While the Consular Affairs Department of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the visa exemption countries, visa exemption will be limited to business, tourism, family visits and transit travel.
While the Beijing administration aims to increase travel to china from abroad by making visa exemption arrangements with different countries in recent months, the Chinese government unilaterally granted 15-day visa free travel to citizens of France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Malaysia for one year as of 1 December 2023.
China signed a 30-day mutual visa exemption agreement with Singapore on 26 January and an indefinite mutual visa exemption agreement with Thailand on 28 January. According to the statement made by the Consular Affairs Department of the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, citizens of Switzerland, Ireland, Hungary, Austria, Belgium and Luxembourg will be able to travel to China without a visa for 15 days between 14 March-30 November.
While China currently applies reciprocal visa exemption for standard passport holders to 18 countries, there is a reciprocal visa exemption for diplomatic, special and service passport holders with many countries, including Turkey.
