China’s National Immigration Administration (NIA) has released its official Spring Festival traffic bulletin, confirming that mainland ports processed 17.796 million inbound and outbound journeys between 15 and 23 February. That works out to almost two million crossings a day—10.1 percent higher than the same holiday week in 2025. Three structural shifts stand out. First, international visitors now account for 1.313 million of the total flows, and their numbers are growing almost twice as fast as those of mainland residents. Second, visa-free arrivals have become a mainstream channel: 460 000 people entered China without a visa during the nine-day break, an increase of 28.5 percent year-on-year. Beijing’s decision to extend unilateral 30-day visa-free access to ordinary passport holders from Canada and the United Kingdom on 17 February clearly fed the spike.
![China logs 17.8 million cross-border trips over Spring Festival; visa-free entries up 28%]()
Given the accelerating pace of policy change, many firms are turning to VisaHQ for real-time guidance and document processing. The platform’s dedicated China page (https://www.visahq.com/china/) tracks every tweak to visa-free eligibility, transit waivers and work-permit conversion rules, helping travel managers generate customised entry checklists and stay compliant without drowning in paperwork.
Third, the 240-hour transit-without-visa scheme—now available at 65 ports—continues to spread long-haul traffic more evenly across China’s gateway cities, easing pressure on the traditional Beijing–Shanghai–Guangzhou triangle. Border officials say the expanded scheme helped to keep average queueing times under 20 minutes even on the two peak days, 22 and 23 February. For multinationals the numbers matter for two reasons. A bigger share of the global workforce can now enter China on short notice without waiting for a consular appointment, and companies can route project teams via multiple hubs when seat inventory is tight. Corporates should update internal travel policies to reflect the new 30-day visa-free countries list, remind staff that visa-free entry cannot be converted into a work permit onshore, and ensure that international assignees know which airports support 240-hour transit waivers. Travel managers should also watch for localized surge pricing: duty-of-care platforms reported hotel rates in border cities jumped 18 percent year-on-year during the holiday. As the NIA has signalled more liberalisation in 2026, organisations that rely on frequent Chinese rotations may want to lock in corporate hotel contracts and pre-book medical appointments well ahead of the next peak season.
Given the accelerating pace of policy change, many firms are turning to VisaHQ for real-time guidance and document processing. The platform’s dedicated China page (https://www.visahq.com/china/) tracks every tweak to visa-free eligibility, transit waivers and work-permit conversion rules, helping travel managers generate customised entry checklists and stay compliant without drowning in paperwork.
Third, the 240-hour transit-without-visa scheme—now available at 65 ports—continues to spread long-haul traffic more evenly across China’s gateway cities, easing pressure on the traditional Beijing–Shanghai–Guangzhou triangle. Border officials say the expanded scheme helped to keep average queueing times under 20 minutes even on the two peak days, 22 and 23 February. For multinationals the numbers matter for two reasons. A bigger share of the global workforce can now enter China on short notice without waiting for a consular appointment, and companies can route project teams via multiple hubs when seat inventory is tight. Corporates should update internal travel policies to reflect the new 30-day visa-free countries list, remind staff that visa-free entry cannot be converted into a work permit onshore, and ensure that international assignees know which airports support 240-hour transit waivers. Travel managers should also watch for localized surge pricing: duty-of-care platforms reported hotel rates in border cities jumped 18 percent year-on-year during the holiday. As the NIA has signalled more liberalisation in 2026, organisations that rely on frequent Chinese rotations may want to lock in corporate hotel contracts and pre-book medical appointments well ahead of the next peak season.
