Question

Asked by Andy B from us | May. 09, 2017 10:47

About:72-Hour Visa-Free Transit

family visiting Beijing

My U.S. passport family is flying into PEK on July 14 at 1:05 AM.

My 2 daughter fly back to NYC on July 16 at 1:30 pm (60 hours).
My wife and I fly to Moscow on July 17 at 11:40 am (82 hours - but only 3 days and less then 72 hours if it 24:00 of our landing date of July 14)

In reading your website, my daughters would be eligible to get a transit visa at the airport. I would like to stay with them and it seems I am in the gray zone for Beijing. What do you suggest? Thx

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Answers (3)

Answered by leo | May. 09, 2017 15:13

1 0 Reply

I suggest that you and your wife both get visas in advance, or change your flights, to avoid the risk of being denied boarding. The rule in Beijing is 72 hours from scheduled arrival to scheduled departure. For your daughters, we need to know where they are flying into PEK from. If it's USA-PEK-NYC then they need visas in advance too.

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Answered by Andy B | May. 09, 2017 20:09

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Thank you. We all fly from Thailand so my daughters are good.
I found this on 2 different websites (PEK as of 2016):

Per Timatic, all cities except KWL, KMG, and SHE count the 72 hours starting from 0:01 on the day following entry (when the visa waiver is granted).
In contrast, KWL, KMG, and SHE count the 72 hours as being the longest period between scheduled arrival and scheduled departure, per Timatic.

If this is true, then my flights would fall under the rule that time doesn't start till midnight of your arrival date. Is this true?
Thanks.

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Answered by leo | May. 10, 2017 10:04

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The information you found is out of date. Beijing used to be in the "starting at 00:01" group, but it was changed recently (within the last 6 months). The output from Timatic (as of today) is as follows:

Visa required, except for Nationals of USA holding confirmed onward airline tickets to a third country, if arriving in and departing from the same city:
- at Changsha (CSX), Chengdu (CTU), Chongqing (CKG), Dalian (DLC), Guangzhou (CAN), Qingdao (TAO), Tianjin (TSN), Wuhan (WUH), Xi'an (XIY) or Xiamen (XMN) for a max. transit time of 72 hours, starting from 00:01 on the day following the day of entry.
- at Beijing (PEK), Guilin (KWL), Harbin (HRB), Kunming (KMG), or Shenyang (SHE) for a max. transit time of 72 hours;

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