China Step by StepPractical intelligence

China metro guide

The metro is the default way to cross a Chinese city, and for a foreign visitor it is unusually forgiving: official guidance puts a ticket counter, a ticket machine and a cash option in front of you, and none of it requires an account. What it does require is a security check on every entry, awareness that the system stops at night rather than running around the clock, and the knowledge that one widely repeated shortcut — tapping your own contactless bank card at the gate — is published for one city only.

Should I do it before China?

Partly — some of it belongs before you fly

Riding the metro needs nothing prepared: you can land with only a passport and cash and still get through a gate. The one item worth finishing at home is the Alipay transit QR code, because the official description makes identity verification a precondition for receiving the code and the code is activated city by city. Everything else on this page — buying the ticket, the security check, the luggage rules — happens after arrival by definition.

How

  1. Can do in ChinaBuy a single-journey ticket at a station ticket window or a self-service ticket machine. If you will be riding often, the same official guidance says you can take your passport to the ticket window and get a stored-value transit card.1
  2. Can do in ChinaPay for that ticket or card with a bank card, RMB cash, or a mobile payment app — but read the acceptance marks at the counter or machine first, because the official text defers to the acceptance signage and the cashier on what is actually taken at that specific point.1
  3. Do before arrivalIf you would rather scan through the gate, set up the Alipay transit code before the trip: tap Travel, select the city you are in, pass identity verification, and the metro QR code is then issued for you to scan at the gate.3
  4. Can do in ChinaIn Beijing only, you can skip ticketing entirely: since 15 June 2025 contactless cards from UnionPay, Mastercard, Visa, JCB and American Express work at the gates of all 29 operating lines and 523 stations plus the S2 suburban railway, with no registration and no app. Mastercard and Visa had already been enabled from 13 September 2024.4
  5. Can do in ChinaExpect a security check every time you enter. Under the Beijing metro passenger rules, passengers must accept and cooperate with the check, and staff may refuse entry to anyone who does not; comparable rules exist in other cities.5
  6. Can do in ChinaKnow that the screening is not the airport liquid rule. The Beijing prohibited-items catalogue works by category and quantity: baijiu of 2000 ml or more, five or more lighters, ten boxes or 200 matches or more, and everyday products whose packaging carries a flammable or explosive hazard label such as floral water, nail polish remover, hairspray and mousse. Ordinary drinking water is not on the banned list.6
  7. Can do in ChinaCheck your bags against the size rule rather than the count: the Beijing passenger rules allow items up to 30 kg, up to 1.8 m long, and no more than 0.5 m wide and 0.5 m high. That a common 28-inch suitcase normally fits, and that oversized items, instrument cases and bicycles may be refused, is this site’s note on the record rather than a line in the rules.7
  8. Can do in ChinaPlan the end of the night around the last train, not around midnight. On the Shanghai Metro timetable most lines finish somewhere in the 22:00–23:00 range, some suburban services earlier, and the operator warns that sales for the last train stop three minutes before it reaches the station.8
  9. Can do in ChinaNavigate by exit number rather than by street name. Shanghai Metro states that every entrance and exit is marked with the metro logo, the line number, the station name and the exit number in both Chinese and English.9

What can go wrong

Your phone payment fails at the ticket machine and there is no one at the window.

What to do instead Look for the cash-capable machine. Article 24 of the Ministry of Transport measures requires at least one machine per ticket-machine group to accept cash and be working, and requires more staffed windows to be opened when machines fail across the board. Bring small notes: the rule guarantees a cash slot, not change for a 100-yuan note.2

You bought a bottle of baijiu or a large aerosol as a gift and now you are at the security check.

What to do instead Take a taxi back to the hotel with it instead. Beijing’s catalogue bans baijiu from 2000 ml and hazard-labelled aerosols outright, and the MTR-operated Beijing lines publish a stricter version of the same list — two lighters, 120 ml of mousse or hairspray — so the number enforced in front of you may be tighter than the city catalogue.6

You tried to tap your contactless Visa at a gate outside Beijing and it did not open.

What to do instead That is expected. The published scheme covers Beijing’s network only, and it requires a genuinely contactless physical card — a magnetic-stripe or insert-only card will not work, and the source does not say whether the same card inside Apple Pay or Google Pay is accepted. Elsewhere, buy a ticket or use a transit QR code.4

You made the first leg but got shut out at the interchange station.

What to do instead Last-train times differ between the station you start at and the station you change at, and they differ by line and by city. Check the times for the actual station on the day rather than assuming a network-wide closing time.8

A notice is posted at the gate or an announcement is playing, and you cannot read or follow it.

What to do instead Bilingual coverage applies to the standing wayfinding — station names, line numbers, exit numbers — while temporary notices, ticketing instructions and announcements are often Chinese only, and the national rules do not mandate bilingual signage at all. Go to the station Service Centre with your problem.9

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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