HANOI: Nguyen Mau Xuan Kieu, a Vietnamese student studying in China, and her elder sister in Vietnam were both surprised and excited when they learned that China's new visa-free transit policy could make their year-end reunion and overseas travel plan much easier to arrange.
Under the new arrangement, Kieu's sister can travel from Vietnam to China to visit her, spend time together in Shanghai's Xintiandi entertainment area and the iconic Bund, and then continue with Kieu to a third country, turning a transit stop into part of their holiday.
Effective from Aug. 20, Vietnamese citizens holding ordinary passports and interline passenger tickets with confirmed dates and itineraries bound for a third country or region may enter China through any of the 65 ports across the country and stay up to 240 hours, or 10 days, without a visa.
Vietnamese ordinary passport holders are also eligible for the 30-day visa-free entry policy for Hainan Province in south China starting the same day.
Kieu said the policy could save her sister both time and money, as she would no longer need to apply for an additional transit visa, which she estimated would otherwise cost around 3 million Vietnamese dong (about US$117).
"Airfares are also quite reasonable, with tickets from Ho Chi Minh City to Shanghai and from Shanghai to Seoul allowing us to save another one to two million Vietnamese dong (about US$39 to 78)," she said.
For Vietnam's tourism industry, the expanded policies are expected to open up more room for travel products combining China with onward destinations.
Huynh My Yen, general director of a travel company in Vietnam, said transit tours through China currently account for around 10 per cent of the company's total outbound international business.
"The 240-hour visa-free transit programme allows Vietnamese tourists to simplify paperwork, cut transit visa fees and processing time, and seamlessly enjoy a 'one journey, two countries' travel experience," Yen said.
The company is also stepping up promotion and consultation, expanding routes and offering China's capital Beijing stopover tours for passengers on long-haul flights to destinations such as Russia, Yen added.
"We expect 30 to 40 per cent of customers booking transit and multi-destination tours in the second half of 2026," she said.
The company's push comes as visa-free travel accounts for a growing share of foreign arrivals in China.
In the first half of 2026, China recorded 17.82 million visa-free entries by foreign nationals, up 30.6 per cent year on year and accounting for 77.7 per cent of all foreign entries, according to the National Immigration Administration (NIA).
Vietnam ranked as China's fourth-largest source of inbound foreign travelers during the period, after South Korea, Russia and Malaysia, the NIA said.
Vietnam welcomes China's decision to include Vietnamese citizens in the 240-hour visa-free transit programme and the 30-day visa-free entry policy for Hainan Province, Pham Thu Hang, spokesperson for the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has said. -Xinhua
