How to pay in China as a tourist: Alipay and WeChat Pay with a foreign card (2026)
Updated Aug 26, 2026
The one-paragraph answer: install Alipay and WeChat Pay before you fly, verify each with your passport, link a Visa, Mastercard or Amex to both, and you can pay for almost everything in China by scanning a QR code. Payments of ¥200 or less carry no app fee; above ¥200 the apps charge 3% of the whole amount, on top of whatever your own bank charges abroad. Cash is legal tender and worth carrying as a backup. Apple Pay and Google Pay are not how China pays. Details, dates and the fine print below — checked 26 August 2026.
Set up before you fly, not in the taxi
- 01Install both apps at home — Alipay and WeChat (Weixin). Some setup steps need a stable connection and a phone number that can receive SMS; your home number works.
- 02Verify your identity in each app with your passport. The scan-and-selfie flow takes a few minutes and is what unlocks payments for foreigners.
- 03Add a card to each. Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, JCB and Diners Club are accepted by both; UnionPay cards issued abroad are a special case with their own fee treatment.
- 04Keep one card in each app and a second card at home in your wallet. If one bank flags the first Chinese transaction as fraud — it happens — you still have a way to pay.
- 05Your first small purchase in China (a bottle of water, a metro ride) confirms the fee-free flow under ¥200 before you rely on it for anything bigger.
Fees and limits, in numbers
| ¥200 or less | Above ¥200 | Single payment | Per year | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alipay | No app fee | 3% of the whole amount | ≈ US$5,000 (published) | ≈ US$50,000 (published) |
| WeChat Pay | No app fee | 3% of the whole amount | ≈ ¥6,500 (published) | ≈ ¥65,000 (published) |
Foreign-card rules as published on 26 August 2026. Limits vary by account and verification level; the figure the app shows you is the real one.
Three things people get wrong. The ¥200 threshold is per transaction, not per day: a ¥201 hotpot bill costs you ¥6.03 in fees, two ¥150 rounds cost nothing. The 3% is the app's fee — your bank's foreign-transaction fee or currency markup stacks on top, so a no-FX-fee card is worth more here than almost anywhere. And the limits above are the published figures for verified foreign users; the number on the limit screen inside your own app is the only one that matters at checkout.
One 2026 sweetener: on 26 March 2026 the Beijing municipal government confirmed that WeChat Pay waives its 3% fee for 60 consecutive days after you link an international card for the first time, on transactions under ¥1,000, capped at a ¥30 saving per transaction. Link the card a few days before you fly, not months — the 60 days start at binding.
Cash: still legal tender, still worth carrying
China's cities are QR-first, but cash never stopped being legal. The People's Bank of China ruled in 2018 that no business or individual may refuse renminbi cash, it pushes merchants to display a “cash accepted” sign, and new rules on cash receipt and payment services (PBOC Announcement 2025 No. 29) tightened that further from 1 February 2026: refusing cash, or steering customers away from it, is prohibited outside a few legally defined cases such as online-only sales. In practice you'll pay by phone almost everywhere and reach for cash in three situations: a taxi driver whose QR code is broken, a small stall that only takes WeChat (which you'll have anyway), and the day your bank locks your card. ¥500–1,000 in small notes per person covers a 10-day trip's edge cases. Get it from an ATM after landing rather than a home-country bureau.
ATMs, UnionPay, and the cards that don't help
- ATMs at the big banks (Bank of China, ICBC, China Construction Bank) accept Visa and Mastercard for renminbi withdrawals; the PBOC's visitor guides quote daily caps around ¥20,000 at outlets that support foreign cards, subject to your own bank's limit. Expect a cash-advance fee from your bank.
- UnionPay is China's own network and the one card type accepted by almost every terminal. If you happen to hold a UnionPay card from home, bring it as a backup.
- Tap-to-pay with a foreign Visa or Mastercard works at some hotels, chains and airports, and almost nowhere else. Don't plan around it.
- Apple Pay and Google Pay: not the way China pays. Some card terminals take Apple Pay via UnionPay, but the QR wallets are the rails. Treat the phone wallets as a home-country convenience, not a China plan.
What's already paid for on our trips
Hotels, the high-speed trains, the Xi'an–Shanghai flight, entrance tickets and the guides are in the trip price, and the group dinners on the itinerary are arranged for you. What you'll pay for yourself is the fun stuff: street food, drinks, taxis on free nights, shopping, cable cars you choose to take. A few hundred renminbi a day covers it comfortably — and every one of those payments is a QR scan, which is why we make sure the whole crew has Alipay working before wheels-up.
Read the sources
- Beijing municipal government — WeChat Pay fee waiver for international cards (26 Mar 2026)
- People's Bank of China — cash acceptance and the “cash payment” sign
- PBOC Announcement No. 10 [2018] — refusing cash is prohibited
- PBOC Announcement 2025 No. 29 — cash receipt and payment rules in force from 1 Feb 2026 (Chinese)
- PBOC — payment guidance for overseas visitors (Zhejiang guide, ATM limits)
Related reading
Trains, hotels, tickets and guides are in the price. The Alipay setup is on the pre-trip checklist, and the group chat has walked plenty of people through it.
