By: Paul Buckley

February 5, 2024

From February 9, 2024, citizens of China and Singapore are permitted to travel visa-free between each country for stays of up to 30 days. The policy applies to tourism, visiting friends and relatives, and business travel.  

This is the latest in a series of policy relaxations by the Chinese government with respect to short term travel to China. In November 2023, Beijing announced that citizens of Germany, The Netherlands, France, Italy, Spain, and Malaysia would be allowed to visit China for periods up to 15 days for Business, Tourism, Family Visit, and Transit purposes. Thailand and China agreed to mutually waive visas from March 2024. And earlier this month, China signalled that visa-free entry was being granted to two more European countries—Ireland and Switzerland—although at the time of writing, no exact start date has yet been given for this policy to come into effect. 

According to China’s Foreign Ministry, China’s intent is “to facilitate the high-quality development of Chinese and foreign personnel exchanges and high-level opening up to the outside world.”