That's weird. Japanese haven't needed visas to visit China (up to 30 days?) for a while now.

Oh dear... I now don't have time to get a visa before trying to stay 25 hours in Shanghai starting Monday morning. I've printed out the current guidelines on the website of the Chinese embassy in the US (updated 19/09/08) which have the 48 language, so we'll see if that helps at all. I also went to check with the consulate in LA before leaving, and they said I would be fine. We'll see. I'll report back with news.

Well if the timeframe has been reduced to 24 hours, the immigration supervisor (who quickly allowed me in) had no idea of it. My guess is that nothing has changed and that 48 is still the allowable limit. Lovely little exception to the (for Americans expensive) visa rule.

I have a 4-hour layover in PVG in July (OZ to SQ) and I understand that I don't need a visa for transit less than 24 hours (I am a Malaysian passport holder) - at least that's the info I got from the consulate's website.

Questions:
- Is it OK for me to transit without visa at PVG (the website doesn't looks like it's been updated for awhile)?
- Is there an airside transit?
- Is 4 hours connection enough (it's plenty...but are there any new delays due to the H1N1 flu scare)?
- *Knock on wood* what if someone has a slight fever around me? Will I be quarantined in PVG then?

HI quick question, would i need any type of visa if i were to fly in to PVG from bkk stay in shanghai for 36 hours then fly out from SHA to TLV via PEK staying in the airport for 5 hours to catch my flight (ie transit)? Thanks for the help,

Has anyone done this lately? Are you saying that I can go thru customs in Shanghai and just show the Immigration Officer a print out of an e-ticket within 24 hours from PVG-HKG, and then I can leave the airport, go into Shanghai, spend two days, and return within 48 hours, all without a Chinese visa?

Alternatively, I presume I can obviously transit within the airport from AA-CX without a visa and without going thru customs and immigration (although will my bag be checked thru if I am on two separate tickets)?

AA says the minimum connection time is 2 hours? Seems like a long time for intransit within PVG airport.

You always go through customs at PVG. There is no air-side transit.

Please read http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/china...e-transit.html

Not exactly. You must be going from one country through China to ANOTHER country. If you would read the second Sticky at the top of this Forum, it will make Transit Without Visa clear. HKG-PVG-HKG is not an international transit. HKG-PVG-ICN is.

But if your itinerary qualifies, then as long as your passport is on the Favored List you can have up to 48 hours. Note that's not defined as "return to the airport" but is time gap between scheduled inbound arrival and scheduled outbound departure. To see if your passport gets 48 hours, again, this information is in the aforementioned Sticky. All Non-favored passports get standard 24 hours.

As stated by someone else above, you have NO option to stay airside without going through immigration, whether entering on a visa or whether doing international Transit Without Visa.

Per this Sina article, starting March. 15, international transit passengers (departing within 24 hr.) can TWOV @ PVG without the need to clear customs/immigration.

For english text:
http://translate.google.com/translat...092214288.html

Perfect timing! Do you know if bags can now be checked through? (I tried reading the English version but...)

I suppose they could fetch your bags, like skypier at HKG does, then
have a consolidated check in desk airside. But don't know for sure
what the plan is. Considering they put out notice of the new policy a
day or so before implementation..I guess they are winging it.







The new plan will shorten minimum connection time for international transit passengers as Shanghai tries to further facilitate airport service in a bid to develop the city into an aviation hub.

We'll need to get some updated reports so we can see how the policy plays out in real time. My guess is that the intent is to cut the workload of immigration officers and streamline procedures for passengers with short layovers--who wouldn't have to time to leave the airport anyway. It's just operationally silly to have these types of situations, which are many, run through immigration procedures even at a transit desk.

For other scenarios where people have longer layovers by intent or by necessity of connection scheduling, I find it hard to believe Shanghai will eliminate the existing 24/48 hour TWOV options....they love the incremental money too much! Perhaps it will become a situation where if on long layover and you want to leave airport, they will route you to a desk and give you a stamp for the asking. Essentially, two separate streams of TWOV passengers: the short-connects and the quick-hit visitors.

Of course, especially for the first scenario, this means that PVG's policy of forcing even the transit passengers to pick up luggage at baggage claim, will have to be amended. This might be beneficial to a LOT of transit passengers with transits up to 24 hours. Over that, you'll probably be picking up luggage anyway.

Well, HKG was trated as a separate country and after going thru the first customs queue, I was escorted to a separate desk, which the office spent about a minute looking something up and then stamped my passport with a Stay Permit, good thru the day of my departing flight (which was the next day). The hotel had never heard of this, so it took them a bit to find the visa, but they eventually did and were fine. AA in Boston check in was also aware of the rule and had not problem, although it took a while for the AAgent to type everything into my record, which almost caused my bag to miss the check-in cutoff, but everything turned out to be fine.

You seem to be missing my point. The point is not that Hong Kong is a separate country, the point is that to take advantage of Chinese Transit without Visa, you must be using the Chinese airport between two different international airports. So if your previous travel was HKG-China-Intl (not HKG) or vice-versa, that is OK and you were properly allowed through.

But that is not the journey you tried to hypothesize in a previous post, where you said:
This comment implied a HKG-PVG-HKG journey which is NOT legal within the TWOV rules. There is no lack of clarity in the regulation on this point. People who have tried this and made it as far as the mainland airport are usually refused entry and put back on a plane to where they came from. FT certainly has stories from people who made this assumption and got it wrong. "Transit" does not equal "Round Trip."