A → China → Country C with a confirmed onward ticket. Flying home the way you came does not count as a transit.

Valid: Jakarta → Shanghai → Tokyo. Manila → Guangzhou → Bangkok. Invalid: Jakarta → Beijing → Jakarta. Usefully, Hong Kong, China, Macao, China and Taiwan, China all count as third regions for this purpose, so ending your route in one of them is a legitimate way to close the loop.

What the border officer will actually look at

Whichever route you use: a passport valid for the length of your stay with blank pages, a completed arrival declaration, the address of your first night, and — for transit entry — the confirmed onward ticket, printed or clearly accessible on your phone. Meeting the conditions does not guarantee admission; entry is always at the officer’s discretion.

Two rules catch people out. A visa-free entry cannot be extended from inside China, so plan to be out before the day your stamp runs out, not on it. And visa-free status covers tourism, business meetings, family visits and transit only — not paid work, study or media reporting. Overstays are fined by the day and can result in a re-entry ban.

Verified on 13 October 2026 — still check before you fly

The details here reflect China’s National Immigration Administration policy pages as they stood on 13 October 2026; the ASEAN group and Hainan rules were last updated there on 20 August 2026. China’s visa-free list has been widening every few months, and some arrangements are trials with expiry dates, so a guide written last year is not a safe guide.

Treat this as a planning aid rather than a legal document. Send us a photo of your passport page and your rough dates and we will confirm in writing which rule applies to you — it takes a few minutes and it is free. One thing that does not change: if your itinerary includes Tibet, you need a separate Tibet permit on top of whatever visa or waiver you enter under.