Most consulates make you argue that you can afford the trip. China prints the number: the tourist row on the Chinese consular document table asks for bank deposit proof of “no less than 1 Lakh Rupees”, in the same four-line list as your hotel booking and your ticket. That literalism runs through the whole application, which is why Chinese files fail on small mismatches rather than big doubts.
Four lines, and one of them is a rupee figure
The Kolkata consulate publishes the visa categories as a table, and the L row — the tourist one — is short enough to quote whole: “Issued to those who intend to tour and have sight seeing in China. Tour Itinerary; hotel order; airline ticket order; bank account deposit proof (no less than 1 Lakh Rupees).” The Embassy in New Delhi and the Mumbai consulate carry the same four items. Checked on 04-09-2026, that is the entire trip-specific list.
Read the word order. Not ticket, not paid invoice: an order is a booking, a reservation standing in a system with a reference against it. Two of those lines we hold for you; the other two are yours.
Travel insurance is on none of it — not the L row, not the general list, not the Embassy’s notice. We sell insurance and are still telling you this file does not ask for it. Where the Schengen habit comes from, and what each of the flight and hotel lines really asks for, is in our China L visa document guide.
The general set around those four lines holds one trap for anyone who has applied elsewhere: the photograph is 48mm × 33mm, taken within six months, no glasses. Not the 35×45mm print your Schengen or UK file used, and a studio in India will give you the wrong size unless you say the number out loud.
Since 22 December 2025, the counter is the second step
The Embassy announced on 08-12-2025 that the Chinese Online Visa Application System would launch for India on 22-12-2025: you fill the form and upload your materials through the Delhi service centre’s portal first. The centre describes the sequence in three moves — apply online, then “Submitting Documents to the Visa Centre after Online Approval (No Appointment Required)”, then collection.
Two India-specific mechanics go with it. The appointment requirement was dropped in November 2023, so the timing is yours. And fingerprints are temporarily waived for short-term single or double-entry applicants staying under 180 days, on top of the standing exemptions for applicants under 14 or over 70 and for anyone who gave prints at the same centre within five years.
Where you file follows where you live. The Kolkata consulate states its district plainly: residents of Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal are processed there and lodge at the Kolkata centre. The rest of India goes to Delhi or Mumbai, and we could not find that split set out in one English-language page — so confirm yours before travelling to a city that will not take the file.
In China, your hotel booking doubles as your police registration
Few Indian travellers see this one coming. Under Article 39 of the Exit and Entry Administration Law, a hotel registers your stay for you: you hand your passport across the desk at check-in and the hotel files it with the public security organs. Stay anywhere else — a cousin’s flat in Guangzhou, a homestay outside Xi’an — and you or your host must register at the local police station within 24 hours of arrival. The National Immigration Administration prices the failure at a warning and a fine of not more than CNY 2,000.
Since 20-03-2026 the NIA has piloted online registration for non-hotel stays in seven provincial-level regions: Hebei, Liaoning, Zhejiang, Hubei, Guangxi, Chongqing, Sichuan. Elsewhere it is still the police station, inside a day of landing.
So covering every night is not paperwork hygiene here. It is the line between nights the state records for you and nights that carry a duty you discharge yourself. Three nights in the middle of an itinerary with nothing named against them is a question, asked while the file is still in Delhi.
India is on neither visa-free list. Check before you plan the stopover.
The NIA keeps two lists, and travellers mix them up with each other and with rumour.
- Unilateral visa exemption — 51 countries as of its 17-02-2026 update, entering for up to 30 days without a visa. India is not among them.
- 240-hour visa-free transit — a separate list reaching Japan, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, the UAE, Vietnam, the UK and the US, who may break a journey in China for ten days. India is not on that one either.
What is open to an Indian passport is the 24-hour rule, which the NIA extends to nationals of every other country: with connecting tickets carrying confirmed seats you transit visa-free for under 24 hours, staying inside the port unless border inspection grants a temporary entry permit. A day in Pudong terminal is not a day in Shanghai.
And read the transit (G) row as carefully as the tourist one. It asks for an “Onward air (train or ship) ticket with confirmed date and seat”. Ticket, seat, date — not an order. For a G visa, buy the onward sector; we will not dress a reservation up as one.
What we would actually hold for a Delhi–Shanghai file
A common shape: in through Shanghai Pudong, a few nights in Shanghai, the fast train to Beijing, out of Beijing Capital ten days later. Your itinerary describes that day by day; against it sit the two reservations we hold — sectors and rooms, city by city, on the dates your form claims.
The flight reservation is a live booking in the carrier’s system with a reference on it.
Why hold rather than buy? The Mumbai consulate puts processing at four working days regular, three express — a clock that starts at the consulate, excluding online approval, the centre’s handling and collection.
Five places a Chinese file starts arguing with itself
None is a rule broken. Each is a place where two of your own documents disagree — now read together, online, before you reach the counter.
- A form naming four cities beside a hotel order naming one. Itinerary and accommodation are separate lines on the checklist precisely so they can be compared.
- A room booked from the day after you land. The arrival night is the one most often left uncovered — and in China it is also the night carrying a registration duty.
- A trip longer than the stay you are granted. The Embassy is explicit that type, entries, validity and duration are decided by the officer from your materials, and that first-time applicants are generally issued single entry. A 34-day plan can meet a 30-day permission.
- A balance that could not fund the plan beside it. The ₹1 lakh line is a floor, not a target; twelve nights across three cities read differently against it than a long weekend.
- The one failure that changes what the file is, not how strong it is.
What it costs, and where those numbers come from
The Embassy’s FAQ of 11-04-2025 gives the fee for Indian citizens as ₹2,900 single entry and ₹4,400 double, express ₹1,800; its notice of 04-01-2026 extends the reduction to 31 December 2026 and holds express and urgent at ₹1,800 and ₹2,700. That notice publishes its table as an image we could not read reliably, so confirm the figure at the counter — and note the visa centre charges a service fee on top, which the Embassy’s notice does not cover.
Send us the cities and dates as they stand on your form.