Most guides about arriving in China were written by people who never actually arrived — they read the same Wikipedia articles, translated a few FAQs, and called it a guide. LandingIn is different because it starts from the real friction points foreigners hit in their first week, and it's built by someone who watches those exact frictions play out every month with new colleagues and friends.

Bilingual by default, not by translation. Every tool has Chinese you can copy-paste. Show it to a taxi driver, a police officer, a landlord, a pharmacist. No translation apps needed, no awkward back-and-forth — the language that matters is already on your screen, already correct, already in the register a local would actually write it in.

Tools over articles. Most guides give you 3,000 words to read when what you need is a working checklist. LandingIn leads with interactive tools: a visa checker for 80+ countries that tells you in 30 seconds whether you need a visa, an address translator that converts English descriptions into something a taxi driver can read, and a structured 72-hour flow that tells you what to do Day 1 versus Day 3 so you don't waste time or miss a registration deadline.

Local knowledge, not brochures. Built by someone who grew up in Shanghai. When policies change — like the expansion from 144-hour to 240-hour visa-free transit, or the January 2026 update that added new eligible entry ports — LandingIn updates that week, not next quarter. You see the last-verified date on every major guide, so you know what you're reading is current.

What's Inside

Everything foreigners actually need

LandingIn is split into three layers: interactive tools you can use without reading anything, in-depth written guides for the questions tools can't answer, and Shanghai-specific local detail that no foreign-language source covers properly. Most users only ever touch the tools, and that's by design — the writing is there for the moments you do need to dig deeper.

Interactive Tools

→Visa Checker — Find out in 30 seconds whether your passport needs a visa, and which type.
→72-Hour Landing Checklist — Downloadable PDF covering everything from the airport to fully set up.
→Address Translator — Convert any Chinese address to show a taxi driver. Works offline.
→Currency Converter — Real-time rates plus common Chinese price references you'll actually see.
→Bilingual Templates — 7 scenarios: hospital, police station, bank, hotel, taxi, restaurant, apartment viewing.

In-Depth Guides

55+ guides covering everything foreigners actually get stuck on: 240-hour visa-free transit, using Didi, police registration, the first 72 hours after landing, and dozens more.

Shanghai-Specific

Deep local knowledge for Shanghai: where to stay, the metro system, airport to city, renting apartments.

About the Founder

Built by Someone Who Lives Here

I'm Ethan, born and raised in Shanghai. LandingIn started because I kept watching foreign colleagues struggle with the same arrival problems — police registration confusion, WeChat Pay rejecting their card at a checkout, getting stuck at the airport at midnight unable to find their hotel — and realizing no one had built a guide in the language they actually read, with the cultural context they actually needed, at the moment they actually needed it.

Everything here is written or verified by me. I live ten minutes from the Bund. When a policy changes, I usually find out from the news the same week as everyone else in Shanghai, and I update the site. When you email me about a mistake, I fix it. The phone number for the immigration office on the police registration page? I called it last month to confirm it still works.

More about Ethan →

How to Use This Guide

Three stages, three places to start

1
Before arrival: Two weeks out, run the visa checker to confirm what you need, then download the 72-hour checklist and pre-install the apps it lists. Doing this on your home Wi-Fi avoids the airport scramble of trying to install Chinese apps on a flaky network with a foreign App Store.
2
First 72 hours: Follow the 72-hour landing flow — SIM card, payments, accommodation registration, transport — one step at a time. The flow is sequenced so you don't try to set up WeChat Pay before you have a Chinese phone number, or attempt police registration before you have your hotel address in writing.
3
First month: Browse the daily life section for payments, medical care, food delivery, transport, and the dozens of small things that make daily life work — like which pharmacies stock common foreign meds, or which banks let foreigners open accounts without a tax certificate.

Fresh this month

Last site-wide verification: April 2026

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