Sixty-one passports can enter Hainan without a visa and stay 30 days, provided you arrive at a port in Hainan and stay on the island. There is no advance application and no agency booking to arrange. The trap is the port: land in Shanghai or Guangzhou first and the Hainan rules do not apply. Bring a valid ordinary passport, a return ticket and a hotel address.
- Who: ordinary passport holders from 61 countries, the United States and the United Kingdom included.
- How long: up to 30 days, counted from 00:00 the day after you enter.
- Where: all open ports in Hainan, by air or by sea.
- Where you can go: the Hainan administrative region only. The mainland needs a visa.
- Before you fly: no advance declaration and no agency reception required.
- Purpose: tourism, business, visiting family, medical treatment, conferences, sport. Not work or study.
Last verified: 2 November 2026 · Sources: National Immigration Administration, Hainan Provincial People’s Government, Chinese Embassy notice of the 2024 policy expansion
Which passports can enter Hainan without a visa?
The list is 61 countries, published by the National Immigration Administration and updated in August 2026 when Vietnam and Kyrgyzstan were added. It covers most of Europe, the United States, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Brunei, Kazakhstan, the UAE, Qatar and a handful of others.
Two things matter about that list. It is not the same as China’s nationwide visa-free scheme, which currently covers 50 countries and lets you travel anywhere in the country; our nationwide 30-day visa-free list sets out that one. And the passport must be ordinary: diplomatic, service and public-affairs passports are outside the scheme, as is anyone arriving to work or study. If your passport is not on either list, the choices are a visa or the 240-hour transit route, both covered in our guide to China’s entry rules by passport and purpose.
Which airports and seaports can you arrive at?
The policy applies at every open port in Hainan. In practice that means three airports and five seaports, and the airport list is short enough to check before you book a flight.
| Port | Type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Haikou Meilan International Airport | Air | Main gateway to the north of the island |
| Sanya Phoenix International Airport | Air | Closest to the southern beaches |
| Qionghai Boao International Airport | Air | Small airport near Boao |
| Haikou, Sanya, Yangpu, Qinglan and Basuo | Sea | Ferries, cruise ships and private craft |
Most visitors arrive by air. If your country has no direct flight to Hainan, the official advice is to fly to Hong Kong, Macao or a country with a direct service and connect from there into a Hainan airport. What you cannot do is fly into a mainland hub and take a domestic connection: you would be seeking entry at Shanghai or Guangzhou, where this policy does not exist.
How are the 30 days counted, and can you extend them?
The clock starts at 00:00 on the day after you enter, not at the moment you clear immigration. Arrive on 5 November and your 30 days run to 5 December, which is why an evening arrival is worth more than a morning one.
Extensions are possible but they are an application, not a formality. If you have a good reason to stay longer, apply to the Hainan public security exit-entry administration before your 30 days run out, with the supporting documents the office asks for. The same office handles the visa you need if you want to move on to the mainland. Do not test the deadline: overstaying is dealt with under China’s exit-entry law, and a late application is harder than an early one.
Do you still need a travel agency to get in?
This is where most out-of-date pages will mislead you. Older descriptions of the policy say travellers must be received by a travel agency registered in Hainan, and some provincial FAQs still say so. The 2024 notice that expanded the eligible purposes removed that condition and states that travellers do not need to declare in advance. The current national policy text lists no reception requirement either.
What that means in practice: you book your own flight and hotel, and you clear immigration like any other arrival. The friction is elsewhere, at the airline desk. Check-in staff outside China often have no Hainan entry in their system and may ask for a visa, so carry the printed policy page and the flight and hotel details. A return or onward ticket and a hotel address are the two things a check-in agent is most likely to want to see. A cruise arrival works the same way, through a Hainan seaport rather than an airport.
Can you leave Hainan for the rest of China?
No. The visa-free entry covers the Hainan administrative region and stops at the water. To continue to Beijing, Shanghai, Xi’an or anywhere else on the mainland you need a visa, and the place to apply for it is the Hainan public security exit-entry office, before your 30 days expire.
If a mainland leg is the point of the trip, build the itinerary the other way round: either get a visa before you fly, or use the 240-hour transit rules, which let eligible passports leave the airport region and travel within a designated area. Americans, for example, are on the Hainan list but not on China’s 50-country nationwide list, so for a US passport Hainan is the only visa-free option that does not require a third-country ticket. If you already hold a valid Chinese visa, the Hainan scheme is simply an easier door: entering under it does not cancel the visa.
How is Hainan different from the nationwide scheme and the 240-hour transit?
Three policies, three different trade-offs. Hainan buys you a longer, simpler stay on one island. The nationwide scheme buys you the whole country. The transit route buys you a mainland city for ten days, if you are flying on to a third country.
| Hainan 30-day | Nationwide visa-free | 240-hour transit | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Passports | 61 countries | 50 countries | 57 countries |
| Stay | 30 days | 30 days | 10 days |
| Entry ports | Any open port in Hainan | Any open port in China | 60 ports in 24 regions |
| Where you can go | Hainan only | Anywhere in China | Designated region only |
| Onward ticket | Not part of the policy | Not part of the policy | Third-country ticket required |
The comparison explains why the transit route is the wrong tool for a beach trip: it assumes you are leaving China for somewhere else, and it gives you ten days and a region, not an island. Our 240-hour transit rules for a mainland stopover cover that case, and what changed in 2026, and when tracks the dates behind all three lists, because they move.
What do you need to show at the border?
An ordinary passport valid for the length of your stay, a return or onward ticket, and somewhere to stay. No form, no invitation letter and no agency voucher are part of the current policy.
Hotels register foreign guests with the local police as part of check-in, so a hotel booking covers the registration requirement. If you are staying with friends or in a short-let, you are responsible for registering your own address with the local police station within 24 hours of arrival, a rule that applies across China and not only in Hainan. Keep the printed policy page and your booking confirmations in your hand luggage rather than a checked bag, since the questions come at check-in, not at immigration.
Why do people get refused or turned around?
The common failure is geography, not paperwork. A traveller books a cheap flight into Guangzhou with a domestic connection to Sanya, and asks for Hainan entry-free treatment at Guangzhou, where it does not exist. The same happens with a Shanghai or Hong Kong arrival followed by a ferry or a domestic flight.
The other repeat failures are a passport that is not ordinary, an arrival to work or study rather than visit, and no onward ticket to show at check-in. Airlines carry the cost of flying someone back, so they screen harder than the border does, and a refused boarding is the most likely way this trip goes wrong. A third case is a stay that runs past 30 days because the traveller counted from the arrival date instead of the day after.
Is a visa-free trip to Hainan worth it, and should you base in Sanya or Haikou?
If the holiday you want is warmth, sea and a resort, yes: Hainan is China’s only tropical island province, with beaches, rainforest in the national park and a round-island high-speed rail line that makes a two-base trip easy.
Sanya is the beach base: resort hotels, the southern bays, diving and the airport that most international flights use. Haikou is a working city with the better food scene, cheaper hotels and the closer airport to the mainland ferries. Boao and Qionghai are quieter again. The drier, cooler months from November to April are the ones most people book; July to October brings heat, heavy rain and the typhoon season. Thirty days is more than a beach trip needs, and most visitors use a week to ten days, then spend the rest of a longer trip elsewhere in Asia rather than losing the island to a mainland visa application. Our guide to which Chinese cities fit the same trip is the place to start if Hainan is one stop rather than the whole holiday.
FAQ
Can US citizens enter Hainan without a visa?
Yes. The United States is on the 61-country Hainan list, even though it is not on China’s 50-country nationwide visa-free list. A US passport holder can stay 30 days in Hainan and cannot move on to the mainland without a visa.
Can you fly to Shanghai first and then to Sanya?
Not under this policy. You would be entering China at Shanghai, where the Hainan rules do not apply. Fly into Haikou, Sanya or Qionghai, or connect through Hong Kong or Macao into a Hainan airport.
Do you need to book through a Hainan travel agency?
No. The reception requirement was part of the older version of the policy. The 2024 expansion dropped it and removed advance declaration. Book your own flight and hotel, and carry the official policy page to answer airline questions.
Can you extend the 30 days?
You can apply, but it is a decision rather than an entitlement. Apply at the Hainan public security exit-entry office before your stay expires, with the documents that office asks for, and do not leave it to the last day.
Sources
- National Immigration Administration – regional visa-free entry policies, Hainan 61 countries (checked 2 November 2026)
- National Immigration Administration – list of countries covered by unilateral visa exemption (checked 2 November 2026)
- Hainan Provincial People’s Government – 61 eligible countries and open ports (checked 2 November 2026)
- Chinese Embassy notice – 2024 expansion of Hainan visa-free purposes, no advance declaration (checked 2 November 2026)
- Hainan Provincial People’s Government – 240-hour transit: 57 countries, 60 ports, 24 regions (checked 2 November 2026)
Next step: check your passport against the 61-country list, then book a flight that lands in Haikou, Sanya or Qionghai rather than a mainland hub, and line the island up with the dry months between November and April.