{"id":477224,"date":"2026-02-15T21:30:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T21:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/477224\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T21:30:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T21:30:09","slug":"canadian-passport-holders-can-travel-to-china-visa-free-starting-this-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/477224\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadian passport holders can travel to China visa-free starting this week"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Canadian passport holders can travel to China visa-free starting Tuesday until the end of 2026, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Affairs Ministry announced Sunday \u2014 marking another step in Canada’s thawing relationship with the Chinese government.<\/p>\n

In a statement posted to the Chinese ministry’s website<\/a>, the spokesperson said Canadian passport holders will be “exempted from visa to enter China and stay for up to 30 days for business, tourism, family\/friends visit, exchange and transit purposes.”<\/p>\n

“The policy will be effective until December 31, 2026,” the spokesperson said. The policy also applies to U.K. passport holders.<\/p>\n

Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand confirmed the policy on social media<\/a> and said the change is making “travel easier, supporting business exchanges, and strengthening people-to-people ties between our countries.”<\/p>\n

The idea of Canadian visa-free travel to China was first mentioned in January after Prime Minister Mark Carney visited Beijing and met President Xi Jinping.<\/p>\n

WATCH | PM Mark Carney meets Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing:\"\"<\/p>\n

Carney meets Xi Jinping, hails progress in resetting trade with China<\/p>\n

After years of strained relations, Prime Minister Mark Carney has met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing. Carney hailed a tentative agreement with China to co-operate more on clean and conventional energy, but the Canada-China tariff dispute remains unresolved. <\/p>\n

A statement from Carney’s office<\/a> at the time mentioned that the prime minister “welcomed [the president’s] commitment to introducing visa-free access for Canadians travelling to China.”<\/p>\n

That visit ultimately led to Canada striking a deal with the Chinese government<\/a> to allow tens of thousands of Chinese electric vehicles into Canada in exchange for a break on tariffs for Canadian agricultural products, such as canola seeds.<\/p>\n

For most Canadian tourists, entering China currently requires a lengthy application process and roughly $140 in fees. China has dropped visa requirements for other Western nations in recent years as it tries to boost tourism following the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

Beijing maintained a visa for Canadians and restricted how many Chinese tourism groups could visit Canada during a years-long diplomatic spat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 2 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477225,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-477224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}