Paying in China: Alipay, WeChat Pay, Cards and Cash

Set up Alipay and WeChat Pay before you fly

Do it at home, on your own Wi-Fi. Download Alipay and WeChat, register with your mobile number, add your Visa or Mastercard, and complete the passport verification step, which takes about ten minutes and can require a day to approve.

Set up both. Alipay has the wider international-card coverage and is accepted at more hotels and train ticket machines; WeChat Pay is what smaller restaurants and street vendors use, and some QR codes only work inside WeChat.

Alipay's Tourist version also works without a Chinese bank account, topping up from your international card. Load RMB 300–500 at a time rather than large sums, because refunds back to a foreign card take up to seven days.

Do foreign bank cards work in China?

In shops, usually not. Fewer than one in five retail terminals reads a foreign Visa or Mastercard, and hotel front desks are the main reliable exception alongside international chains and airport duty-free.

In ATMs, yes. Bank of China and ICBC machines accept Visa, Mastercard, Maestro and Cirrus, dispensing RMB 100 notes with a withdrawal fee of roughly RMB 15–25 plus your home bank's overseas charge. Look for the Visa or Plus logo on the machine.

Contactless is the wildcard: tapping a foreign card on a Chinese terminal fails more often than inserting it, and Apple Pay or Google Pay bound to a foreign card only works where the underlying card network is accepted in-app.

When you still need cash

Carry RMB 500–1,000 and treat it as a backup, not a last resort. Cash is legal tender and must be accepted, but a vendor with no change for a RMB 100 note will simply wave you away at a busy stall.

Cash wins in four situations: street markets and night markets, rural villages and small county towns, temple donation boxes and incense stalls, and taxis flagged on the street rather than hailed in an app.

Break notes early and often. Ask your hotel for small change on day one, and spend RMB 100 notes in supermarkets rather than at a noodle counter, where the till may hold only coins.

What things actually cost

A bowl of noodles costs RMB 15–30, a street-market skewer RMB 3–10, and an excellent dinner for two with beer RMB 150–300 in a mid-range city restaurant. A draft beer in a bar runs RMB 25–45.

Transport is cheap: metro rides RMB 3–9, an inner-city taxi RMB 20–40, and Beijing–Shanghai high-speed rail RMB 553 in second class. Museum and garden entries cluster at RMB 20–60; the big national sites such as the Forbidden City charge RMB 40–60 in low season.

Two people travelling comfortably — mid-range hotels, private car and guide, all entrance fees, one main meal daily — spend US$189 per person per day on our private tours. Independent travellers on public transport manage on RMB 400–600 a day.

Tipping is not expected in restaurants or taxis. Guides and drivers on private tours receive RMB 100–200 per day, and hotel porters RMB 10–20 per bag.

What to do when a payment fails

Try the other app first. A QR code generated by a small merchant is often bound to one platform only, so a failure in Alipay is not a failure of your card — it is the wrong wallet.

If the card itself is declined, check that international transactions are enabled at home and that the bank has not flagged a first-time China charge as fraud. Most declines clear within a phone call to your bank.

Failing everything, step back and pay with cash. This is the situation the RMB 500–1,000 float exists for, and it is why we tell travellers never to arrive with a single payment method.

Last updated: 2026-10-02 · Reviewed by JoyoTour