Paying in China without cash: Alipay and WeChat Pay with a UK card

China is a phone-payment country

In the cities, paying by phone is not an alternative to cards — it is the default. Street stalls, taxis, temples and metro gates all run on QR codes. Physical Visa and Mastercard are accepted at hotels, big malls, airports and some restaurants, and almost nowhere else.

The good news is that this stopped being a problem for visitors some time ago. Since 2024 both Alipay and WeChat Pay accept international cards directly, and by 2026 linking one is a ten-minute job you do at home. Both apps have full English interfaces and neither needs a Chinese phone number.

Plan to install both. Alipay is the more reliable of the two for foreign cards and bundles ride-hailing and metro codes under one roof; WeChat Pay is the only option at some small restaurants and is essential for booking certain attractions. Two apps also gives you a fallback when one fails.

A useful test before you rely on either: buy a ¥5 bottle of water at a convenience store with each app. If both work, your card link and identity verification have cleared on the Chinese side, and you can stop worrying about payment for the rest of the trip.

Setting up before you fly

Start on your home Wi-Fi the day before departure, because installing the apps after you land is slower. Download Alipay and WeChat, register with your own phone number, then verify your identity with a photo of your passport and a selfie. You do not need a Chinese number at any stage.

Verification usually clears in minutes, occasionally a day, and it unlocks the higher limits — do not skip it, because unverified accounts are capped low and fail more often at the till. Then add a card under the wallet section of each app.

Tell your bank you are travelling. Fraud systems routinely block the first sudden Chinese QR charge, and a failed link in the wrong place is the most common reason a visitor ends up on cash only for their first day.

• Both apps take Visa, Mastercard, Amex, JCB, Discover and Diners
• A passport scan plus a selfie completes verification, usually within minutes
• Link two cards on different networks as a fallback
• Do it at home: Chinese app stores can slow a new install

Fees: the ¥200 rule

Both apps waive their foreign-card fee on any single payment of ¥200 (about £21) or less. Above ¥200, a service fee of roughly 3 per cent of the full amount applies. Tencent confirmed the small-payment waiver would run through the whole of 2026, so it is a standing policy rather than a promotion.

The platform fee sits on top of whatever your own bank charges for a foreign-currency transaction, so a card with no foreign-use fee saves real money over a fortnight. If your bank issues a UnionPay card, binding that instead of a Visa or Mastercard avoids the conversion charge altogether.

The precise rates and thresholds are set by the platforms and the card networks, and they have been adjusted more than once, so the in-app notice shown when you link a card is the figure that counts on the day.

Limits, and what foreign cards cannot do

Once verified, the ceiling is high: the central-bank limit for foreign-card payments inside Chinese apps is US$5,000 per transaction and US$50,000 a year, and Alipay's own single-transaction cap was raised well above the old ¥3,000 figure. Everyday spending never comes close to either.

What foreign cards cannot do is send money to friends or send red packets — merchant payments only. Some deposits, shared power banks and bike rentals also reject foreign-card accounts, or refund slowly, so treat those as cash jobs rather than wallet ones.

A payment code needs a live internet connection. Without data, there is no QR code and no payment, which is why an eSIM or a roaming plan matters as much as the wallet itself on a trip where almost everything is paid by phone.

Cash, cards and ATMs

Cash has not disappeared. It is legally required to be accepted and older taxi drivers and rural vendors will take it, though small stalls often cannot make change. Carry ¥300–500 (about £32–54) in low-denomination notes as a backstop rather than as your main method.

ATMs at Bank of China and ICBC reliably take foreign Visa and Mastercard. If the machine offers to charge you in pounds, decline and be billed in yuan, so that your own bank does the conversion instead of the ATM operator at a worse rate.

For the hotel bill or a large purchase, use the plastic directly — hotels and big stores accept it, and there is no 3 per cent platform fee, only your card's own conversion charge, which is often the cheaper of the two routes.

Exchange rates at airport counters and the big Bank of China branches are reasonable, and you will need your passport to change money. Rates at a UK bank before you leave are usually worse, so change only a small amount at home, if any.

Check the rules before you go

The ¥200 threshold, the 3 per cent rate and the transaction caps have all been adjusted in recent years, usually in visitors' favour. Do not budget from a screenshot or a blog post; check the fee notice inside each app after you link your card and before you rely on it.

Keep a working card, a second card from a different bank, and some cash stored separately from your phone. When a payment fails in China it is almost always the bank block or the connection, not your balance, and having all three options turns a small annoyance into a non-event.

If you are travelling as a family, remember that each adult needs their own verified account, since a child cannot pay from a parent's phone. Set up the adults' apps before departure and keep one card free for the hotel's deposit hold.