Opening a bank account in China as a visitor

China’s central bank says a visitor can walk into a branch and open an account. Its payment guide of March 2024 says a foreign visitor can take a passport or other valid identity document to a nearby branch, open a renminbi and foreign-currency account, and then use it for deposits and withdrawals, currency conversion, transfers and payments (Xinhua’s report of the guide, 2024-03-14).

A city guide served by a government site today adds the part the national one leaves out: the visa types it accepts for a debit-card account. The tourist visa is not among them (english.shanghai.gov.cn, page URL dated 2026-08-05, read 2026-10-12).

Both pages are official and neither contradicts the other outright. The national documents state a floor; the rules that decide your case are partly local and partly the bank’s. Figures below were read on 2026-10-12, and all of them move.

What the documents are

Item	National guides, 2024	City guide, read 2026-10-12
Identity document	passport or other valid identity document; the business guide prints passport or Foreign Permanent Resident ID Card	passport or Foreign Permanent Resident ID Card; the residence card needs at least a year of validity and more than a month to run
Phone number	the business guide asks for a mainland mobile number; the central bank’s guide does not mention one	a Chinese mainland mobile number registered in your real name
Extra documents	not stated	some banks also ask for a work certificate, a tax identification number or proof of address; the same page says a signed Declaration of Personal Tax Residency Status is required at opening

The national column is the Ministry of Commerce guide for foreign business visitors, compiled with nine other departments and updated yearly (gov.cn, PDF, 2024 edition), plus the central bank’s guide of 2024-03-14.

The legal floor is older. Article 22 of the Rules for the Administration of Renminbi Bank Settlement Accounts calls for a passport from a foreign citizen (People’s Bank of China, Order No. 5 of 2003). The implementation rules add that a foreigner with permanent residence may present the permanent-residence certificate instead, and that a foreign resident of a border area may present the border-area entry document (implementation rules).

Underneath sits customer due diligence. The measure in force since 2026-01-01, replacing versions issued in 2007 and 2022, requires a bank to identify the customer, verify identity against reliable and independent sources, understand the purpose of the relationship, and keep identity records ten years (PBOC, NFRA and CSRC, Order No. 11 of 2025, PDF, published 2025-10-31). That is the machinery behind the extra paperwork, and none of it is a rule about foreigners.

The visa question

The city page prints the visa list. It accepts a residence visa, a resident foreign journalists visa, a trade visa, a long-stay family-visit visa, a talent visa, a long-stay private-affairs visa, a long-stay study visa, an employment visa, a courtesy visa or a diplomatic visa (english.shanghai.gov.cn, read 2026-10-12). Ten categories, three of them marked long-stay in the page’s own wording. A tourist visa is not one of the ten.

The same page says the process cannot be done at a smart teller: account opening for expats “can only be done through manual assistance at the bank counter”, so you take a token number and wait.

Against that, a state news agency report of March 2024 says one large bank told its reporter it had simplified account opening for people on short-stay visas and for visa-free entrants (Xinhua, 2024-03-08). Those are the bank’s words as reported, not a published rule.

The instruction behind all of it names no visa type. The State Council’s opinion of March 2024 tells banks to improve account-opening processes, apply tiered account management reasonably, and set up green channels in branches for the elderly and for foreign visitors, and says the immigration administration supplies verification services to the central bank (Guobanfa No. 10 of 2024, dated 2024-03-01).

The only national count I found came with the briefing held that spring: about 22 million accounts opened cumulatively for foreign visitors by the end of 2023, 3.14 million more than a year earlier (gov.cn transcript, 2024-03-01). I could not find a later one.

The three categories, and what each one can do

China sorts personal settlement accounts into three categories. The system was created by a 2015 notice, set out in the notice of 2016-11-25, and revised in 2018. The category decides what the account can do.

	Category I	Category II	Category III
Opened at	counter, or a self-service machine with staff confirming you face to face	counter or, electronically, by verifying against your own Category I account or a credit card	counter or electronic channels
Cash deposit and withdrawal	yes	only after face-to-face staff confirmation; a physical card can be issued	no, and no physical card
Inbound from accounts that are not your own, plus cash deposits	yes	10,000 yuan a day, 200,000 a year	5,000 yuan a day, 100,000 a year
Payments, transfers out to other people’s accounts, cash out	yes	10,000 yuan a day, 200,000 a year	2,000 yuan a day, 50,000 yuan a year
Balance ceiling	none	none	2,000 yuan at any moment
How many per bank	one	five	five

Sources: the 2015 notice that created the categories (银发〔2015〕392号, named in the PBOC’s 2018 explainer, 2018-01-19); the 2016 notice that set the Category II and III limits (银发〔2016〕302号, full text on a mirror, dated 2016-11-25); the 2018 revision, which raised the Category III balance ceiling from 1,000 to 2,000 yuan, cut its annual outflow from 100,000 to 50,000 yuan and capped Category II and III accounts at five each (PBOC explainer, 2018-01-19); and the one-Category-I-per-bank rule, effective 2016-12-01 (PBOC, English text of Yinfa No. 261 of 2016).

A large bank’s 2026 agreement repeats the figures, five accounts of each kind included, and adds that an account with no transaction for six months from opening has its non-counter services suspended until the bank re-verifies the customer (agreement, PDF, 2026 edition, read 2026-10-12). The same agreement says limits may differ by the customer’s risk level, and that upgrades or downgrades can be applied for.

For an electronic Category II or III account, the checks are built around a resident ID number and a phone number recorded against your own Category I account or credit card at the same bank (银发〔2016〕302号, 2016-11-25). That route assumes a Chinese resident ID, which is one reason the counter is the practical door.

What your own bank charges when the card is used here

A purchase or withdrawal here is billed in three layers: the network’s rate, whatever your issuer adds, and any fee the machine operator charges.

Published schedule	Foreign-currency purchase	Cash withdrawal abroad	Flat ATM fee abroad
Chase fee schedule, printed “Effective 6/14/2026”	3 percent of the amount after conversion	3 percent of the amount after conversion	5 dollars a withdrawal outside the US
Bank of America, International Travel flyer	3 percent when the currency is converted	3 percent when the currency is converted	5 dollars outside the US, from a copy dated 07/2015
HSBC UK, card-abroad page, no printed date	2.75 percent	2.75 percent, plus a 2 percent cash fee of 1.75 to 5 pounds on standard accounts	not printed separately

Sources, all read 2026-10-12: Chase fee schedule, PDF, printed “Effective 6/14/2026”; Bank of America’s International Travel flyer, a PDF dated 2026-04-16; its Core Checking clarity statement, PDF for the 5-dollar non-Bank of America ATM fee outside the US, whose own footer prints 07/2015, so read it as the version the bank serves rather than as a 2026 price; and HSBC UK, using your card outside the UK. None of the three is ranked here.

Both US schedules say an ATM owner’s surcharge applies on top, and neither says what the machine charges. On the rate, Mastercard’s converter says its rate does not apply when the merchant or ATM operator does the conversion, which is what happens if you choose your home currency at the terminal (Mastercard, read on 2026-10-12 through a text mirror after the site refused direct requests).

A city payment page says every ATM and cash-recycling machine in Shanghai takes UnionPay cards, that a machine usually caps one withdrawal at 3,000 yuan, and that your issuing bank may set its own daily or monthly limits (english.shanghai.gov.cn, updated 2026-07-24). The central bank’s guide adds that renminbi cash can be taken from an ATM bearing your card’s clearing-organisation logo. A 3,000-yuan withdrawal at 3 percent is 90 yuan, before the flat fee, the machine’s charge and the rate.

Link the card to a payment app instead and the published rule changes: no fee at or below 200 yuan, 3 percent of the whole amount above it, and a ceiling of 5,000 dollars per transaction and 50,000 dollars a year set by regulators (Ministry of Commerce guide, PDF, 2024; Shanghai, updated 2026-07-24).

Buying and selling foreign currency

Here a visitor’s position differs from a resident’s, and the difference is printed. A visitor has the annual allowance for converting foreign currency into yuan but not the one for buying foreign currency, unless they hold a permanent-residence ID card; buying runs on documents instead, and the individual purchase form that residents fill in is not required of a visitor (SAFE branch guide, PDF, dated 2021-10-22, read 2026-10-12). The amounts, the material lists and the splitting rules sit in the companion piece on the annual allowance and the paperwork.

How I checked these numbers

Every figure carries a read date of 2026-10-12, plus the page’s own date where it prints one.

I read the Chinese originals and translated the figures. Where an issuing site serves a PDF or a scan only, the 2016 notice text comes from a mirror; on the figures quoted here it matched the 2018 explainer’s restatement.
Where a text is amended I cite the current consolidated version. The category table is cross-checked against a bank’s 2026 agreement, which restates the five-account caps, the single Category I rule and the six-month dormancy rule.
One source contradicts itself on dates. The city page’s URL and metadata say August 2026; its closing line says “Update on Aug 22, 2025”. I quoted the page’s content and flagged both.
The Ministry of Commerce guide I used is the 2024 edition; a ministry site also serves a 2026 edition that I did not read for this piece.
The fee table quotes issuers’ own schedules. I did not test them with a card, and this is not a comparison.
Sums are yuan unless marked; the percentage arithmetic is mine.

What I could not check

Which category a visitor actually gets. No public rule maps a visa type to a category: the State Council opinion only asks banks to apply tiered management reasonably, and the 2026 agreement ties limits to risk level.
Whether a tourist visa is refused. The city list omits it, another city’s list may differ, and no rule I found requires refusal; the reported convenience for short-stay entrants is a bank’s words in a news report.
What the machine charges you. No first-party Chinese page prints an ATM-operator surcharge for cards issued abroad; both US schedules warn one exists on top of theirs and neither knows its size.
A 2025 or 2026 account count. The 22 million figure is a March 2024 statement about the end of 2023; I found no later national count.
The account-opening fee itself. No schedule I read lists a charge for opening a personal renminbi account. That is absence of a printed fee, not proof none exists.
Whether a residence permit is required. The printed lists say passport, but banks may also ask for a work certificate, a tax number or proof of address, and the business guide says requirements differ between banks.
The Category III inbound limit. I read 5,000 yuan a day and 100,000 a year from the 2016 notice; the 2018 revision and the 2026 bank agreement do not print it, so it may have moved.
The rate you will be billed. Schedules say the network picks the rate, and the network says its rate does not apply if the terminal converts. No issuer I read states the spread it takes on card purchases.
Bank of America’s current ATM fee. The clarity statement the bank serves prints 07/2015. A newer copy may exist; I did not find one.
Anything about where I bank. Deliberately absent.