# China Visa for Indians 2026: What CVASC's New Portal Changed
> CVASC launched its online-first process on 22 December 2025. The confirmed government L-visa fee is ₹2,900 (single entry); Mumbai submissions may be paused.
- Published: 2026-08-01 · Updated: 2026-08-10
- Author: VisaGyan (VisaGyan)
- Canonical: https://visagyan.in/china-visa-for-indians
- Official sources:
- https://www.visaforchina.cn/DEL3_EN/
- https://mumbai.china-consulate.gov.cn/eng/lsyw/visa/
- https://mumbai.china-consulate.gov.cn/eng/lsyw/visa/202601/t20260104_11804710.htm
- https://in.china-embassy.gov.cn/
- https://www.mea.gov.in/
- https://www.goindigo.in/information/visa-information/china-cn-visa.html
- https://www.akbartravels.com/visa/china-visa
- https://www.visahq.in/china/
- https://www.cnbctv18.com/world/china-rolls-out-online-visa-system-for-indians-ws-l-19784282.htm
- https://btwvisas.com/visa-guide/china-visa
- https://www.ndtv.com/travel/how-to-apply-for-a-china-visa-from-india-a-step-by-step-guide-11773700
- https://www.ivisa.com/news/china-visa-free-entry-uk-canada-february-2026
- https://www.ivisa.com/visas/china
- https://www.ixigo.com/visa-for-indians/ml/china-cn
- https://www.icicilombard.com/travel-insurance/travel-guide/blogs/visa-on-arrival-for-china
---
**China does issue tourist visas to Indian passport holders in 2026.** Every application now runs through a two-step process CVASC (the China Visa Application Service Centre) switched on for India on 22 December 2025: an online form and document upload at visaforchina.cn, then an in-person passport and biometrics submission at a physical centre. There is no visa-on-arrival, no eVisa and no general visa-free entry for an Indian passport — every source gathered for this guide agrees on that point, even where they disagree on almost everything else. One reseller, VisaHQ, reports that "the Chinese embassy has stopped accepting applications in Mumbai till further notice." This guide could not independently confirm that claim against an official source. The government L-visa fee itself is confirmed, not open to guesswork: the Consulate General of the People's Republic of China in Mumbai's own notice, dated 4 January 2026, sets the single-entry rate at ₹2,900, extended through 31 December 2026, and NDTV and btwvisas.com independently report the identical figure. What every incumbent page merges into one bundled number is the CVASC's own service fee on top of it — ₹2,107 to ₹3,106 depending on the tier — and that split, along with the Mumbai question, is unpacked below, dated.
## Where things stand for an Indian passport in 2026, dated
**An Indian passport needs a full L (tourist) visa to enter mainland China in 2026 — a sticker in the passport, not a digital authorisation.** CVASC is actively processing these applications, not sitting on a backlog. Search results for "china visa for indians" carry a Google AI Overview, a People Also Ask block, and — unusually for this kind of query — a knowledge graph panel plus a Google Reviews block, appearing twice on the same results page (31 July 2026 snapshot). That layout is Google reading part of the intent as a place query. People searching this phrase are not only asking "do I need a visa" — they are also asking "where do I physically go." Most of the pages ranking for it never answer that second question at all.
The organic results themselves mix an airline (IndiGo), two large travel-visa resellers (Akbar Travels, VisaHQ), and — at position 2 — the official CVASC portal itself, visaforchina.cn, split by city jurisdiction (New Delhi's jurisdiction code is DEL3). A genuine Chinese consulate domain, mumbai.china-consulate.gov.cn, also surfaces. None of the ranking pages puts the government fee and a reseller's service fee in separate columns. None flags the Mumbai status question. Only one, ixigo.com, makes a transit-visa-free claim for Indian passports that the rest of the field contradicts. Those three gaps are what the rest of this guide is built around, covering the China Visa Application Service Centre India network city by city, further down.
## The online system that opened in India — what changed, and what did not
**CVASC's new online-first process for India went fully live on 22 December 2025** — the China online visa system India applicants now use for every step before the counter visit. It replaced a paper-form workflow that stopped taking new submissions the week before. Three independent sources corroborate the date. CNBC-TV18 reported the online system's rollout. IndiGo's own visa guide states "effective from December 2025, the Chinese Embassy has introduced a new process to simplify visa application procedures for Indian citizens." VisaHQ's own transition notes, dated to the same window, describe the old visa form being accepted only until 16 December 2025, a short blackout from 17–19 December with no new applications processed at all, and the new upgraded online process taking over exclusively from 22 December onward.
The mechanics are a genuine two-step process, not a single online form. Step one happens entirely on visaforchina.cn: you create an account, select the city jurisdiction you are applying from — New Delhi, Mumbai or Kolkata — and fill in personal, passport and travel details. You then upload scanned copies of every supporting document. The embassy reviews that submission online before you go anywhere near a counter. Only once your account status shows "Online Review Completed," confirmed by a follow-up email, do you move to step two: printing the application form and confirmation page, then physically visiting the visa centre with your original passport and printed documents.
1. **Create an account at visaforchina.cn**, selecting your applying jurisdiction — New Delhi, Mumbai or Kolkata.
2. **Complete the online application** with passport, personal and travel details, and upload scanned copies of every supporting document, invitation letter included if you have one.
3. **Wait for online review.** No source gathered for this guide states a fixed pre-review turnaround; you are notified by email once the account shows "Online Review Completed."
4. **Print the application form and confirmation page**, then visit the visa centre in person with your original passport and printed documents.
5. **Submit documents, give biometrics if required for your category, and pay the fee at the counter.** There is no online payment option for the government fee itself; IndiGo's own guide states payment happens offline, at the counter, on passport submission.
6. **Collect your passport** on the date given at submission, or use home delivery where the centre offers it.
What did not change: the in-person layer. Submitting a scanned document online was never enough on its own, and it still is not. The physical passport, the printed confirmation page and, depending on category, a biometric capture are still required at a counter before any visa is issued. The online step replaced walking in cold with a set of documents an officer had never seen. It did not replace the visit itself.
## The L visa: documents, and the two that trip Indian applicants
**The L visa is the tourist category almost every Indian applicant needs.** The China tourist visa L for Indians is valid for roughly three months from issue, with a permitted stay of up to 30 days per entry, in single-, double- or multiple-entry versions. IndiGo's and Akbar Travels' own document lists both centre on the same core bundle: a passport with at least six months' validity remaining (IndiGo and VisaHQ specify two blank pages; Akbar Travels specifies at least three), two recent colour photographs to the official specification, a completed application form, a day-wise itinerary, confirmed hotel bookings, a confirmed return air ticket, a personal or employer covering letter, income tax returns or Form 16 for the last three years, and a recent bank statement. If you are applying through a travel agency rather than yourself, VisaHQ's own onboarding notes add a requirement most individual applicants never see: the agency itself must submit a company profile and a signed visa-authorisation letter from you, the principal applicant, before a group tour visa China application is accepted at all.
Two items in that list cause more trouble than the rest combined, and neither is a simple checkbox. The first is the invitation letter China applicants need "if staying with family/friends," per IndiGo's own eligibility notes. An invitation letter is not proof you know someone in China. It is evidence the visa officer can cross-check: the inviter's identity document, their address, and a plausible, specific reason for the visit. A generic or unsigned note does the opposite of what applicants expect — it reads as unverifiable rather than reassuring.
The second is the itinerary-and-hotel pairing. A day-wise itinerary, confirmed hotel bookings and a confirmed return ticket are not three separate boxes to tick. The three have to agree with each other, and with the dates on the application form. The hotel booking proof China visa officers actually check has to match the stated itinerary dates and the return-flight date exactly. That kind of internal inconsistency is what a busy reviewing officer notices before they notice anything else on the file.
The bank-balance figure is not actually in dispute, once you separate the official minimum from an agency's own safety margin. NDTV, reporting on 15 July 2026, cites a CVASC notice setting the minimum bank balance at ₹1,00,000 (₹1 lakh). Google's AI Overview for this query (31 July 2026) independently states the same ₹1,00,000 minimum, and btwvisas.com (updated 24 July 2026) frames it as "official minimum ₹1 lakh; ₹1.5-2 lakhs recommended." Akbar Travels' own China visa page lists a required "minimum closing balance of INR 1,60,000/- (last 6 months)" for its tourist-visa document bundle — read against the other three sources, that reads as Akbar's own recommended cushion, not a second official figure. Plan around the ₹1,00,000 official minimum, keep ₹1,60,000 as a safer buffer if you can manage it, and confirm the exact figure on your own visaforchina.cn application before you assemble your bank statement. If this is your first trip abroad, the [first international trip from India checklist](/first-international-trip-from-india-checklist) covers the broader pre-departure basics this guide does not repeat.
## The fee in ₹: government fee and centre service fee, separated
**The government L-visa fee for an Indian applicant is ₹2,900 for single entry, confirmed by an official source, not only by resellers.** The Consulate General of the People's Republic of China in Mumbai published a dated notice — "Notice on Extension of Visa-Fee Reduction," 4 January 2026 — extending the reduced schedule through 31 December 2026. The schedule: ₹2,900 single entry, ₹4,400 double entry, ₹5,900 six-month multiple entry, ₹8,800 twelve-month-plus multiple entry, and ₹1,800 per applicant for a group visa. btwvisas.com's own fee table (updated 24 July 2026) and NDTV (15 July 2026) both list the identical figures independently, and Google's AI Overview for "china visa for indians" (31 July 2026) repeats the single-entry number, describing it as the price a visa "starts at." Three independent sources and the consulate's own notice agree on one number — the government fee is settled.
On top of that government fee sits the CVASC's own service fee, and this is the layer every applicant actually pays that most competitor pages never separate out. NDTV and btwvisas.com, reporting independently on 15 and 24 July 2026, give the identical CVASC service-fee schedule. Regular service (sixth-working-day collection) runs ₹2,107; Express (fourth-working-day collection) runs ₹3,106; Postal service runs ₹999; Premium Lounge service runs ₹3,106 — all inclusive of tax. A Regular-service single-entry application therefore totals ₹2,900 + ₹2,107 = ₹5,007 before any travel agent is involved — btwvisas.com states the same total directly. The CVASC service fee is a government-recognised centre charge, not a reseller's commission, and it applies whether you submit yourself or through an agent.
VisaHQ, a private visa reseller, lists its own "Embassy fee" line at ₹7,773 for one single-entry tier and ₹13,500 for another — well above the ₹2,900 government rate above. That is not a second government-fee report; it is VisaHQ's own bundled reseller pricing, and the two tiers are clearly labelled once you check the site directly rather than trust a scrape summary. The ₹7,773 row is a 20-25-business-day tier where the applicant submits the case themself. The ₹13,500 row is a faster 10-15-business-day tier. A third row on the same page bundles that same ₹7,773 embassy-fee line with a ₹16,978 "specialist submission" service fee, where a VisaHQ agent handles the filing instead of you. None of those three rows is a competing government fee — they are VisaHQ's own markup for speed and hand-holding, stacked on top of its own quoted version of the government line.
A third layer sits above both the government fee and the CVASC's own service fee: what a travel agent charges for handling the filing for you. VisaHQ's own table lists this separate "Service fee" at ₹5,999 on its cheaper single-entry row, rising to ₹16,978 where a VisaHQ specialist submits the case, plus 18% GST charged on that service fee alone — an Indian tax on the reseller's own commission, not a China-related charge. Akbar Travels does not separate any of these layers. Its China visa page quotes one bundled figure, "Starting from ₹7,099," with no line distinguishing the government fee, the CVASC service fee and Akbar's own commission. Against the confirmed ₹2,900 government fee plus a ₹2,107 CVASC Regular-service fee (₹5,007 total), Akbar's ₹7,099 implies roughly ₹2,092 of its own markup on the standard route — a figure Akbar's page does not itself state. That merged number is exactly the pattern this China visa fee in rupees section exists to unbundle. If you are tracking multiple 2026 fee changes across destinations rather than only China, see [visa fees for Indians in 2026](/visa-fees-for-indians-2026).
| Fee layer | Reported amount (₹) | Source, accessed |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Government fee — single entry (reduced schedule, confirmed) | ₹2,900 | Consulate General of the PRC, Mumbai, notice dated 4 Jan 2026; btwvisas.com, 24 Jul 2026; NDTV, 15 Jul 2026 |
| Government fee — double entry (reduced schedule) | ₹4,400 | Consulate General of the PRC, Mumbai, 4 Jan 2026; btwvisas.com, 24 Jul 2026 |
| Government fee — 6-month multiple entry (reduced schedule) | ₹5,900 | Consulate General of the PRC, Mumbai, 4 Jan 2026; btwvisas.com, 24 Jul 2026 |
| Government fee — 1-year multiple entry (reduced schedule) | ₹8,800 | Consulate General of the PRC, Mumbai, 4 Jan 2026; btwvisas.com, 24 Jul 2026 |
| Government fee — group visa, per applicant | ₹1,800 | Consulate General of the PRC, Mumbai, 4 Jan 2026 |
| CVASC service fee — Regular (6th working day collection) | ₹2,107 | NDTV, 15 Jul 2026; btwvisas.com, 24 Jul 2026 |
| CVASC service fee — Express (4th working day collection) | ₹3,106 | NDTV, 15 Jul 2026; btwvisas.com, 24 Jul 2026 |
| CVASC service fee — Postal | ₹999 | NDTV, 15 Jul 2026; btwvisas.com, 24 Jul 2026 |
| CVASC service fee — Premium Lounge | ₹3,106 | NDTV, 15 Jul 2026; btwvisas.com, 24 Jul 2026 |
| VisaHQ "Embassy fee" line, single entry, applicant-submitted (20-25 business days) | ₹7,773 | visahq.in, 31 Jul 2026 |
| VisaHQ "Embassy fee" line, single entry, faster tier (10-15 business days) | ₹13,500 | visahq.in, 31 Jul 2026 |
| VisaHQ service fee (before GST) | ₹5,999–₹16,978 | visahq.in, 31 Jul 2026 |
| GST on VisaHQ's service fee | 18% | visahq.in, 31 Jul 2026 |
| Akbar Travels bundled tourist-visa price (not separated) | "Starting from" ₹7,099 | akbartravels.com, 31 Jul 2026 |
## Where you actually go: the visa centres, city by city
**CVASC accepts India applications through three jurisdictions — New Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata.** One source reports Mumbai submissions are currently suspended, a claim this guide flags rather than resolves. IndiGo's own guide, describing the online portal's setup step, lists exactly those three cities: CVASC New Delhi Mumbai Kolkata are the jurisdictions applicants choose between when creating a visaforchina.cn account. Separately, VisaHQ's China visa page states plainly, and repeats it across its own content: "the Chinese embassy has stopped accepting applications in Mumbai till further notice." No date is attached to that statement. No official CVASC or consulate notice confirming it turned up in the sources gathered for this guide.
Do not plan a Mumbai-jurisdiction submission on the strength of this page or any other travel-content page. If you are applying from Maharashtra, Gujarat or a neighbouring state normally routed through Mumbai, confirm the centre's current status directly at visaforchina.cn or with the Consulate General of the People's Republic of China in Mumbai before you finish assembling documents around that jurisdiction.
This guide also does not carry verified street addresses for any of the three centres. CVASC addresses and the exact state-by-state jurisdiction split have moved before, and are not reliably documented across the sources gathered here. Publishing an address this guide cannot verify would risk sending a reader to the wrong building — a worse outcome than no address at all. Use visaforchina.cn's own jurisdiction pages (the New Delhi one is coded DEL3\_EN) to confirm the current address, and which state your passport application falls under, before you travel to a centre.
| Jurisdiction city | Reported status | Source, accessed |
| --- | --- | --- |
| New Delhi | Operating; DEL3\_EN jurisdiction on visaforchina.cn | visaforchina.cn organic listing; goindigo.in, 31 Jul 2026 |
| Mumbai | Reported suspended, no confirmation date | visahq.in, 31 Jul 2026 (unconfirmed by an official source) |
| Kolkata | Operating, per IndiGo's jurisdiction list | goindigo.in, 31 Jul 2026 |
One distinction worth holding onto while you plan: Akbar Travels' own branch offices in Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai are travel-agency service points, not CVASC visa centres. Booking an appointment at a travel agent's office is not the same as submitting at the government-recognised visa centre for your jurisdiction. Agency offices also exist in more cities than CVASC does.
## Biometrics: who must give them, and who is exempt
**Most tourist applicants are currently exempt from giving biometrics, not required to.** NDTV, reporting on 15 July 2026, states that "applicants applying for short-term single-entry or double-entry visas with a stay of less than 180 days are currently exempt from biometric collection requirements," citing a notice from the China Visa Application Service Center. btwvisas.com, updated 24 July 2026, independently confirms it: "China has extended its fingerprint exemption for short-term visa applicants until the end of 2026 ... This exemption applies to all nationalities, including Indian passport holders." Every L (tourist) visa this guide covers is single- or double-entry with a stay of up to 30 days — inside that exemption on both counts. Treat biometrics as currently not required for a standard single- or double-entry tourist application, subject to CVASC's own confirmation at the counter.
VisaHQ, accessed 31 July 2026, separately reports an age-based exemption — under 14 and over 70 — with no stay-length or entry-type condition attached. That figure is the older, narrower rule most biometrics China visa India guides still lead with, and it is not the current headline exemption; treat it as a secondary data point, most relevant if the short-stay exemption above lapses after 31 December 2026 or does not apply to your visa category (a multiple-entry visa, for instance, falls outside the NDTV/btwvisas exemption).
A separate, distinct rule governs whether you have to show up in person at all, independent of biometrics. VisaHQ's onboarding notes state that the China Embassy in New Delhi "has now made the personal appearance of the applicant mandatory at the time of submission" for a multiple-entry visa specifically. For a single- or double-entry application, personal appearance is not mandatory, and an agency can submit on the applicant's behalf. Entry count decides the personal-appearance requirement; the short-stay exemption above decides the biometric requirement for most tourist applicants. Those are two separate conditions, easy to conflate into one blanket "you must go in person" rule.
## The 240-hour visa-free transit — what it is, and why it is probably not your route
**China's 240-hour (10-day) visa-free transit lets eligible nationalities pass through China without a visa, when travelling onward to a third country, entering through designated ports.** It is not a route into China as a destination. Whether an Indian passport is even on the eligible list is unresolved in the sources gathered for this guide. iVisa describes the China visa-free transit 240 hours scheme as covering roughly 55 nationalities, requiring entry through specific designated ports, a passport valid at least three months beyond arrival, a visa for the destination country if one is needed, and confirmed onward tickets departing within the window.
Every one of those conditions matters. The one every listicle circulating on this query tends to drop is the first: this is a transit exemption for people passing through China on the way somewhere else. If China is where you are actually going — the situation almost everyone searching "china visa for indians" is in — the 240-hour scheme does not apply to your trip, regardless of your nationality's eligibility.
The eligibility question itself is genuinely contested in what this guide could find. ixigo.com's own China visa page states that "Indian passport holders can transit China visa-free for 72 hours (most cities) or 144 hours (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Shenzhen, and select others)" — a claim about the older, narrower transit-free tiers rather than the newer 240-hour one. No other source reviewed for this guide corroborates that claim. IndiGo states plainly that China "does not have a visa on arrival or an eVisa for Indian nationals." ICICI Lombard's own travel-insurance guide states plainly that "India nationals cannot avail China's visa on arrival option," adding elsewhere that "passport holders of some countries are eligible to apply for a Chinese Visa on arrival" — a different-nationality carve-out that does not reach an Indian passport. Those are not the same scheme as transit-free entry, but the pattern across every source except ixigo.com is consistent: no exemption of any kind is documented for an Indian passport. Do not build an itinerary around the 72/144/240-hour transit schemes on the strength of ixigo's claim alone. Verify directly with your airline and the National Immigration Administration's own published nationality list before assuming any transit-free window applies to you.
## Processing time, and planning backwards from your dates
**IndiGo states standard L-visa processing runs 4 to 5 working days, with express or VIP processing at 3 working days.** Akbar Travels' FAQ separately states standard processing "normally takes upto 4 working days," with express service at 2 working days. Both are published ranges, not guarantees, and neither source states a start date for the count. This China visa processing time from India gap matters more now than before December 2025, because the counter clock does not start until your online submission has already cleared review.
IndiGo's own guidance is to apply four to six weeks ahead of travel in normal season, and at least eight weeks ahead in peak season. That buffer reads as generous against a stated 3–5 working day process, until you account for the unpublished, unpredictable time your file can spend in the online pre-review queue before you are even allowed to book a counter visit.
Plan backwards from your travel date in four blocks rather than one number. First, time to gather and reconcile your documents — itinerary, hotel and return-ticket dates must agree, as covered above. Second, time in the online pre-review queue, which no source states a fixed length for. Third, the in-person counter visit itself, which for a multiple-entry applicant requires your personal appearance. Fourth, the stated 3–5 working day processing window once documents are physically submitted. If you are routing through Mumbai and that jurisdiction's reported suspension is still current when you apply, add the time needed to redirect your application to New Delhi or Kolkata on top of all four blocks.
## What does not apply to an Indian passport
China has announced several visa-free entry expansions in 2026, and none of them include an Indian passport. On 15 February 2026, China's Foreign Ministry confirmed visa-free entry for British and Canadian ordinary passport holders, effective 17 February 2026. It covers up to 30 days for business, tourism, family visits, exchange and transit, running until 31 December 2026, and joins more than 50 other countries already on China's unilateral visa-free list — among them France, Germany, Italy, Australia and Japan, per iVisa's own reporting of the announcement (see [visa rule changes for Indians in 2026](/visa-rule-changes-2026) for the wider pattern across destinations). That list, however large, is a named list. An Indian passport is not on it, and no source gathered for this guide states otherwise for mainland China entry. If you are checking which destinations genuinely require no advance paperwork at all, see [visa-free countries for Indian passport holders](/visa-free-countries-for-indians); China is not currently one of them.
A separate, regional exemption also circulates in search results and should not be confused with mainland entry. A Chinese consulate listing (mumbai.china-consulate.gov.cn) references "China Expands Allowed Purposes of Visa-Free Entry to Hainan for 59 Countries." Hainan's visa-free scheme, where it exists, is specific to that island province and to a defined country list this guide could not fully verify from the sources gathered. It is not evidence of a mainland China exemption, and should not be treated as one without checking the current 59-country list directly.
Two more claims are worth ruling out explicitly, because both circulate around this query. China does not offer visa-on-arrival for Indian citizens (ICICI Lombard, IndiGo). China does not run an eVisa system for Indian applicants (IndiGo). Every Indian applicant applies through the CVASC sticker-visa process described in this guide, with no digital-only alternative available. If your trip spans more of East Asia, [Japan](/japan-visa-for-indians), [South Korea](/south-korea-visa-from-india) and [K-ETA](/k-eta-for-indians) each run their own separate application processes — check every destination on your itinerary individually rather than assuming China's rules carry over. For the broader Indian-passport travel picture this cluster covers, see the [Indian passport topic page](/topics/indian-passport).
*Sources cited only — expert review pending. Fees, centre status and processing rules change without notice; verify the current government fee, your jurisdiction's status and your document requirements directly at visaforchina.cn or your CVASC centre before you apply. For individualized advice, consult a licensed professional.*