China’s Digital Arrival Card went live nationwide on November 20, 2025, and this site somehow hasn’t written about China once — despite the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, and the Terracotta Army sitting on more bucket lists than almost anywhere else on earth. That gap ends now, and it ends with a warning: China’s National Immigration Administration has spent the months since launch telling foreign travelers that the form is free, and that a growing number of lookalike websites are charging them anyway.

The pattern isn’t new. This site has flagged the identical scam for Vietnam, Thailand’s TDAC, Nepal, and a dozen other countries rolling out digital entry systems. A government replaces a paper form with a website, most travelers have never heard of the new requirement, and search results fill up with polished imitation sites charging a “processing fee” for something the real government portal gives away free. China’s version of this is just newer, and it’s landing on a destination big enough that a lot of people are about to search for it for the first time.

Quick Facts — China Digital Arrival Card (CDAC)

Detail	Info
Launched	November 20, 2025, nationwide
Cost	Free
Official portal	s.nia.gov.cn/ArrivalCardFillingPC
Other legit channels	NIA 12367 app, verified WeChat/Alipay mini-programs, QR code at ports of entry
Submission window	Up to 72 hours before arrival
Time to complete	About 5–10 minutes
Backup option	Paper cards and airport kiosks still available
Domain to trust	Anything ending in .gov.cn

In one sentence: China’s Digital Arrival Card is a free, government-run form at s.nia.gov.cn that takes about ten minutes to submit within 72 hours of arrival, and any site charging you to fill it out is not the Chinese government.

What Is the China Digital Arrival Card?

The CDAC is the online replacement for the paper arrival card that used to get handed out on the plane or filled in at an immigration desk. China’s National Immigration Administration rolled it out nationwide on November 20, 2025, covering entry by air, land, and sea. You submit your passport details, travel information, and accommodation address before you land, the system generates a QR code, and an officer scans it on arrival. Same data as the old paper card. Different timing, and considerably less scrambling for a pen in your seat pocket somewhere over the Pacific.

It applies to foreign travelers entering China generally — not a pilot program limited to a few airports, which is more than can be said for some countries still testing these systems in slow motion.

Is China’s Arrival Card Free? Yes — Here’s the Proof

Short answer: yes, completely. NIA has stated this directly and repeatedly, including in a policy notice titled, bluntly, “Beware of Fraudulent Websites for Arrival Card Filling.” The notice states that “overseas fraudsters have been defrauding travelers of fees by setting up counterfeit websites” that mimic the real portal. NIA didn’t publish a specific dollar figure for what these sites charge — unlike Thailand, where immigration officials named exact numbers ($20 to $90) after tracking the scam’s spread. China’s warning is less quantified but no less direct: if a site asks for payment, it isn’t the government.

That warning first went out in early December 2025, roughly two weeks after launch, and outlets including China Daily and The Star picked it up. NIA reiterated the same guidance into 2026 — the scam sites hadn’t gone away, and neither had the confusion driving people toward them.

Official Channels vs. Scam Sites: How to Tell Them Apart

NIA lists exactly four legitimate ways to submit the CDAC. Nothing else counts, no matter how official it looks.

1. The NIA web portal — s.nia.gov.cn/ArrivalCardFillingPC. This is the one to bookmark.
2. The “NIA 12367” app — China’s national government-service app, available for iOS and Android.
3. Authorized WeChat or Alipay mini-programs — accessed inside those apps, not through a browser link someone sent you.
4. The QR code posted at ports of entry — scan it on arrival if you didn’t submit ahead of time.

The tell for everything else is the domain. Legitimate Chinese government sites end in .gov.cn. A site on .com, .info, .org, or some string of words that sounds official (“china-arrivalcard” dot whatever) is not the National Immigration Administration, full stop. Scam operators buy search ads for exactly this reason — the fake result often outranks the real one, because the real .gov.cn portal isn’t paying for placement and the scam site is. Don’t trust position on the results page. Trust the domain.

If a site asks for a credit card number to “process” your arrival card, close the tab. That’s the entire test. The real portal never asks for payment, at any step, for any reason.

How to Fill Out the CDAC (5–10 Minutes)

1. Go to s.nia.gov.cn/ArrivalCardFillingPC and confirm the URL before typing anything. Bookmark it now if your trip is more than a week out — searching for it again later is exactly how people land on the wrong site.
2. Enter passport details — name as printed, passport number, nationality, date of birth, expiry date.
3. Enter travel details — flight or transport info, port of entry, scheduled arrival date and time.
4. Enter your accommodation in China — hotel name or address for your first stop.
5. Submit. No payment screen. If one appears, you’re not on the government site.
6. Save the QR code to your phone — screenshot it. Don’t rely on having signal or WiFi in the arrivals hall.

The window is 72 hours before your scheduled arrival — not sooner, and don’t wait until you’re at the gate either. The evening before your flight, once your itinerary is locked, is the practical sweet spot. If your flight changes after you’ve submitted, redo it with the updated details. Multi-leg trips: the 72-hour clock runs against your arrival time in China, not your departure time from wherever you started.

What If You Don’t File It Ahead of Time?

You’re not locked out. China kept paper cards and smart kiosks in place at ports of entry specifically as a backstop during the rollout, so travelers who miss the window, don’t have a working phone, or simply forget aren’t stuck at the border. It’s slower — you’re back to standing in the line with everyone else who didn’t pre-file — but it’s not a crisis. The digital version exists to make entry faster for people who use it, not to punish people who don’t.

That said, ten minutes the night before beats standing in an unfamiliar immigration line after a 13-hour flight. Do the form.

Why China Is a Bigger Target for This Scam Than Most

Scale is the reason. China draws travelers chasing some of the most recognizable sights on any bucket list — the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, the Terracotta Army in Xi’an — and a lot of those travelers are first-time visitors to China specifically, which means first-time exposure to the CDAC requirement too. New destination, new form, unfamiliar government website in a language most visitors don’t read fluently. That’s the exact combination scam sites are built to exploit: enough uncertainty that a fee looks plausible, enough urgency that people don’t stop to check the domain.

If you’re building a China itinerary around the UNESCO-listed sites — and China keeps adding to that list, with the Jingdezhen Imperial Kiln Sites and the Xixia Imperial Tombs among the newest 2026 inscriptions — the arrival card is a five-minute footnote to logistics that otherwise involve a lot more planning than most trips. Don’t let it be the part that costs you money it shouldn’t.

China Fits Into a Bigger Regional Pattern

China isn’t doing anything unusual here — it’s doing what most of Asia has already done. Vietnam’s digital arrival card launched in April 2026 with scam sites appearing within weeks. Thailand’s TDAC scam reportedly reached 10% of all foreign arrivals before immigration cracked down. India’s e-Arrival Card followed the same script. Nepal’s e-visa system went online with its own set of impostor sites.

The throughline: governments across the region are digitizing entry paperwork, the forms are free, and scam sites treat every single rollout as a fresh opportunity. If you’re planning a broader Asia itinerary — say, China plus a stop in Mongolia via Beijing — budget five to ten minutes per country for the real form, and budget zero dollars for any of it.

Is This Worth Worrying About Before Your Trip?

Yes, but only in the sense that checking a URL is worth doing. This isn’t a complicated risk to manage — it’s a one-time domain check before you hand over passport information to a website.

Bookmark the real site now if your trip is booked: s.nia.gov.cn/ArrivalCardFillingPC. Ignore anything that isn’t .gov.cn. Never enter a card number to complete an arrival form. That’s the whole defense.

The Bottom Line

China’s Digital Arrival Card launched nationwide on November 20, 2025, replacing the paper form with a free online submission at s.nia.gov.cn. It takes about ten minutes, opens 72 hours before arrival, and generates a QR code that gets scanned at the border. Paper cards and kiosks are still there if you skip it or forget.

The scam is the same one this site keeps writing about, wearing a new destination’s name: a lookalike site, a fee that doesn’t exist on the real portal, and a traveler who’s never filed this particular form before and has no reason to assume it’s a con. Check the domain. Skip anything that isn’t .gov.cn. Don’t pay for a form the Chinese government gives away free.

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Official CDAC portal: s.nia.gov.cn/ArrivalCardFillingPC. NIA fraud warning: en.nia.gov.cn. Information current as of August 2026 — verify requirements with China’s National Immigration Administration before travel.