Chinese diplomatic missions across five continents simultaneously announced on 19 December that they will no longer take fingerprints from travellers who apply for Chinese visas valid for stays of up to 180 days. The pilot, which runs from 19 December 2025 through 31 December 2026, removes a biometric step that had been mandatory since 2018 and had obliged applicants to appear in person even when the rest of the paperwork could be filed online. Notices were published by consulates in Suriname, Micronesia, Indonesia, Mauritius, Australia and the Netherlands within hours of one another, signalling a centrally-co-ordinated rollout.
Under the new rules, tourists (L), business visitors (M), family-visit (Q2/S2) and short-study (X2) applicants can now courier their passports to visa centres or use third-party agents, compressing processing times by as much as two weeks and cutting costs linked to travel and time off work. Applicants for residence-linked categories such as work (Z), journalism (J1) and long-term study (X1) must still present fingerprints because they must convert their entry visa into a residence permit after arrival. Exemptions that already existed for diplomatic passport holders, children under 14 and adults over 70 remain in place.
Travel coordinators who prefer an end-to-end solution can hand the entire filing process to VisaHQ. The company’s China desk (https://www.visahq.com/china/) keeps real-time tabs on consular rule changes, supplies the correct application forms, and arranges secure courier pickup and return of passports, ensuring that organisations and individual travellers reap the new speed benefits without assigning staff to chase paperwork.
![China drops fingerprints for most short-term visa applicants worldwide]()
Beijing’s decision is widely interpreted by travel-management companies as the final piece of its post-pandemic visa reboot. Over the past 12 months China has restored visa-free entry for 45 countries, introduced a 240-hour transit-without-visa scheme at 65 ports and rolled out an online arrival-card system. Removing biometric capture for most short-stay categories places Chinese consular practice roughly on par with the Schengen area and the United Kingdom, which only fingerprint applicants seeking residence or multi-year work status.
For corporate mobility teams, the change eliminates one of the biggest bottlenecks in getting engineers, executives and project managers back into mainland plants. Global mobility managers should update their visa checklists, brief travellers that in-person appointments are no longer needed for short-term trips, and monitor local visa-centre websites for revised document submission procedures. Companies that rely on visa agencies will also want to renegotiate service fees now that no staff escort is required for fingerprint appointments.
Because the pilot is scheduled to run for one full year, experts expect it will become permanent provided no major security incidents occur. If so, China will have effectively reversed a key element of its 2018 biometric expansion and signalled that boosting inbound travel now outweighs the marginal security benefits of fingerprinting every visitor.
Under the new rules, tourists (L), business visitors (M), family-visit (Q2/S2) and short-study (X2) applicants can now courier their passports to visa centres or use third-party agents, compressing processing times by as much as two weeks and cutting costs linked to travel and time off work. Applicants for residence-linked categories such as work (Z), journalism (J1) and long-term study (X1) must still present fingerprints because they must convert their entry visa into a residence permit after arrival. Exemptions that already existed for diplomatic passport holders, children under 14 and adults over 70 remain in place.
Travel coordinators who prefer an end-to-end solution can hand the entire filing process to VisaHQ. The company’s China desk (https://www.visahq.com/china/) keeps real-time tabs on consular rule changes, supplies the correct application forms, and arranges secure courier pickup and return of passports, ensuring that organisations and individual travellers reap the new speed benefits without assigning staff to chase paperwork.
Beijing’s decision is widely interpreted by travel-management companies as the final piece of its post-pandemic visa reboot. Over the past 12 months China has restored visa-free entry for 45 countries, introduced a 240-hour transit-without-visa scheme at 65 ports and rolled out an online arrival-card system. Removing biometric capture for most short-stay categories places Chinese consular practice roughly on par with the Schengen area and the United Kingdom, which only fingerprint applicants seeking residence or multi-year work status.
For corporate mobility teams, the change eliminates one of the biggest bottlenecks in getting engineers, executives and project managers back into mainland plants. Global mobility managers should update their visa checklists, brief travellers that in-person appointments are no longer needed for short-term trips, and monitor local visa-centre websites for revised document submission procedures. Companies that rely on visa agencies will also want to renegotiate service fees now that no staff escort is required for fingerprint appointments.
Because the pilot is scheduled to run for one full year, experts expect it will become permanent provided no major security incidents occur. If so, China will have effectively reversed a key element of its 2018 biometric expansion and signalled that boosting inbound travel now outweighs the marginal security benefits of fingerprinting every visitor.
