Foreigners buying property in China: one home, two gates
One self-use home, after a year of work: the property bureau checks two extra documents, the bank four. The 2025 forex change moved only their order.
Living page — numbers read from the sources on 2026-11-09, re-checked quarterly.
A foreign passport can buy one home in mainland China, for living in, after a year of working or studying here. Two separate gates check that: the property bureau decides whether the buyer is allowed, and the bank decides whether the money may be converted and paid. Both gates run on documents, and the two lists are not the same.
In September 2025 the currency regulator made one of those documents movable in time, and parts of the Chinese press read the change as the end of the purchase limit. The regulator answered that reading directly: the change is an audit sequence at the bank, and the purchase rules stand (SAFE Q&A, 15 September 2025).
Who may buy, and how many
A foreign individual with more than one year of work or study in China may buy one self-use home, not a second or a commercial unit. The rule is in the 2006 opinion that still governs foreign access to the property market: buyers below the one-year mark cannot buy at all, and the purchase must be registered in the buyer’s real name (建住房〔2006〕171号, 11 July 2006, clause 10).
| Buyer | What may be bought | Where it is written |
|---|---|---|
| Foreign individual, in China over one year for work or study | One self-use home; no second home, no non-residential unit | 建住房〔2006〕171号 clause 10 |
| Foreign individual, under one year | Nothing | same clause |
| Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan residents, and overseas Chinese | One self-use home, area capped by the city | same clause |
| Foreign company with a branch or representative office | Office space in the city where it is registered, not housing | same clause; 建房〔2010〕186号 clause 1 |
The one-home cap was added four years later, in a joint notice from the housing ministry and the currency regulator. Its first clause is the sentence that settles arguments: a foreign individual may buy only one home in China, for self-use (建房〔2010〕186号, 4 November 2010).
The two documents the property counter adds
The property bureau adds two documents to the standard sale file: one year of work in China, and a written promise of no other home in the country. The 2010 notice lists both as additions to the pre-sale filing and the ownership registration, and applies them to foreign individuals; Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan residents and overseas Chinese supply proof of work, study or residence instead of the one-year work proof (186号, clause 2).
The check happens twice, at the pre-sale contract filing and again at the ownership registration. In practice that means the same folder is examined before the developer can file the contract and before the deed is issued, not only at completion.
Where the three documents disagree about students
A student in China over a year may buy under the 2006 opinion, which names work and study; the 2010 checklist names work only. The difference is not academic: the 2006 text says “worked or studied in China for more than one year” (工作、学习时间超过一年), while the 2010 checklist asks for proof that the person “worked in China for more than one year” (在境内工作超过一年的证明), with no mention of study (171号 clause 10; 186号 clause 2, item 1).
The bank’s list goes back to including students. A foreign individual paying from abroad must present a labour contract of one year or more, or a certificate of enrolment (学籍证明) — the 2006 forex notice names both (汇发〔2006〕47号, clause 2).
So a student can satisfy the bank and still meet a property-counter checklist that does not mention students. I could not find a national document resolving that, and the local answer may differ by city.
The money: four documents at the bank
A foreign individual buying from abroad hands the bank four documents, and the bank converts the foreign currency straight into the developer’s renminbi account. The four are the sale or pre-sale contract, a valid passport, a labour contract of at least one year or a certificate of enrolment, and the property bureau’s filing certificate for the purchase in that city (47号, clause 2). The developer’s current-account bank may not keep the foreign-currency purchase money.
| Step | Document or rule | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Signed contract | Sale contract or pre-sale contract | 47号 clause 2, item 1 |
| Identity | Valid passport or equivalent | item 2 |
| The one-year test | Labour contract of one year or more, or enrolment certificate | item 3 |
| The property side | Pre-sale contract filing certificate issued by the property bureau for that city | item 4 |
| Where the money lands | Converted and paid directly into the developer’s renminbi account | clause 2 opening |
Two limits sit around that list. Money already inside China in a foreign-currency account may also be used, on the same four documents, but the account of a foreign representative office may not be converted to buy a commercial home (clause 2, second paragraph). And the bank files each conversion in the regulator’s direct-investment system after it is done, which is how the purchase becomes visible to the currency side (186号, clause 4).
What changed in September 2025
Since 12 September 2025 a buyer may convert and pay against the signed contract, before the property bureau issues the filing certificate, and hand the certificate to the bank afterwards. The clause is explicit that eligibility did not move: the buyer must still meet the property authority’s conditions and the city’s purchase rules, and the notice ends with the sentence that the convenience “does not change the policy on foreign individuals buying property in China” (汇发〔2025〕43号, clause 9, issued 12 September 2025).
The reason is a sequencing problem, and the regulator described it in its own Q&A: developers, and sellers of second-hand homes, usually want the down payment before they will put the contract through the online filing system (网签), while the bank previously needed the filing certificate before it would convert the money. Each side was waiting for the other. The “pay first, file later” route had been piloted for Hong Kong and Macao residents buying in the Greater Bay Area, and the 2025 notice extended it nationwide (SAFE Q&A, 15 September 2025).
Two other changes in the same notice are about companies, not people, and were the ones read as a property signal: company capital and foreign-debt money may now be used for non-self-use residential property, and banks set their own post-audit sampling rates (43号, clauses 7 and 8).
Selling, and taking the money out
Money from reselling the home can leave China, but only after tax, and only through the local currency regulator rather than the bank alone. The seller applies to the SAFE branch in the city where the property sits, with a purchase-and-remittance application, the transfer contract, and the tax clearance certificate for the transfer of the property right; the branch reviews the file and the bank then buys the foreign currency (47号, clause 5).
A deal that collapses has its own route. If the purchase is not completed, the renminbi may be converted back and returned abroad against four documents: an application explaining why, the original conversion receipt, the cancellation agreement with the developer, and the property bureau’s certificate that the purchase was cancelled (47号, clause 4).
What the rules do not say
No national document I found says how a second-hand purchase is paid from abroad in the same detail as a new build. The 2006 forex notice routes the converted money into “the developer’s renminbi account”, which describes a new-build sale; the 2025 Q&A does mention sellers of second-hand homes wanting the down payment first, so the case exists, but the payment route is left to the bank’s own review.
Mortgages are also outside these texts. The purchase rules say nothing about borrowing, and a bank’s lending policy for a foreign passport holder is a separate document that I did not examine here.
City purchase limits sit on top of the national rule. Several cities have loosened their limits for local residents since 2023, and the 2010 notice leaves the extra documents to be checked by “the property authority in each place”; a city that has dropped its limit for locals has not necessarily dropped the one-home rule for foreign buyers, because that rule is national.
How I checked
I read the 2006 opinion, the 2010 notice, the 2006 forex notice, the 2025 notice and the regulator’s Q&A on 9 November 2026. The 2006 opinion and the 2010 notice are on the housing ministry’s site; I read the 2010 text from a copy on the Tianjin branch of the currency regulator, because the ministry’s own page did not load from here. The 2006 forex notice is cited from a reproduction on China Construction Bank’s site; the original is not published on an open government page that I could find. Clause numbers follow those texts, not a later consolidation.
What I could not check
- Whether a student can pass the property counter’s checklist in any named city. The 2010 wording omits study; the bank’s list includes it.
- How the 2010 notice’s reference to the housing registration rules maps onto the unified property registration system that replaced them in 2015.
- Any city’s current foreign-buyer form and appointment process.
- Whether a foreign buyer can obtain a mortgage in practice, and on what terms.
- The tax rates on a resale, which decide how much of the sale price actually leaves; the notice names the tax certificate, not the rate.