Inbound visitors line up for tax refunds at a Harmay store in Shanghai on April 23. CHEN YUYU/FOR CHINA DAILY
China has rolled out an upgraded nationwide departure tax refund policy aimed at making shopping easier for foreign visitors and converting rising inbound tourism into a new driver of domestic consumption.
The measures, jointly issued by the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Finance and the State Taxation Administration of China — alongside three other department bodies — represent a "2.0 version" of reforms first introduced in 2025 to improve China's departure tax refund system.
Officials say the latest upgrade focuses on expanding refund store coverage, reducing processing times and digitalizing procedures to improve the shopping experience for foreign visitors.
China's earlier reform package, released in April 2025, had already driven rapid growth in the program. National tax-refund sales nearly doubled in 2025 from a year earlier, while the number of foreign travelers claiming refunds rose to about 270,000, roughly three times the 2024 level.
