In a major easing of travel formalities, China has added Finland and its three Nordic neighbours—Denmark, Norway and Sweden—to the list of countries whose ordinary passport-holders can enter visa-free for stays of up to 30 days. The arrangement, which came into force during the Spring-Festival travel peak on 21 February 2026, lifts the pre-departure paperwork burden that has long discouraged short-notice business trips and incentive travel from Finland to the world’s second-largest economy.
According to China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Finnish visitors may use the waiver for tourism, family visits, conferences, market inspections or onward transit. Multiple entries are permitted as long as each individual stay does not exceed 30 calendar days and the traveller exits China before the temporary policy’s current expiry date of 31 December 2026. Visas are still required for Journalism (J-type), full-time study beyond 30 days or remunerated employment, and travellers must carry proof of onward or return travel and hotel reservations in case border officials request them.
Travellers who need certainty about whether their trip falls under the waiver, or who may still require a different visa category, can quickly double-check requirements through VisaHQ’s Finland portal (https://www.visahq.com/finland/). The platform consolidates the latest Chinese and worldwide entry rules, offers alert services for policy changes, and can arrange express visa processing for cases—such as long-term study or employment—that still demand formal consular paperwork.
![China opens 30-day visa-free entry to Finnish citizens, boosting Nordic–Asia mobility]()
For Finnish corporates the move removes both cost (a single-entry Chinese visa currently costs about €155 in Finland) and administrative lead-time, making face-to-face client meetings easier at a time when Sino-Nordic trade in clean-tech, forestry and gaming services is rebounding. Helsinki-based game developer Supercell told Scandasia it can now rotate product teams through Shanghai on two-week sprints “without burning days on consular queues”, while travel managers at KONE expect the waiver to trim assignment budgets by thousands of euros per engineer. Finnair, which operates daily Airbus A350 services to Shanghai and three-weekly flights to Beijing Daxing, said it will monitor demand and could “upgauge” aircraft if load factors spike.
The decision also has symbolic weight: China’s border only fully reopened in March 2023 after nearly three years of pandemic controls, and Beijing has been gradually courting high-income markets by offering unilateral exemptions to France, Germany, Italy and most recently the UK and Canada. Nordic inclusion signals confidence in both the region’s purchasing power and its political neutrality at a time of broader EU-China tension. Finnish officials welcomed the announcement; Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen said the policy "strengthens people-to-people ties and supports our export sector" but reminded travellers to register with the ministry’s matkustusilmoitus system and to respect local cyber-security regulations that can affect the use of VPNs.
Practically, mobility teams should update China travel SOPs immediately: (1) check that staff passports have at least six months’ validity; (2) brief travellers that overstays incur daily fines; (3) note that the waiver applies only at designated ports of entry—most major airports plus seaports in Shanghai and cruise hubs such as Tianjin. As the scheme is still labelled a “temporary measure”, companies are advised to keep an eye on renewal or modification notices in late 2026. If replicated by other large markets, the shift could signal a post-pandemic realignment towards lighter-touch short-term mobility across Asia.
According to China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Finnish visitors may use the waiver for tourism, family visits, conferences, market inspections or onward transit. Multiple entries are permitted as long as each individual stay does not exceed 30 calendar days and the traveller exits China before the temporary policy’s current expiry date of 31 December 2026. Visas are still required for Journalism (J-type), full-time study beyond 30 days or remunerated employment, and travellers must carry proof of onward or return travel and hotel reservations in case border officials request them.
Travellers who need certainty about whether their trip falls under the waiver, or who may still require a different visa category, can quickly double-check requirements through VisaHQ’s Finland portal (https://www.visahq.com/finland/). The platform consolidates the latest Chinese and worldwide entry rules, offers alert services for policy changes, and can arrange express visa processing for cases—such as long-term study or employment—that still demand formal consular paperwork.
For Finnish corporates the move removes both cost (a single-entry Chinese visa currently costs about €155 in Finland) and administrative lead-time, making face-to-face client meetings easier at a time when Sino-Nordic trade in clean-tech, forestry and gaming services is rebounding. Helsinki-based game developer Supercell told Scandasia it can now rotate product teams through Shanghai on two-week sprints “without burning days on consular queues”, while travel managers at KONE expect the waiver to trim assignment budgets by thousands of euros per engineer. Finnair, which operates daily Airbus A350 services to Shanghai and three-weekly flights to Beijing Daxing, said it will monitor demand and could “upgauge” aircraft if load factors spike.
The decision also has symbolic weight: China’s border only fully reopened in March 2023 after nearly three years of pandemic controls, and Beijing has been gradually courting high-income markets by offering unilateral exemptions to France, Germany, Italy and most recently the UK and Canada. Nordic inclusion signals confidence in both the region’s purchasing power and its political neutrality at a time of broader EU-China tension. Finnish officials welcomed the announcement; Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen said the policy "strengthens people-to-people ties and supports our export sector" but reminded travellers to register with the ministry’s matkustusilmoitus system and to respect local cyber-security regulations that can affect the use of VPNs.
Practically, mobility teams should update China travel SOPs immediately: (1) check that staff passports have at least six months’ validity; (2) brief travellers that overstays incur daily fines; (3) note that the waiver applies only at designated ports of entry—most major airports plus seaports in Shanghai and cruise hubs such as Tianjin. As the scheme is still labelled a “temporary measure”, companies are advised to keep an eye on renewal or modification notices in late 2026. If replicated by other large markets, the shift could signal a post-pandemic realignment towards lighter-touch short-term mobility across Asia.
