China’s National Immigration Administration (NIA) has forecast that average daily inbound and outbound passenger flows during the nine-day Spring Festival holiday (15–23 February 2026) will exceed 2.05 million—up 14 % on last year and the highest level since 2019.
The surge is driven by three factors: a longer nine-day public-holiday window, the recent expansion of China’s visa-free list, and pent-up demand among both Chinese citizens and foreign visitors to reunite with family or experience Lunar New Year festivities. Online travel agency Fliggy reports that international flight bookings to China for the period are up more than 400 % year-on-year; Trip.com cites a 310 % jump in inbound hotel reservations.
Travellers still working out visa requirements can tap VisaHQ’s one-stop portal for China: the platform tracks the newly expanded visa-free rules in real time, guides users through e-visa or sticker applications where needed, and even offers courier pickup of documents—see https://www.visahq.com/china/ for details.
![Record 2 Million-Plus Daily Border Crossings Expected During 2026 Spring Festival]()
To cope, the NIA has deployed 9,000 additional officers, reopened all e-gate channels, and activated ‘holiday mode’ at 15 major land crossings including Shenzhen Bay and Gongbei. Airlines operating to Beijing-Daxing, Shanghai Pudong and Guangzhou Baiyun have been granted extended night-curfew waivers, while airports have installed extra temporary biometric kiosks to keep clearance times under the 30-minute target even at peak hours.
For employers this means advising travellers to build in contingency buffers, especially at land checkpoints in the Greater Bay Area where daily volumes are expected to hit 660,000 on the 22 February return peak. Logistics teams moving hand-carry or critical spare parts across the border should pre-book timeslots and ensure drivers have printed QR-coded appointment slips now required by customs.
Mobility teams can leverage the holiday window to encourage short ‘re-set’ visits for long-term assignees: foreign residents who leave China between 15 and 23 February will see the days abroad counted as continuous for residence-permit validity, according to NIA clarification—a small administrative win for globally-mobile staff.
The surge is driven by three factors: a longer nine-day public-holiday window, the recent expansion of China’s visa-free list, and pent-up demand among both Chinese citizens and foreign visitors to reunite with family or experience Lunar New Year festivities. Online travel agency Fliggy reports that international flight bookings to China for the period are up more than 400 % year-on-year; Trip.com cites a 310 % jump in inbound hotel reservations.
Travellers still working out visa requirements can tap VisaHQ’s one-stop portal for China: the platform tracks the newly expanded visa-free rules in real time, guides users through e-visa or sticker applications where needed, and even offers courier pickup of documents—see https://www.visahq.com/china/ for details.
To cope, the NIA has deployed 9,000 additional officers, reopened all e-gate channels, and activated ‘holiday mode’ at 15 major land crossings including Shenzhen Bay and Gongbei. Airlines operating to Beijing-Daxing, Shanghai Pudong and Guangzhou Baiyun have been granted extended night-curfew waivers, while airports have installed extra temporary biometric kiosks to keep clearance times under the 30-minute target even at peak hours.
For employers this means advising travellers to build in contingency buffers, especially at land checkpoints in the Greater Bay Area where daily volumes are expected to hit 660,000 on the 22 February return peak. Logistics teams moving hand-carry or critical spare parts across the border should pre-book timeslots and ensure drivers have printed QR-coded appointment slips now required by customs.
Mobility teams can leverage the holiday window to encourage short ‘re-set’ visits for long-term assignees: foreign residents who leave China between 15 and 23 February will see the days abroad counted as continuous for residence-permit validity, according to NIA clarification—a small administrative win for globally-mobile staff.
