China Step by StepPractical intelligence

ATMs and getting cash

An ATM turns a card you already hold into yuan, which is why it beats carrying banknotes across the border. One bank publishes its terms in English: Bank of China states that its ATMs accept UnionPay, Visa, Mastercard, JCB and American Express cards issued outside mainland China, around the clock, for withdrawals and balance enquiries, with a single-withdrawal limit of CNY 3,000; daily and annual limits, and the withdrawal and enquiry fees, are set by your issuing bank. That is one bank’s published rule, not a national one.

Should I do it before China?

Partly — some of it belongs before you fly

There is nothing to install and no appointment to make, so the ATM itself is an after-arrival matter. What belongs to the pre-departure list is the card: no official source publishes which ATMs accept which foreign cards, so you cannot check in advance whether the machine near your hotel will work, and the only real protection is leaving home with more than one physical card.

How

  1. Can do in ChinaPlan to withdraw at the port of entry. The official guide states that you can withdraw RMB at ports of entry from ATMs that accept international bank cards, alongside the exchange service providers and self-service exchange machines there.3
  2. Can do in ChinaHead for a Bank of China ATM if you have a choice. Its English site is the one that names the accepted networks — UnionPay, Visa, Mastercard, JCB, American Express issued outside the mainland — and states 24-hour availability for withdrawal and balance enquiry.1
  3. Can do in ChinaSize each withdrawal against the published CNY 3,000 single-withdrawal limit, and remember that your issuing bank sets the daily and annual limits and the fees. Where the issuer charges a flat fee per withdrawal, several small withdrawals cost several flat fees.1
  4. Can do in ChinaDo not assume an ATM nearby will work. A 2024 government policy explainer counted 67,000 bank outlets offering exchange services to foreign nationals, more than 4,200 currency exchange facilities, 320,000 ATMs, and 190 exchange facilities across 74 international airports — but no official list says which of those ATMs accept foreign cards, and those figures are now dated.2
  5. Do before arrivalCarry a second physical card from a different issuer. This is the same precaution that protects wallet binding, and it is also what gets you through a machine that keeps your card.5
  6. Do before arrivalBefore you fly, confirm in your banking app that international payments are enabled, and tell the bank where you are going. This one comes from a single named issuer and we would rather say so than launder it into a general rule: the source is BCR, a Romanian bank advising Romanian customers, and the record carries a Romania scope accordingly. What BCR describes is an anti-fraud system temporarily blocking a transaction that looks suspicious — a sudden foreign purchase after a history of domestic spending — which is not a Romanian-only behaviour, and an ATM withdrawal on the first morning of a trip is precisely that shape of transaction. Nothing here licenses a claim about how your own issuer behaves; it does tell you which setting to look for.6
  7. Can do in ChinaPrefer an ATM at a large bank in a central area over one in a tourist location. That preference is BCR’s, published for Romanian travellers going anywhere abroad, and it names high commissions at tourist-location ATMs as the reason; that the advice is generic to travel abroad rather than written about China is this site’s note on the record, not a line BCR published. It happens to point the same way as the sourcing on this page: Bank of China is the one bank whose foreign-card ATM terms are published in English, and its machines sit at branches.7
  8. Can do in ChinaIf the machine offers to dispense in euro or lei instead of CNY, refuse and take CNY. Revolut’s Romanian help centre tells its customers to choose the local currency and reject the exchange a terminal offers; it writes about foreign currency in general and does not name China anywhere. Applying it to a Chinese ATM offering euro or lei, and the reading that accepting adds a markup outside Revolut’s control, are this site’s notes against that record rather than lines in the help centre. The account-level detail is Revolut’s own — no extra Revolut exchange fee where the account already holds enough local currency, otherwise Revolut’s rate is typically better than the terminal’s — and this site holds no equivalent published figure for other issuers. The instruction itself, always select CNY, is not specific to Revolut cards or to Romanian ones.8
  9. Can do in ChinaCheck the CNY 100 notes the machine dispenses. Counterfeits of that denomination are reported as frequent, and the warning explicitly includes notes withdrawn from ATMs.4

What can go wrong

You read that Chinese ATMs cap foreign-card withdrawals at CNY 3,000 and planned every withdrawal around it, then a different bank’s machine behaves differently.

What to do instead CNY 3,000 is the limit Bank of China publishes for its own ATMs. We found no equivalent published figure from ICBC, CCB or the others, so it cannot be treated as a nationwide rule — in either direction. Take Bank of China’s number as reliable for Bank of China machines and read the on-screen limit elsewhere.1

The machine in the shopping centre rejects the card and you cannot tell whether the problem is the ATM or the card.

What to do instead There is no official list of which ATMs take foreign cards, and the headline count of 320,000 machines says nothing about the one in front of you. Try an ATM attached to a major bank branch — Bank of China is the one with published foreign-card terms — and take out a first amount at the airport rather than arriving in the city with nothing.2

The ATM keeps your card.

What to do instead Bank of China’s published foreign-card ATM page covers the per-withdrawal limit and who sets the fees, not what to do when a machine retains a card. The step recorded against that record — go to the branch the machine belongs to — is this site’s note rather than a line in the bank’s page, and no telephone number for it is published there. Either way it takes time you do not have at the start of a trip, which is why a second card from a different issuer belongs in your bag before you fly.1

You are at the airport and the exchange counter’s rate looks poor.

What to do instead Exchange also happens at bank branches, some hotels and exchange points in the city, so change only what you need to reach the city and use an ATM afterwards. Changing leftover RMB back is possible in the city or at the departure port.3

A CNY 100 note that came out of the ATM is refused by a shop.

What to do instead Counterfeit CNY 100 notes are reported as frequent, including from ATMs, and a note cannot be traced once it has left the machine. Check notes at the machine, and use ATMs attached to major bank branches.4

The first withdrawal of the trip is refused and you are standing at an airport machine with no yuan.

What to do instead One published account of why that happens comes from BCR, a Romanian bank: anti-fraud may temporarily block a transaction that looks suspicious, and the preventive step is to check the international-payments setting and notify the bank before departure. It is a Romania-scoped record because BCR wrote it for Romanian customers, not because the behaviour is Romanian. Once you are in China a block cannot be lifted without a working line to the bank, which is why the fallback recorded against this advice is a second card from another issuer and enough cash for the first day.6

The ATM screen offers a rate in your home currency and you accept it to avoid surprises.

What to do instead That is the surprise. Revolut’s help centre tells its customers to choose the local currency and reject the exchange a terminal offers — it writes about foreign currency in general and does not name China. That a Chinese ATM’s euro or lei offer carries a markup outside Revolut’s control is this site’s note against that record, not a line in the help centre. BCR gives the same instruction to always choose the local currency. Both sources are Romanian-scoped, and neither makes the answer depend on which country issued the card — decline the conversion and take CNY.8

Last verified and sources

Each record below is shown as provenance: who published it, what kind of document it is, how far it reaches and when we last checked it. The source’s own wording is not reproduced here — most of these documents are published in Chinese, and a translation of ours would be a paraphrase standing where a citation should be. Follow the link to read any of them in the original.

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