21 Traveling abroad, trips, and safety overseas

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs publishes safety advisories for foreign countries, ranked by risk. From low to high there are about 4 levels: "Pay attention to safety," "Strengthen safety precautions," "Travel with caution," and "Do not travel for now." The new rule in force from September 15, 2026 also writes a personal duty into an administrative regulation. The original text says: "Chinese citizens shall pay attention to safety advisories for foreign countries and to safety-risk notices for tourist destinations, and shall avoid traveling to and remaining in high-risk countries or regions." The new rule also requires the immigration authorities (the departments that issue entry and exit documents and run border inspection), when handling documents and at exit border inspection, to remind people who are heading to high-risk areas. The original text of that part says: "For a Chinese citizen preparing to go to a country or region whose risk level is the highest, or where cases that seriously endanger personal safety have suddenly become frequent, they shall, when necessary, dissuade that person from going."

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs operates a 24-hour global emergency hotline for consular protection and services. Inside China, call 12308; abroad, call +86-10-12308 or +86-10-65612308. Since its launch in 2014, this hotline has answered over 3 million calls, while the Ministry and its overseas missions have handled more than 500,000 consular protection cases of all kinds.

If you are arrested, the embassy or consulate can do these things. It can check the situation with the relevant department of the host country and ask that you be handled fairly and according to law. The original text of the regulations says: "visit that person or contact that person in accordance with the law of the host country and the international treaties China and the host country have concluded or both joined, learn what that person needs, and require the relevant department of the host country to give that Chinese citizen humanitarian treatment and fair treatment." In everyday words, the embassy or consulate visits you, contacts you, and asks what you need, following local law and the treaties both countries signed, and it asks the local side to treat you by a humane and fair standard. When the court sits, the embassy or consulate may attend and may ask that your rights in the case be protected. If you are injured or caught in a disaster, it can press the local side for emergency help and can help your family with the aftermath. On money, the regulations are just as clear: "Where a Chinese citizen, legal person, or unincorporated organization, in the course of consular protection and assistance, receives goods and services such as food and lodging, transport, and medical care provided by a third party, that person or organization shall pay the expenses that it should bear itself." Food, lodging, transport, and medical care that someone else advanced, if they are yours to pay, are still yours to pay.

Medical bills abroad are yours to pay. Domestic yibao (医保 — basic medical insurance) basically does not reimburse care abroad. Consular protection does not advance this money either. See item 3 of this section (what consular protection can and cannot do). The basis is Article 26 of the regulations. What can really drag a family under is not the outpatient fee. It is the hospital stay after a serious injury, and medical evacuation. Moving a person from a hospital abroad back to China takes a special flight or a medical escort, and that is among the most expensive items you pay for yourself. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that emergency transport of a patient from a remote place to a good hospital, if you pay it yourself, can cost more than 100000 US dollars. When you buy insurance, look first at 2 limits. The first is the limit for overseas medical expenses. The other is the limit for emergency medical evacuation and return, which is how much can be paid, at most, for a transfer after something happens and for sending the person home.

The official description of this kind of case is direct. In recent years there have been people who "leave the country because they were deceived, or illegally leave the country on a made-up pretext, to engage in cross-border gambling, telecom and network fraud, and other illegal activity, seriously harming the safety of the public's lives and property." That means being tricked into going, or inventing a reason and slipping out, and then gambling and running telecom fraud over there. The new rule tightens both ends of this. On the way out: "The reason given for an application to exit or enter, or to stay or reside, shall be true and lawful." If you hand in false materials or tell a lie, the immigration authority has the power not to issue you documents and not to let you leave. On the way back: "Where a Chinese citizen engages in illegal or criminal activity abroad and harms national security and national interests, a decision may be made... that the person shall not leave the country for a period of not less than 6 months and not more than 3 years from the date of return." A person placed in administrative detention for obtaining documents by fraud, or for illegal exit or entry, is likewise barred from leaving the country for 6 months to 3 years.

The basis is the State Administration of Foreign Exchange notice on regulating large overseas cash withdrawals with bank cards, Hui Fa [2017] No. 29, in force from January 1, 2018. Article 1: "Where an individual withdraws cash overseas with a domestic bank card, the bank cards in that person's own name (including supplementary cards), taken together, shall not exceed the equivalent of 100,000 yuan in each calendar year. If the annual quota is exceeded, overseas cash withdrawal with a domestic bank card will be suspended for the current year and the following year." Paragraph 2 of the same article: "An individual shall not evade, or help someone else evade, the controls on overseas cash withdrawal by borrowing another person's bank card or by lending out his or her own bank card." Article 2: every day the foreign-exchange authority sends the suspension list to the card-issuing banks, and a card-issuing bank shall, no later than 17 o'clock Beijing time that day, suspend overseas cash withdrawal with that bank's cards for the people on the list. Article 3: a person placed on the suspension list may take a valid identity document to a branch of the foreign-exchange authority and look up his or her own overseas cash-withdrawal record. Article 4: the per-card daily cap for a foreign-currency card was adjusted from the equivalent of 1000 US dollars to the equivalent of 10,000 yuan; for an RMB card, the cap stays at no more than the equivalent of 10,000 yuan per card per day. Article 6: where a card-issuing bank, a domestic RMB-card clearing organization, or an individual violates this notice, the penalty follows the relevant provisions of the Regulations of the People's Republic of China on Foreign Exchange Administration. A press Q&A from the foreign-exchange authority also makes a few points clear. The notice does not affect an individual's card spending overseas. Ordinary transactions for food, lodging, transport, and shopping on an overseas trip, a business trip, or study abroad can all be paid by bank card. That spending also does not use up the annual 50000 US dollar facilitation quota for buying foreign exchange. The annual quota is calculated by the foreign-exchange authority from the data of all the card-issuing institutions, because real-time control would slow the response of the transaction, and "the foreign-exchange authority uses a delayed control method" (it does not block the transaction on the spot). Separately, statistics show that in 2016, 81% of overseas cash withdrawals on domestic bank cards were below 30,000 yuan, nationwide. Carrying cash in or out has a separate set of rules. The new customs declaration form in use from April 1, 2025 says on the back: "The RMB each person carries in or out each time shall not exceed 20,000 yuan." For foreign-currency cash on the way in, "an amount exceeding the equivalent of 5000 US dollars shall be declared to customs in writing." On the way out, if you carry the equivalent of more than 5000 US dollars and up to 10000 US dollars, you first get a Permit for Carrying Foreign Exchange out of the Country from a bank, then declare it to customs. Above 10000 US dollars, you get that permit from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange. The foreign-exchange authority's measures state that a person leaving the country "in principle shall not carry foreign-currency cash exceeding the equivalent of 10000 US dollars out of the country." The customs measures on supervision of luggage and articles provide that currency cash above the set amount must be declared to customs in writing both on the way in and on the way out. If the written declaration is still not finished when customs starts the inspection, it counts as not declared. If you did not declare it, but you did not hide it, customs gives a warning and may impose a fine of up to 20% of the value of the goods. If you hide it, disguise it, or under-declare it, that counts as smuggling: the cash is confiscated, and a fine of up to the same value may also be imposed.

When a passport is lost, Chinese embassies or consulates abroad can issue a travel document for repatriation, but only after you verify your identity. The speed of this process depends heavily on whether you possess clear photos of the passport data page, visa pages, and entry/exit records. You also have to report it to the local police first and get the receipt. Border checks and insurance claims in many countries ask for that paper. The contact numbers for embassy assistance are the same two emergency hotlines listed in item 2.

A so-called "international driver's license" (IDP) is a translation mutually recognized among the parties to the 1949 Convention on Road Traffic. That convention was concluded in Geneva on September 19, 1949, and entered into force on March 26, 1952. There are now 103 parties (countries and regions that signed). Mainland China is not on that list. So China does not issue this kind of international driver's license. Any agency that "arranges an international driver's license" inside China produces no legal effect. Whether you can drive on a Chinese license depends on the rules of the destination country or region. Some accept a Chinese license plus a notarized translation, some require you to exchange it for a local license, and some do not accept it at all.

In 2018 the entry permit for private entry-exit agencies was cancelled (opening an agency no longer requires an approval document first). After that the number of agencies grew quickly, and there was also the problem that "the true number of agencies is unclear, some agencies handle business in violation of the rules, and the lawful rights and interests of people exiting and entering are harmed." The authorities could not even count how many there were. From September 15, 2026, this kind of agency is managed by filing. An agency shall report to the immigration authority where it is located within 15 days from the day it is established. Those already operating have to complete the filing within 90 days from the day the rule takes effect. Several kinds of conduct are expressly forbidden. The first is "publishing false information, or soliciting clients by exaggerated publicity, misleading publicity, or similar means." The second is "providing or assisting in providing false materials, and assisting others in handling, in violation of the rules, visas, stay or residence documents, passports, or other exit-entry documents or procedures." The third is "leaking, selling, or illegally providing ... personal privacy or personal information." The fourth is "organizing or assisting others in cross-border illegal or criminal activity." Overseas enterprises and institutions must not provide this kind of agency service inside China.

The person who issues an invitation letter is responsible for whether the contents are true. The original text says: "Where an individual issues a false invitation letter or other application materials for another person applying for exit or entry, or for stay or residence, the immigration authority shall impose a fine of not less than 5000 yuan and not more than 10,000 yuan; where there are illegal gains, the illegal gains shall be confiscated." Where an organization issues false materials, the fine is not less than 10,000 yuan and not more than 50,000 yuan. At the same time, the person in charge who is directly responsible and the other persons directly responsible (the leader in charge and the person who handled it) are each fined not less than 5000 yuan and not more than 10,000 yuan.

When a Chinese citizen's whereabouts overseas are unknown, relatives may ask a Chinese diplomatic mission abroad for help. The original text of the regulations says: "A diplomatic mission abroad shall provide the local way to call the police and other information on how to get help." After the local police open a case, the embassy or consulate will press them to handle it in time. Whether this help can start depends on whether someone in China knows where you were supposed to be and when you were supposed to make contact.

Japan regulates medicines by ingredient. A medicine with more than 10% pseudoephedrine counts as a "stimulant raw material." A medicine with more than 1% codeine counts as a narcotic. Both require a permit from the Narcotics Control Department of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare before entry, at least 14 days ahead. You must carry the medicine yourself. You cannot mail it, and you cannot have a family member carry it for you. For a psychiatric drug such as diazepam or triazolam, a supply of up to a month does not need an application. Ordinary medicines have limits too: a prescription medicine within a month's supply, and other medicines within a 2-month supply. Above that, you first get an "import confirmation certificate." The reminder from the Chinese embassy in Japan says, in the original wording, that illegally carrying medicines and similar items into Japan means "the violator will be fined, detained, or even sentenced, and the prohibited items will be confiscated." The rule of Singapore's Health Sciences Authority (HSA) is: a medicine that does not contain a controlled ingredient, at most a 3-month supply. Carry a copy of the prescription or of a doctor's letter. Keep the medicine in the original pack, with the pharmacy label on it. A medicine that contains a controlled ingredient needs approval applied for at least 2 weeks ahead. A supply of more than 3 months may not be brought in at all, and neither may a medicine in the form of chewing gum. Carrying medicine for someone else is limited to a direct relative's own prescription medicine. Medicine that does not comply will be confiscated, and you may also face enforcement. On the Chinese side, the Customs Law requires that articles an individual carries in or out be "limited to personal use and a reasonable quantity." Narcotic drugs and the first category of psychotropic drugs may be carried, within the maximum amount of a single prescription, on a hospital diagnosis certificate and an identity document. Customs releases them on the principle of personal use and a reasonable quantity.

In 2021 the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs and the General Administration of Customs published a banned list. It covers what you carry with you, what you check in, what you mail, what you send by courier, and what you buy directly by cross-border e-commerce. The kinds that matter most to an ordinary traveler are these. The first is meat. The original text is "(raw or cooked) meat (including offal) and products made from it," and the list does not make an exception by packaging. The second is milk and eggs. Cream, butter, cheese, and condensed milk are included, and so are preserved eggs, salted eggs, and mayonnaise. The third is "fresh fruit and vegetables" and fresh cut flowers. The fourth is seeds, seedlings, and other plant material that can grow. The fifth is live animals, except cats and dogs. Bird's nest is also banned, with the only exception canned bird's nest that has been treated to commercial sterility. Article 29 of the Law on the Entry and Exit Animal and Plant Quarantine states that bringing in something on the list is "handled by sending it back or destroying it." An animal or plant product that is not on the list may be brought in, but it still has to be declared. The customs measures on supervision of luggage and articles state that a person carrying animals, plants, or animal or plant products shall declare them to customs in writing. If the written declaration is still not finished when customs starts the inspection, it counts as not declared. The measures also say, in the original wording: "A person who does not know the customs rules, or does not know which channel to choose, shall choose the 'red channel.'" The penalty for not declaring is in Article 39 of the quarantine law: a person who "failed to apply for inspection" is fined. Article 59 of the implementing regulations of the quarantine law sets this kind of fine at 5000 yuan or less.