China Arrival Card and Customs Form: A Step-by-Step Guide

The same page answers to three names: China arrival form, China immigration card, arrival card. All three point to one document: the record a border officer keeps of a foreign visitor's arrival. It is not a visa, and it does not decide whether you get in. It records that you did.

On November 20, 2025, the National Immigration Administration introduced online filing for foreigners, taking a form that existed at the port and putting it on your phone. Immigration keeps the arrival record; China Customs handles the goods, which is why the two forms stay separate.

Not every foreign traveler needs to complete the China Arrival Card. According to the National Immigration Administration's current online filing guidance, the following eight categories of travelers are exempt:
 

1. Holders of a valid Foreign Permanent Resident ID Card of the People's Republic of China.

2. Holders of a valid Mainland Travel Permit for Hong Kong and Macao Residents who are not Chinese citizens.

3. Members of foreign tourist groups holding a group visa or eligible for group visa-free entry.

4. Foreign nationals transiting directly through China within 24 hours without leaving the designated restricted area of the port.

5. Cruise passengers entering and departing on the same cruise ship.

6. Foreign nationals entering through designated immigration fast-track channels (E-channels).

7. Foreign crew members of aircraft, ships, vehicles, and other international transport services.

8. Travelers eligible for the courtesy arrangement for centralized submission of entry and exit documents.

If none of these exemptions apply to you, you should complete the Arrival Card according to the applicable entry procedures.

As of November 2026, the online arrival card runs through five official channels, and the list is short.

• The NIA website. The browser version, and the one most travelers type into on a laptop the night before a flight.
• The government service platform. The same service through the national portal, which matters if that is the bookmark you already have.
• The NIA 12367 app. Built for phones, so the form fits a small screen.
• A WeChat or Alipay mini-program. No separate download, because the form sits inside an app many travelers already carry.
• The QR code posted at the port. Scan it when you land, and the same form opens on your phone.

All five reach one service, and it is free of charge. The address NIA publishes for the browser version is https://s.nia.gov.cn/ArrivalCardFillingPC/ and any page demanding payment is not it.

The administration has warned about this publicly: counterfeit sites dressed as the official platform have been collecting fees for something that costs nothing. Three signals separate the real service from a copy. It wants money. It is not one of the five channels above. Its address is not the one above. Fail any test and close the tab.

Filling it early changes where you stand, not what the card is. At home you have your booking open and your first address in front of you; at the port you have a suitcase at your feet and a queue behind you. Paper cards remain at the port as well, so the online version is optional, not obligatory. Either way, work through the prompts in the order the page gives them.

Unlike the arrival card, the customs declaration may be completed on paper or electronically, depending on the items you are carrying and the applicable declaration requirements. Travelers who need to declare goods can prepare their electronic declaration in advance through official China Customs channels. Those who prefer paper forms can complete one at the port of entry.

The form carries a long official title, CHINA Customs BAGGAGE DECLARATION FOR INWARD PASSENGERS, and a short job: telling the officers what you brought.
 

Not every traveler needs to complete a customs declaration. Under China's current customs rules, passengers carrying items that must be declared should submit a paper declaration form or electronic declaration data and use the Red Channel (Goods to Declare).
 

Travelers with nothing to declare do not need to complete the declaration form and may use the Green Channel (Nothing to Declare).
 

Passengers can also prepare their electronic baggage declaration in advance through the official China Customs online service or the WeChat and Alipay mini-program called "China Customs Services for Inbound and Outbound Travelers.
 

Officers then split the hall in two. Nothing to declare sends you down the green channel, signed GREEN CHANNEL; something to declare sends you down the red one, signed Goods to Declare. Not sure which side you belong on? Ask a customs officer, or take the red channel and let the officer settle it.
 

The table shows where the red channel starts. Read the first two rows by residency, because the amounts are not interchangeable.
 

Note: Different limits may apply to travelers entering from Hong Kong or Macao. Some duty-free tobacco and alcohol allowances are reduced by half.
 

Cash has a second layer that the table cannot show. Foreign currency has no cap on what you bring in, but anything above $5,000 has to be declared, and a traveler who will carry it out again fills two copies so one can be stamped and handed back.

More categories send you to the red channel whatever their value, and they are worth knowing before you pack:

• Living things and their products. Animals, plants, micro-organisms, biological products, human tissue and blood products all fall here.
• Radio and encrypted equipment. Transceivers and secure communications gear are controlled items rather than personal electronics.
• Anything prohibited or restricted by law. The restriction itself is the trigger, whatever the item is worth.
• Anything with commercial value. Trade samples, advertising material, and goods for sale are not personal luggage.
• Baggage traveling apart from you. Unaccompanied luggage shipped separately still has to be declared on this form.

All of it is judged against one principle: personal use and a reasonable quantity. A suitcase of gifts sits differently from a suitcase of stock, and the officer makes that call.

The penalty is stated in one sentence on the official guidance: travelers who fail to declare the listed articles are subject to punishment under the law. That is as specific as the published text gets, and it is why the red channel is the safer mistake.

The official guidance lays out the arrival as six moves, and the sequence is worth memorizing at the end of a long flight.

1. Pick up the declaration. It is step one in the official order, so collect the form before anything else.
2. Read the notes on the back. The reverse side carries the definitions, including what counts as goods to declare.
3. Fill it in. Work through the lines in order and answer the ones that apply; a line left blank invites a question at the desk.
4. Choose a channel. Green if you have nothing to declare, red if you have anything in the table above, red again if you are unsure.
5. Hand the form over. The officer reads it, stamps it, and either waves you through or asks to see the bag.
6. Finish the customs formalities. That covers the bag check itself, or the walk-through when nothing needs opening.

The stamped form is not rubbish. Keep it with your passport, since the guidance asks travelers to submit it again at the end of the trip when the return calls for it.

The six steps come from the national guidance, so the sequence you meet on the first landing is the sequence you meet on the second. What changes between airports is the walk to the desk.

Arriving with an empty phone is fine. The card can be finished at the port in three ways, and the official material names all three: scan the QR code with your own phone, use the smart devices provided at the port, or fill out a paper card. Those paper cards are still stocked at the ports.

Which one you pick is really a question about your next two hours. Filling it at the port costs attention at the moment you have least of it, in a hall you are reading for the first time. If a domestic connection follows the landing, that margin matters, and the version filled at home costs you no time at the port. If the first night is a hotel near the airport, the port version costs you very little.

Keep the two forms in their own halls. The arrival card belongs to the immigration queue, the declaration to the customs one, and carrying the wrong form into the wrong line is the mistake that sends people backwards. Follow the overhead signs, and when a sign is ambiguous, ask an officer, not the passenger next to you.

For a first trip to China, the arrival day is the part with the least slack and the most unfamiliar language. For everything after the desk, Tours4fun runs guided trips out of the gateway cities, and a guide on day one settles the language question before it becomes one.

Holding a US passport does not automatically exempt travelers from completing China's Arrival Card. The exemptions are based on specific travel documents, immigration status, visa arrangements, and entry procedures rather than nationality alone.
 

US citizens entering China visa-free must generally complete the Arrival Card unless they qualify for one of the officially recognized exemptions.
 

For example, travelers transiting through China within 24 hours without leaving the designated restricted area of the port are exempt. Eligible passengers entering through designated immigration fast-track channels and qualifying cruise passengers may also be exempt.
 

Travelers using China's 240-hour visa-free transit policy should not assume that visa-free entry means they can skip the Arrival Card.
 

The arrival is the gate, not the trip. Once the forms are done, the planning moves to the cities themselves, and the two landings most first visits make are Beijing and Shanghai. China Tours that begin in either city keep the transfer short. Longer China vacation packages stretch the same ground over more nights, which matters when you have flown a long way to get there.

Two desks, two questions, one arrival. The card asks who arrived; the declaration asks what came with them. Hold that split, and the rest is sequence: card before the immigration desk, declaration before the customs one, and the stamped copy kept with the passport for the trip home.

Three situations decide the planning. A tight domestic connection is the argument for filling the card at home, because doing it at the port spends time you may not have.  And a bag you are unsure about belongs in the red line, where an officer can rule on it there and then instead of at the end of a second queue.

Give the stamped form a fixed home in the passport holder, and treat both documents as a task for the week before departure, instead of a job for the taxi ride.