Paying for things in China with a foreign card
境外银行卡支付
China is close to cashless, and foreign cards mostly do not work in shops. Alipay and WeChat Pay both accept international cards now — here is how to set them up before you fly.
The single most common arrival shock for first-time visitors to China is trying to buy a coffee with a Visa card. It will not work. Almost no shop, taxi, noodle stall or ticket machine accepts a physical foreign card, and many no longer handle cash comfortably either.
The fix is straightforward, but it needs doing before you land.
Set up Alipay, then WeChat Pay
Both apps now support international cards — Visa, Mastercard, JCB, Amex, Discover — for foreign passport holders. The setup differs slightly by app and country, and it changes; check the current in-app flow.
Alipay is the easier one to get working. Download it, register with your home mobile number, add your card under the international card option, complete identity verification with your passport. Small transactions under a threshold typically go through without a fee; above it, a service fee applies.
WeChat Pay is worth having as a backup, because a few places and many individual sellers only take WeChat. The verification path is fussier and sometimes needs a friend in China to confirm you. Do not rely on it as your only option.
Practical tip: set both up while you are still at home, on home wifi, with your passport in hand. Doing it at a Chengdu airport gate on roaming data is a bad afternoon.
What still needs cash
Cash is not dead. Keep some.
- Village shops and trailhead stalls
- Toilet fees at scenic areas (usually ¥1–2)
- Tips for guides, cooks and horse handlers
- Some family guesthouses
- Small monasteries and donation boxes
Bring ¥500–1,000 in mixed small notes for a week-long trek, and get more from an ATM in a city. ATMs at Bank of China and ICBC generally accept foreign cards; airport ATMs are the most reliable.
Paying us
For trip deposits and balances, we confirm the payment route in writing on your booking confirmation. Depending on the trip and the operator, that is usually a bank transfer or an online payment link rather than a personal transfer. We will never ask you to send money to a random personal account, and if you receive an instruction like that from anything claiming to be us, stop and verify it with the contact details on this site.
What things cost, roughly
For planning, a sense of scale in 2026:
| Item | Typical cost | | --- | --- | | Bowl of noodles in a city | ¥15–30 | | Sit-down meal, mid-range, per person | ¥60–120 | | Hostel dorm bed | ¥60–120 | | Mid-range hotel double | ¥300–600 | | High-speed rail, 500 km | ¥300–500 | | Domestic flight, Chengdu–Lhasa | ¥800–1,800 | | Taxi across Chengdu | ¥40–70 | | 1.5 L bottled water | ¥3–5 |
Trekking itself is where the value is: a week in a domestic group, all meals and transport included, commonly lands between ¥3,000 and ¥6,000 per person.
Two things that surprise people
Tipping is not a Chinese custom, but it is expected on trekking trips with guides, cooks and horse teams — a few hundred yuan per person for a week is normal and appreciated. Your trek leader will handle the collection so nobody has to negotiate.
Refunds and changes are stricter than you are used to. Domestic batches have fixed costs from the day they open. Read the cancellation terms on your confirmation before you pay a deposit, and buy travel insurance that covers trip interruption.
Questions this page didn't answer?
Send them to us. We would rather answer an awkward question before you book than have you find out on a mountain.