How do I book train tickets in China with a foreign passport?

The trains

Train numbers starting G, C or D are high-speed, with business, first and second class; some D trains run overnight with sleeping berths. Z, T and K trains are the older network, slower and cheaper, with soft and hard sleepers and seats. Second class on a G train is roomier than economy on a plane, and the planner on this map uses real timetables, so the times it gives are the ones you will see on 12306.

For scale, the fastest trains and the cheapest second-class fares in late 2026: Beijing to Shanghai 4 h 18 min from about RMB 576 (fares float by train and date since a 2026 reform, up to about RMB 794); Beijing to Xi'an 4 h 10 min from RMB 515; Shanghai to Hangzhou 45 minutes for RMB 65 to 86; Chengdu to Chongqing 62 minutes from RMB 139; Beijing to Guangzhou about 8 hours. The price shown on 12306 is the price; agents add their fee on top.

Booking on 12306

• Register on the English site or app with your email address (text-message codes go only to Chinese numbers), then add yourself as a passenger with your passport. The name must be exactly as printed, without spaces. Verification is automatic for some passports; otherwise you upload the photo page and wait, reportedly three to five working days, or have it done at any station ticket window once you are in China.
• Sales open 15 days ahead, counting the day of travel, at a time of day that depends on the departure station (the app shows it). 12306 sells from 05:00 to 01:00; refunds work around the clock.
• Pay with Alipay, WeChat Pay or a UnionPay card. Foreign cards entered directly sometimes work and often do not; have Alipay ready as the fallback.
• Sold out? The waitlist (候补) takes a prepaid request for up to 60 train-and-date combinations and fills it as seats come back, with a reported success rate above 70%. Some accounts need full passenger verification to use it.
• A reservation pilot on Beijing to Shanghai trains now takes requests 30 to 17 days ahead in the app; whether foreign-passport accounts can use it is not yet clear.

Booking through an agent

Trip.com sells the same tickets for the official fare plus a small fee, around RMB 30 a ticket and sometimes waived, pays by card, PayPal or Apple Pay, books under your passport and will queue a request for a train that is not yet on sale. Alipay's train mini program and Klook (for the Hong Kong link) do the same job. Agents are the sensible choice for your first trip; switch to 12306 once your passport is verified and you are making changes on the move.

At the station

• Arrive 30 to 40 minutes before departure. Every bag goes through an X-ray at the entrance, your passport is checked against the booking, and the platform gates close three to five minutes before the train leaves. Boarding usually opens about 15 minutes before.
• The automatic gates read Chinese ID cards; some have a passport reader, otherwise use the staffed channel. The original passport is required; a photocopy or a photo is not accepted.
• Luggage: 20 kg per adult, 10 kg per child, and no item over 130 cm in length plus width plus height on high-speed trains (160 cm on the others). Power banks over 100 Wh are banned. In practice bags are rarely weighed, but there is no room for a bicycle box.
• No smoking anywhere on a high-speed train, e-cigarettes included; the fine is RMB 500 to 2,000 and setting off a smoke alarm stops the train.
• Refunds are free eight or more days ahead, then 5% until 48 hours before, 10% between 48 and 24 hours, 20% inside 24 hours. Changes are free more than 48 hours out.
• Children under six travel free on an adult's lap (one per adult); six to thirteen pay half the seat fare; fourteen and over pay full fare.

Overnight, Hong Kong and Lhasa

• High-speed sleepers run Beijing to Shanghai (three evening departures between 19:10 and 21:21, arriving 07:30 to 09:30, four-berth soft sleepers) and, since July 2025, Chengdu to Beijing and to Shanghai.
• Hong Kong: high-speed trains to West Kowloon, including overnight sleepers from Beijing and Shanghai that run daily since January 2026. Hong Kong and mainland immigration sit side by side at West Kowloon, so allow 45 to 60 minutes before boarding.
• Lhasa: foreigners need a Tibet Travel Permit, issued only through a licensed Chinese agency with a guide; the trains have an oxygen port at every berth and sell out in July and August.

Official sources

The rules above change; these are the pages to check before you travel, and the ones this guide was checked against on 2026-10-25.

• 12306 English site the official booking site; the app is 铁路12306
• 12306 FAQ accepted IDs, refund and change fees, children's fares
• Ministry of Culture and Tourism: taking trains in China as a foreign visitor verification, gates, arrival times, April 2026
• MTR: buying through 12306 for the Hong Kong high-speed link registering with a foreign passport
• Xinhua: the 2026 ticketing rules 15-day window, waitlist, fees, in Chinese
• Trip.com: China trains the largest English-language agent

Related guides

• Book popular sights early
  Which sights in China need booking in advance, and how? Updated October 2026
• Paying for things
  How do I pay for things in China without a Chinese bank account? Updated October 2026
• When to go
  When is the best time to visit China? Updated October 2026

Start planning

Pick the places you want to see on the illustrated map, add them to a trip, and the planner lays out the days and the trains between them.