You pay for medical care abroad out of your own pocket. China's medical insurance basically does not reimburse it, and embassies and consulates do not advance the money. What can really sink a family is not the outpatient fee but a hospital stay after a serious injury, and getting you home, which takes a charter plane or a medical escort. When you buy travel insurance, look mainly at two limits: overseas medical expenses, and emergency medical evacuation and repatriation.
A monthly salary that is absurdly high, no questions about education or experience, no proper contract, a demand that you first gather in a border city, and someone holding your passport for you. If you take a job like this, neither you nor your passport is in your own hands. If documents are faked when you exit, border inspection will stop you and not let you through. If you took part in illegal activity abroad, you may also be barred from leaving China for 6 months to 3 years after you return.
If you lose your passport, the embassy or consulate can issue a travel document for returning to China. The condition is that you can prove who you are. With photos of the data page and the visa page and your entry and exit records in hand, replacement is much faster. You must also first report to the local police and get a receipt, and exit checks and insurance claims both accept that paper. A phone is often lost together with the passport, so don't keep the photos only on the phone.
An "international driving permit" arranged online does not exist in mainland China. That booklet is a translation recognized among the parties to the 1949 Geneva convention, and among its 103 parties mainland China is not one. So whoever arranges one for you in China, it has no legal effect. Whether you may drive with a Chinese license depends on the destination's own rules, and if you haven't confirmed, don't drive.
If you lose contact abroad, your family can turn to the embassy or consulate, which will tell them how to report to the police locally and will press the case once it is registered. This assumes someone in China knows where you should be and when you should be in touch. Sending the flight number, address, travel companions' phone numbers and how often you agreed to check in to one family member is enough.
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Mainland China only 6 tips
These tips describe mainland-China rules and do not apply in the United States; they are here for people living in China.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (外交部) sorts overseas safety risks into 4 levels, and the highest is called "do not travel for now" (暂勿前往). From September 15, 2026, avoiding high-risk countries and regions has been written into administrative regulations. When you apply for documents and go through exit checks, staff will also remind you and, where necessary, advise you not to go. Looking over that page before you leave takes a few minutes.
For help in an emergency there is just one number. From inside China call 12308, and from abroad call +86-10-12308 (the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' consular protection and services hotline). Since it opened, this hotline has taken more than 3,000,000 (300多万) calls. Over the same period, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its missions abroad handled more than 500,000 (50多万) consular protection cases.
If you are arrested abroad, what the embassy or consulate can do is: check the situation with the local authorities, ask that the case be handled fairly according to law, visit you, and attend the trial as an observer. It cannot change the verdict for you, and it cannot take you away. Money that someone else advanced for lodging, transport and medical care is in the end paid by you. So before you go abroad, have money and insurance ready, and don't treat "the state will cover me if something happens" as a plan.
The cap on cash withdrawals abroad is not per card. It counts all bank cards in your name together (supplementary cards too), at CNY 100,000 (10万) per calendar year. Once you hit it, you cannot withdraw cash abroad for the rest of that year or in the following year. Only cash withdrawal is stopped. Paying by card is not affected, and does not use up your yearly foreign exchange purchase quota of 50,000 (5万) USD.
From September 15, 2026, agents that handle visas, study abroad and immigration must register with the immigration administration. Phrases like "guaranteed pass," "visa guaranteed" and "we prepare the materials for you" are themselves expressly prohibited. If you fill in a form wrong yourself, at worst this application is refused. If you use false materials and are found to have committed fraud, the stain stays in your later entry and exit records.
If you issue an invitation letter or application materials for someone else and the content is untrue, the penalty falls on the person who issued it. An individual is fined CNY 5,000 to 10,000 (1万), and any illegal gains are confiscated as well. An organization is fined 10,000 (1万) to 50,000 (5万), and the person who handled it is fined a further 5,000 to 10,000 (1万). One favor ends with you paying this money yourself.
