Question

Asked by Steph from philippines | Oct. 02, 2019 22:14

About:24-Hour Visa-Free Transit

Transiting via China (Manila, Ph - Guangzhou - Wuhan - JFK, USA)

Transit time is less than 24 hours (1.5 hours in Guangzhou and 2 hours in Wuhan). Am I eligible to apply for the 24-hour visa free transit visa? There are many conflicting information online.

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Answers (3)

Answered by Steph | Oct. 08, 2019 02:21

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Hi ZUPAN, thank you for your reply. But it seems that I will need to apply in advance a transit visa for my trip (I checked with the airlines). It's either because I have a Philippine passport or because Guangzhou is my first stop (and there's this rule that you can't have Guangzhou as the first stop if you're doing a multi-stop transit)...it's really unclear.

In the end, I had to cancel the ticket (they said they'll refund the ticket...) because I made an error on my first name (I wrote my full name) when booking the ticket and they didn't approve the name change request.

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Answered by ZUPAN | Oct. 07, 2019 13:13

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Steph, you are perfectly eligible for 24 hour visa free transit and you don't need any kind of visa. By the way, I just hope that you are traveling on a single (through) ticket because your layovers are quite tight.

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Answered by ZUPAN | Oct. 09, 2019 09:20

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I can see that several urban legends are slowly contaminating the clear and real facts.

Steph, it is not true that Guangzhou is not eligible to be the first stop if someone is doing a multi-stop transit. This is simply a misunderstanding of the fact that Guangzhou will stop issuing a temporary entry permits or in other words, the permits that someone in transit is allowed to exit the airport for the sake of sightseeing or enjoying an accommodation. Also, Guangzhou will stop issuing these permits to those who have international connections, like:

Manila - Guangzhou - Tokyo

The passengers on the flight itineraries as mentioned above, will not be allowed to enjoy a temporary entry permit, i.e. they will not be allowed to exit the transit area.

Anyway, those passengers that have multi-stop itineraries will be issued temporary entry peemits because they will continue their journeys on domestic flight to the next Chinese stop.

In other words, this what I have mentioned is the right interpretation of the "new" situation in Guangzhou and it has nothing to do with any change of rules regarding 24 hour visa free transit, including Guangzhou. To conclude, you really don't need a visa of any kind.

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