Booking Sights in China

China’s most famous museums and monuments don’t sell tickets at the door the way you might expect. You book a named slot in advance, tied to your passport number, and the passport itself is your ticket at the gate. Get this booking wall sorted before you fly and the rest of the trip gets much easier.

Why sights in China need a real-name booking

Major sights in mainland China use real-name reservations: every ticket is issued to one person and linked to one ID document. For foreign visitors that document is your passport. Sights cap daily visitor numbers, and the reservation system is how they manage the cap, track who is inside and stop resale.

Sights where you should expect to book in advance include:

• Beijing: the Palace Museum (Forbidden City), the National Museum of China and Tiananmen Square itself
• Xi’an: the Terracotta Army (Emperor Qinshihuang’s Mausoleum Site Museum) and the Shaanxi History Museum
• Chengdu: the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding and the Sanxingdui Museum
• Shanghai: the Shanghai Museum

Even sights that are free, such as the National Museum of China and Tiananmen Square, still require a reservation. Free does not mean walk-in. Our sight bookings tool lists the booking rules for each major sight in one place.

How to book: official website or official WeChat mini program

Each major sight in China sells tickets through its own official channel, usually an official website, an official WeChat mini program, or both. A mini program is a small app that runs inside WeChat; you find it by searching the sight’s name inside WeChat and choosing the one marked as official.

A typical booking goes like this:

1. Find the sight’s official website or official WeChat mini program. Check that it really is the official one (see the scalper section below).
2. Choose the date and, where offered, a time slot.
3. Add each visitor by name exactly as printed in the passport, choose “passport” as the ID type, and enter the passport number.
4. Pay, if the sight charges. Many official channels accept WeChat Pay or Alipay; see Paying in China.
5. Save the confirmation screen and keep the passport you booked with.

Book one ticket per person, including children who need one. Some sights let one account book for several travelers; others limit how many people a single account can add. If WeChat is new to you, set it up before the trip; Internet and apps covers how.

When booking slots open: release windows

Most major sights in China release tickets on a rolling window, often up to 7 days ahead, and some release them at a fixed time of day. Popular slots at the Palace Museum, the Terracotta Army and the panda base can sell out quickly once they appear, especially in summer and on weekends.

Practical habits that help:

• Note the release time for each sight on your list and set a phone alarm in China time.
• Book the hardest sight first and build your other days around it.
• Have every traveler’s passport details typed out and ready to paste.
• If your preferred date is gone, check again the next day; canceled tickets sometimes come back.

Check before you go: Release windows, release times and daily caps change, sometimes with little notice. Check each sight’s official channel for its current rules shortly before your trip.

Museums that close on Mondays

Many museums in China close one day a week, and that day is very often Monday. The Palace Museum, the National Museum of China and the Shaanxi History Museum are among the big names that have long followed a Monday closing pattern, though exceptions are sometimes made around public holidays.

Plan Mondays in China around outdoor sights, parks, neighborhoods, the Great Wall or travel days, and put the museums elsewhere in the week. Arriving on a Sunday evening and planning a museum for Monday morning is one of the most common first-timer mistakes.

Check before you go: Weekly closing days differ from sight to sight and can shift around holidays. Confirm on each sight’s official channel before you lock in your itinerary.

Chinese public holidays: when sights sell out

Chinese public holidays are the hardest days to book any sight in China. During these periods hundreds of millions of people travel, tickets vanish within minutes of release, and the sights themselves are at their most crowded.

The big ones to watch:

• Spring Festival (Chinese New Year): late January or February, on the lunar calendar
• Qingming Festival: early April
• Labor Day holiday: the first days of May
• Dragon Boat Festival: late May or June
• Mid-Autumn Festival: September or early October
• National Day “Golden Week”: starting October 1

If your dates are flexible, avoid these windows for the big museums and monuments. If they are not, book the moment slots are released and expect crowds anyway. Summer school holidays, July and August, are also very busy at family favorites such as the panda base and the Terracotta Army.

Scalpers, resellers and third-party booking warnings

Scalpers and unofficial resellers target foreign visitors who can’t get tickets for China’s big sights. Lookalike websites and mini programs copy official names and logos, charge a markup, and sometimes deliver nothing at all.

How to protect yourself:

• Book through the sight’s official website or official WeChat mini program wherever you can.
• Be wary of anyone outside the entrance offering tickets. A ticket booked under someone else’s passport will not get you in, because the name and number must match your own passport.
• If you use a tour operator or travel platform, make sure it books the ticket in your name with your passport number, and ask to see the confirmation.
• Never send a stranger photos of your passport to “secure” a ticket.

Licensed tour operators can be a reasonable fallback when official slots are gone, but they are working with the same limited inventory, not a secret supply.

At the gate: your passport is scanned

At the entrance to a booked sight in China, staff or a machine scan your passport to match it against the reservation. Many gates are designed for Chinese ID cards, so foreign visitors are often directed to a staffed lane; look for signs or ask.

What to expect on the day:

• Bring the physical passport you booked with. A photocopy or a photo on your phone is usually not accepted.
• Expect a security check with bag screening; leave lighters, knives and other restricted items at the hotel.
• Arrive early for your time slot, as the queue for security can be long.
• Keep your booking confirmation handy in case staff ask to see it.

If you renewed your passport after booking, the old number won’t match. Rebook under the new number or bring both passports and ask staff for help.

For a printable list of what to prepare, use the trip checklist, and see Etiquette and culture for how to handle the crowds once you’re inside.