A four-week campaign at Brussels Airport, inaugurated on 27 October by China's Mission to the EU, is promoting something genuinely useful for European holidaymakers: mainland China is open to most EU passport holders without a visa, for stays of up to 30 days.

Ambassador Cai Run led the launch alongside figures including Eduardo Santander of the European Travel Commission and MEP Ondřej Dostál. The exemption covers 25 of the EU's 27 member states — everyone except Czechia and Lithuania — and is currently in place until 31 December 2026.

The scheme started small. China first opened visa-free entry to citizens of France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Malaysia in December 2023, initially for 15-day stays. Belgium joined in March 2024, and the permitted stay doubled to 30 days in November 2024. Now there is no visa application, no visa fee and no advance declaration to a Chinese embassy — though border officers can still turn travellers away, so carrying hotel bookings, return flights or invitation letters is recommended.

The rules cover tourism, business, family visits, exchanges and transit. They do not cover paid work, formal study or journalistic assignments, and anyone staying longer than 30 days still needs a proper visa.

Getting there is getting easier too. Cathay Pacific resumed Brussels–Hong Kong flights in August 2025, Hainan Airlines added Chongqing, and Air China launched direct Brussels services to Beijing and Chengdu in March 2026. Santander wants more, arguing that connections to China's smaller regional cities — he name-checked Harbin and Urumqi — would show Europeans a country beyond the usual big names.

The airport push sits against a broader diplomatic backdrop: 2025 marked 50 years of EU–China relations, and there have been cultural events in Brussels including a Zhejiang tourism exhibition and a China-EU table tennis friendship tournament. Santander has also floated a second EU–China Tourism Year in 2028, which would mark the European Travel Commission's 80th birthday and ten years since the first one.

Why it matters for travellers: if you hold an EU passport from one of the 25 eligible countries, a two-week or month-long China trip is now dramatically simpler and cheaper to arrange than it was two years ago. Combined with new direct flights from Brussels and better payment options for foreigners inside China, the practical barriers to a first visit have largely fallen — at least until the end of 2026, so there's a real deadline to plan around.

Story via Travel Tomorrow.