‘No problem at all’: Tour operators, foreign travellers unfazed by China’s new exit-entry rules
Taking effect on Sep 15, China’s new exit-entry rules largely put existing practices into writing – but they also give authorities greater powers to intervene in sensitive cross-border movements, analysts say.
Members of a Singapore tour group at a Tajik wedding during a home visit in Tashkurgan, Xinjiang, in September 2026. Tour leader Li Liang Yi (centre) was invited to be a witness at the ceremony. (Photo: Li Liang Yi)
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SHANGHAI: Fu Tianhui, 74, is heading for the highest paved border crossing on Earth.
The Singaporean retiree is travelling along the Karakoram Highway towards the Khunjerab Pass, where China meets Pakistan at 4,693m. It is his third trip to China this year.
New rules governing China’s borders take effect on Sep 15, but Fu sees little reason for ordinary tourists to be concerned.
“No problem at all,” he said.
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Nor has anyone else on the tour – whose members are all in their 70s – asked about them, said Li Liang Yi, president of Singapore-based China Express Travel, which organised the trip.
“I don’t think the regulations are targeting tourists at all,” Li told CNA.
Issued by the State Council in July, the new regulations govern the entry and exit of people across China’s borders.
Most concern Chinese citizens leaving the country, with measures aimed at managing overseas safety risks and unlawful cross-border activity.
The rules have nevertheless prompted concern and confusion online, with claims that phones would be searched, visa-free entry was ending and that ordinary people would be barred from leaving – prompting Chinese media to publish explainers challenging such interpretations.
But tour operators, travellers and a Chinese immigration lawyer all told CNA that most travellers will see little practical impact.
The rules instead point to a more selective approach to border control – keeping ordinary travel open while giving authorities greater scope to intervene in movements deemed sensitive, experts said.
NEW RULES, SAME WELCOME?
For the vast majority of travellers, the experience at the border may feel much the same.
One notable difference for foreigners entering China is a specified penalty for providing false information.
Under the new regulations, they can be barred from entering the country for one to five years. Existing laws already allowed offenders to be refused entry, but did not set a ban period.
The new regulations also require the stated purpose of any entry or exit to be “true and lawful”, and explicitly allow immigration and visa authorities to question travellers and request supporting materials and electronic data.
Much of what the regulations spell out is already happening in practice, said Wang Xin, a lawyer specialising in nationality and immigration law at Guangdong Tiansuo Law Firm in Shenzhen.
CNA put to him the case of a visitor entering China visa-free for a three-day business conference who stays five more days to travel. Would declaring tourism as the purpose of the trip amount to providing false information?
“That doesn’t count as a false statement,” Wang said. “You’re just saying you’re coming for tourism, but you happen to attend a conference in between – no problem.”
“As long as you’re not working here. Once you’re working long-term and receiving income, that’s different.”
Nor would an honest mistake on a form necessarily fall foul of the rules, Wang said, distinguishing between error and intent.
“If it’s not subjective intent, then it’s not a crime.”
Officers can also require travellers to provide electronic data when verifying their identity or stated purpose – which Wang said could extend to one’s phone. Such inspections would be spot checks rather than routine, he said, adding that refusing to comply could result in entry being denied.
Asked whether that differed from other countries, Wang said it’s “not significantly different”.
“Previously, it just wasn’t written on paper that you could check this or that.”
The rules come amid booming cross-border travel as China expands visa-free access.
China processed 369 million entries and exits in the first half of 2026, up 10.8 per cent from a year earlier, according to National Immigration Administration data.
Foreigners accounted for 45.9 million of those crossings, with arrivals alone reaching 22.9 million, up 20.4 per cent. Of those arrivals, 17.8 million – 77.7 per cent – entered visa-free, a year-on-year rise of 30.6 per cent.
Singapore and China have offered mutual visa-free entry of up to 30 days since February 2024. Li from China Express Travel said that’s primarily what his customers pay attention to.
“As long as the length of stay doesn’t get shorter, it doesn’t affect them,” he said.
“Nobody asks whether regulations have been tightened or upgraded, because it doesn’t interfere with their normal travel.”
His groups fill in an electronic arrival card in advance. At the border, he said, it is a passport, a stamp and an electronic scan. “And that’s it,” he remarked.
Li said his bookings after Sep 15 are unaffected.
Jeannette Chong, a 64-year-old Singaporean planning on travelling to Shenzhen and Guangzhou in November, said she has faced far more questions at other borders.
German immigration officers wanted to know how much cash she was carrying and where she was staying, while Australian authorities checked for food.
“As long as we behave properly … as long as we’re really just there for sightseeing tourism, why should we be afraid of people checking us?” she said.
“We’re going for tourism, so let’s relax and enjoy it.”
MORE SCRUTINY FOR CHINESE TRAVELLERS
For Chinese citizens travelling abroad, the regulations go further – spelling out additional circumstances in which they can be prevented from leaving.
Those given administrative detention for fraudulently obtaining exit-entry documents or illegally entering or leaving the country can be barred from leaving for between six months and three years after completing their punishment.
The same restriction can apply to individuals who engage in unlawful activity overseas that harms national security or interests and return to China.
People who violate export control or technology import-export rules in ways that may harm industrial or technological security can also be prevented from leaving, although the new rules do not specify a fixed period for such curbs.
Meanwhile, authorities must publish safety warnings for overseas destinations deemed risky due to reasons such as war, natural disasters or epidemics.
Immigration officers should “dissuade” citizens “when necessary” from travelling to places assessed to carry the highest level of risk, or where sudden threats to personal safety emerge.
The text does not say what immigration officers can do if a traveller insists on going despite being advised against it.
Wang said such dissuasion already happens, citing the Nepal-Tibet disaster as a recent example.
A tsunami-like flood of water and mud struck communities along the China-Nepal border on Aug 26, killing more than 1,400 people – mostly on the Nepali side – and leaving thousands more missing.
Travellers have since been dissuaded from going to Shigatse in Tibet, he noted.
From Aug 28, the National Immigration Administration stopped issuing the electronic permits needed to enter Shigatse’s border management zones, and advised existing permit holders not to travel there for the time being.
Wang cited Ukraine as another example.
“If you want to go directly to Ukraine, you’ll definitely be dissuaded from doing so, because some people go to Ukraine to serve as soldiers,” he said.
“Of course, if they go around through other places, there’s nothing that can be done about it.”
WHY ALL THE ANXIETY?
Despite indications that little may change for most travellers, the regulations have stirred unease online.
Claims circulating online include assertions that Chinese citizens could face greater hurdles travelling abroad, that the measures signal an end to visa-free entry and that phone checks could become routine.
Explainers posted on Chinese content platforms have pushed back against such interpretations.
One, published on Aug 15 by an independent account on NetEase, traced the rumours to so-called marketing accounts which had twisted “dissuasion” into claims that travellers would be forcibly stopped from leaving China.
Marketing accounts are commercially driven online outfits that often churn out sensational content to attract clicks and traffic.
Another, posted on Aug 6 by an account on Sohu, rebutted the claims point by point against the official text.
The state-run Global Times also weighed in with an editorial in early August, accusing foreign media of fixating on “dissuasion” and “exit restrictions”.
The pushback has also played out on Chinese social media.
On Xiaohongshu, some users sought to reassure others that ordinary travel would be unaffected.
In posts reviewed by CNA, one user said they had initially assumed tourism would be restricted, before concluding that “ordinary people travelling won’t face any limits”.
Another, replying to a traveller anxious about an upcoming trip to Japan, wrote that the rules “have always been there, they’ve just been re-standardised”.
“Don’t let those agents manufacture anxiety for you,” the user wrote, referring to visa and immigration agencies – known in China as zhongjie – some of which have been accused of stoking fears about the rules to drum up business.
A third said their Japan plan was unchanged and that the tension online “comes more from misunderstanding of the information”.
At the same time, Japan also illustrates where uncertainty remains over how the regulations will work in practice.
China’s foreign ministry has advised citizens against travel there since November 2025, after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s remarks on Taiwan triggered a diplomatic row.
In the first half of 2026, mainland Chinese arrivals in Japan fell 56.4 per cent from a year earlier to 2.06 million, according to data from the Japan National Tourism Organization – a drop the agency attributed to the advisory and to reduced flights.
The regulations do not spell out whether such an advisory would place Japan in the highest risk category that can trigger “dissuasion” at the border, and Chinese immigration authorities have not publicly clarified this.
“INSTITUTIONALLY SIGNIFICANT”
If most ordinary travellers notice little difference, the new regulations could prove more consequential in expanding authorities’ powers over sensitive cross-border movements, analysts said.
Chinese policy researcher Li Yaqi described the changes as “legally incremental but institutionally significant”, pointing out how exit controls are now linked to export control, technology security and sanctions enforcement.
The approach, Li said, is to keep ordinary flows open while expanding China’s ability to intervene when particular people, technologies or capital movements are judged as strategically sensitive.
Gary Ng, a senior economist at French investment bank Natixis, said the export-control clause has parallels elsewhere.
“If you use Taiwan as an example, there are official rules stopping certain tech experts from going to the mainland. Same for South Korea,” he told CNA.
Henry Gao, a professor at Singapore Management University (SMU) specialising in trade law, singled out a provision requiring written notice of an exit ban with reasons and avenues of appeal – except where notification “may affect national security or a criminal investigation”.
“A person deemed to present a national security risk may be placed under an exit ban without ever being informed of the decision,” Gao said on Jul 31 in a post on social media platform X.
He described the regulation as “another major step in transforming the right to leave China into a privilege granted at the discretion of the state”.
Beyond such exceptions, however, the requirement for written notification could make exit restrictions more transparent, said Wang from Guangdong Tiansuo Law Firm.
Under the old practice of “nei kong” – or internal control – a mark on a person’s file could stop them at the border with no explanation of which agency had acted or why, he said.
“Now at least you can demand a written explanation stating why you can’t leave,” he said.
“Once there’s a written explanation, they won’t dare to act arbitrarily.”
Wang said enforcement could vary by region and port, as is often the case in China, and that travellers were unlikely to see a sudden change when the rules take effect on Sep 15.
And for travellers wondering whether they need to do anything differently, he had simple advice.
“Nothing special. Just do what you did before. If border inspection personnel question you, just tell the truth.”
Source: CNA/xy(ws)
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