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Going to China I'll arrive in Beijing and leave again from Zhangjiajie. I've already booked my accommodation for Beijing, but not yet for Zhangjiajie. To apply for a Chinese visa I have to fill in the places where I will be staying (itinerary). So I already filled in the location of Beijing, but I can't fill the place for Zhangjiajie in yet.

I know it's not a problem if I would visit other places without sharing that information up front, but since Zhangjiajie is the city which is on my flight ticket to get out of China, I'm not sure if only the flight will do without accommodation.

Since I leave China from Zhangjiajie, will it be an issue if I apply for my visa without having a location of Zhangjiajie added to my itinerary?

Result: I filled in the form and only filled in "Zhangjiajie, Hunan" on the form instead of a full address since I didn't have one yet and I handed over my flight information. It was no problem at all and I got my visa.

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  • You could post your experience as an additional answer if you want… – Relaxed Jun 23 '15 at 10:39
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I don't have any official information but from past experience I would say that they don't care too much about the itinerary.

Last year I entered China and applied for an visa extension so I had to deal with this twice. Actually the initial visa was through an agency in Kyrgyzstan and they didn't even ask for an itinerary or exit port. For the extension I had to give an itinerary but actually exited through a different border crossing than I had specified.

Also because I never book any hotels ahead, I just put down addresses of mid-range hotels for each location without actually staying there.

And if you not staying in Zhangjiajie but just fly out from there, then don't put down an address, write down airport, but I would still write the name of a hotel instead. You are not required to actually stay there.

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  • I'd rather write down nothing than a false address. Because IF they ask for documents as proof, I can't show anything. I can't remember which documents I had to show last year when applying. I thought they didn't even need my flight tickets, but I don't want to risk anything, since I don't have the time to try to apply multiple times. – Lewis Apr 27 '15 at 6:59
  • You could play it safe, but who says you already have to have a booking for that hotel. It's just where you intend to stay. – Peter Hahndorf Apr 27 '15 at 8:28
  • I suppose it would work, but I just called the visa center just in case. They told me it'll be okay if I only fill in Zhangjiajie instead of a full address. I'm going to apply tomorrow and then I'll see how it goes. – Lewis Apr 27 '15 at 15:18
  • @Lewis - so? How did it go? – Mayo Jun 20 '15 at 23:48
  • @Mayo I added the result of the situation at the end of the question. – Lewis Jun 23 '15 at 10:34
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Likewise, our experience has been they don't seem to care much. We have made several side trips that weren't planned ahead and therefore weren't on our itinerary. Sometimes hotel stays would have revealed to the government where we were, nobody has said anything about it. When they offered 2 year visas to overseas Chinese and spouses we got them without trouble.

(We have always been traveling in the company of Chinese citizens and sometimes they were the ones on the registration. Negotiation goes a lot better if they think they're dealing with locals.)

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