China tightens rules for citizens travelling abroad
New rules for travel to and from China have entered into force, providing additional grounds for restricting citizens from leaving the country. In particular, Chinese citizens deemed to have harmed the national security or interests of the PRC while abroad may be banned from leaving China for up to three years after returning, BBC News reports.
Grounds for restrictions
Under the new rules, Chinese citizens may also be barred from leaving if they violated technology import and export regulations, which could threaten national industrial or technological security. Border guards must also warn citizens against travelling to countries and regions considered “high-risk”.
China’s government platform Piyao said that the rules do not restrict travel by ordinary citizens, but are a preventive measure concerning risky destinations and people with unusual travel patterns. According to its version, the regulation is intended to address, among other things, cases in which people are deceived into leaving the country or become involved abroad in illegal gambling and fraud.
Criticism and existing bans
Tom Kellogg, executive director of Georgetown University’s Center for Asian Law, told BBC Chinese that the new rules could become another tool for controlling what Chinese citizens do and say abroad. According to him, state security authorities in some cases refuse to issue passports in order to prevent criticism of the Chinese authorities outside the country or to punish human rights activities.
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Some PRC citizens have for years reported unclear restrictions on leaving the country. In particular, a 26-year-old man identified by the pseudonym Pipi said that he was refused a passport in 2023. He links this to his participation in the mass pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2019. According to him, after returning to mainland China, he was questioned by state security officers, while an immigration service employee orally explained the refusal by referring to “Hong Kong issues”.
According to publicly available information, Chinese citizens cannot independently check whether an exit ban applies to them. If they have not been given an official written or oral notification, they usually learn about the restriction when applying for documents or attempting to leave the country.
According to the human rights organisation Safeguard Defenders, the number of entries mentioning exit bans in China’s Supreme Court database increased from 89 in 2016 to 188,760 in 2025. The share of civil court decisions concerning such restrictions rose from about 0.23% in 2019 to 7.3% in 2025. The BBC notes that the actual number of such cases may be higher because court decisions are increasingly being concealed.
Before the new rules were introduced, restrictions on foreign travel already applied to some civil servants, employees of state-owned enterprises and certain other citizens. An employee of a state financial institution in Beijing, who identified himself as Xiao Wang, told BBC Chinese that staff at his institution must hand in their passports and obtain permission for overseas travel.
