Living in China

Your First 24 Hours in China: An Arrival Checklist (2026)

By the 17Talk teaching team - certified Mandarin teachers, 8+ years of classroom experience, 3,500+ students in 40 countries
Last updated: 2026-09-16

Quick answer

The order that works is: connect, pay, register, then rest. Do three things before you fly - install Alipay and WeChat Pay and bind a card that works abroad, sort out how you will get online (a SIM at the airport or an eSIM activated before you leave), and tell your bank you are travelling. On airport wifi, finish the app setup before you leave the terminal. Then get to your hotel and let the front desk register you against your passport. If you are staying in a friend's flat or a rented apartment instead, the one legal task of day one is registering your address at a local police station within 24 hours. Carry a little cash even though QR payments work almost everywhere. Save these numbers: 110 police, 120 ambulance, 12367 immigration questions, 12345 city services, 12328 transport complaints.

Before you fly: three things, twenty minutes

Install Alipay and WeChat Pay and bind a card. Fixing a rejected card is much easier at home than it is in a taxi queue, and the two guides walk through the failure modes in order. If you take regular medicine, read the rules on carrying it in, and keep it in its original packaging.

Decide how you will get online. A physical SIM card can be bought at the airport, but an eSIM activated before departure means you land connected, which is what allows you to finish setting up payments on the plane's wifi or in the terminal.

Tell your bank you are travelling. A block on foreign card use is the single most common first-day failure, and it is not visible until the moment you need to pay.

One more twenty-minute job: put about twenty phrases on your phone. The first-day phrase list covers the airport, the taxi, the hotel desk, the restaurant and the two emergencies you hope not to need.

Landing: use the terminal as your office

Airport wifi is your working window. Connect, then finish two jobs before you leave the building: a working phone number, and two working payment apps. Everything after this is easier with both.

The formalities themselves - the arrival card, the fingerprint check and the customs channel - are covered step by step in what happens when you land in China. Two details slow people down: the arrival card's address field, which must carry your hotel's full address rather than a city name, and the red-or-green customs decision if you are carrying more cash than the rules allow undeclared.

If your flight lands late, settle the transport decision now rather than after midnight - taxis and ride-hailing run all night, and the metro does not.

Getting into the city

Three options, in ascending order of cost and convenience. The metro is the cheapest and is signed in English, with fares and first and last train times posted at every station. Didi, the ride-hailing app, quotes a fixed price before you confirm and works with an overseas phone number and an international card. A street taxi is metered and must hand you a receipt; if a driver refuses you, will not use the meter or takes a detour, that is a regulated offence and 12328 is the number that handles it.

Checking in, and the one legal task of day one

At a hotel, registration is the front desk's job: they enter your passport, and you go to your room. If a front desk refuses you for being foreign, the hotel guide has the escalation order - the short version is that using a qualification requirement to refuse an overseas guest is not lawful, and 12367 settles it quickly.

If you are staying in a friend's flat, a rented apartment or a homestay instead, this is the rule most visitors never hear about: under Article 39 of the Exit and Entry Administration Law, a foreigner staying outside a hotel must register with the local public security office within 24 hours of arrival, in person or through the host. Article 76 sets the penalty for skipping it at a warning or a fine of up to RMB 2,000. Take your passport, your host's ID and the address, and do it on day one.

Money on day one

Your Alipay or WeChat Pay account will handle almost everything, with one quirk worth knowing before you are surprised by it: an international card is free for transactions of RMB 200 or less, and charged 3% of the whole amount above that.

Carry some cash anyway. ATMs accept foreign cards with a per-transaction ceiling - RMB 3,000 at Bank of China - and national policy requires businesses to accept cash and to keep change on hand, so a banknote is a real fallback rather than a museum piece.

If you plan to buy anything substantial to take home, read how the departure tax refund works before you shop, not after. The thresholds decide whether a purchase qualifies at all, and the paperwork has to be requested at the counter.

If something goes wrong on day one

Payment declines. The fix usually starts in your own banking app, not in the Chinese one - check for a fraud alert before you assume the card does not work. The binding failures and their causes are covered in the Alipay guide.

You feel unwell. Pharmacies and hospitals: pharmacies sell non-prescription medicine without paperwork, hospital outpatient departments produce prescriptions, and 120 is the ambulance number.

A transport dispute. 12328, the transport service supervision hotline, handles taxis, buses and metro, and accepts reports around the clock.

Anything urgent. 110 for police, 120 for an ambulance, 119 for fire. For rules and paperwork questions, 12367 (immigration) and 12345 (city services) both answer in English.

Day one, in order

If you only read one table on this site, make it this one.

Task	When	The guide
Bind a card to Alipay or WeChat Pay	Before you fly	How to use Alipay in China
Arrange a SIM or eSIM	Before you fly, or at the airport	How to get a SIM card in China
Get online and finish app setup	Airport wifi, on arrival	How to get a SIM card in China
Reach your accommodation	On arrival	How to use DiDi in China
Be registered as a guest	At check-in	Can foreigners stay in any hotel in China
Eat, without leaving the room if you are jet-lagged	First evening	How to order food in China
Register your address (non-hotel stays)	Within 24 hours	This page, step four
Withdraw some cash	Day one or two	How to withdraw cash in China
Know where the pharmacy is	Day one	Where to buy medicine in China

Common questions

What is the single most important thing to do before flying?

Bind an international card to Alipay or WeChat Pay while you still have easy access to your bank, and decide how you will get online on arrival. Those two determine how smooth the first day is.

Do I need cash when I land?

A little. QR payments cover almost everything, but ATMs have per-transaction limits and a banknote is a genuine fallback - policy requires businesses to accept cash and keep change.

My flight lands after midnight - what are my options?

Ride-hailing and taxis run all night; metro services stop well before midnight. Book accommodation in advance so you are not solving two problems at 1am.

I am staying with a friend. What is the one legal thing I must do?

Register your address at a local police station within 24 hours of arriving, in person or through your host. Skipping it can mean a warning or a fine of up to RMB 2,000.

Which numbers should I save?

110 police, 120 ambulance, 119 fire. Plus 12367 for immigration questions, 12345 for city services and 12328 for transport problems - the last two are the practical everyday ones.

How long does payment setup take?

About twenty minutes on wifi with a card that works abroad. The delay is usually your own bank's fraud check, which is why it is worth doing before you fly.

Sources

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