Travel controls that were once exceptional measures in China are being given a wider and more formal legal basis under regulations that take effect on Tuesday, extending restrictions for people viewed as risks to national security, industrial interests or technology.
The State Council Regulations on Exit and Entry Administration were signed by Premier Li Qiang on 22 July. They set out circumstances in which Chinese citizens may be stopped from leaving the country, while also imposing entry bans on some foreigners who provide false information in visa applications abroad or on entry.
The measures come after a steep rise in recorded exit-ban cases. China’s supreme court database contained 89 records mentioning exit bans in 2016. It showed 188,760 such records last year. Civil verdicts involving exit bans also rose sharply, from around 0.23% in 2019 to 7.3% in 2025, an increase of more than 30 times.
Under the new rules, citizens judged to have “harmed” China’s national security or interests while overseas can be barred from leaving China for between six months to three years. People who breach technology import and export rules that “may endanger national industrial or technological security” can also face an exit ban. The regulations specify no maximum duration for that restriction.
The rules apply to anyone considered a threat to China’s industrial or technological security. The regulations do not define the threshold for conduct that could be treated as endangering that security.
The measures formalise travel restrictions that have increasingly affected government officials, Communist Party members and employees of state-owned enterprises. They also extend travel-authorisation requirements to staff at schools and other public institutions. Authorities have justified those requirements as measures to protect state secrets and tackle corruption.
Border officials are now required to advise Chinese nationals against travel to countries and regions classed as “high-risk”. The authorities have not identified those destinations or explained how such warnings will be enforced.
Xiao Wang, a 32-year-old employee at a state-owned financial institution in Beijing, said managers had given verbal reminders about travel. “sensitive countries such as Japan are definitely off-limits”, he said staff had been told.
A retired grassroots civil servant in Anhui said his workplace began requiring employees to hand over their passports around 2018. Pipi, a 26-year-old Chinese citizen, said a passport application was refused in 2023. He said he was told he could not obtain a passport “because of the Hong Kong issue”, after attending pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2019 and being questioned by state security police after returning.
The controls have also reached technology businesses. In March, the co-founders of Manus, an artificial intelligence company acquired by Meta, were reportedly prevented from leaving China.
People found to have breached the rules could face heavy fines and travel bans running from three months to an indefinite period. Private immigration agencies are permitted under the regulations to report public officials, military personnel and others who seek to leave in breach of travel requirements.
Foreigners who provide false information in visa applications abroad or on entering China can be prohibited from entering for between one and five years.
Chinese authorities say the regulations are intended to “safeguard national sovereignty and security”. They say the rules do not restrict travel by “ordinary citizens” and are aimed at preventing fraud and illegal gambling, as well as addressing travel to high-risk destinations and unusual travel patterns.
Tom Kellogg, executive director of the Center for Asian Law at Georgetown University, called the widening restrictions “deeply concerning”. He described them as “another tool designed to control what Chinese citizens do and say overseas”.
Comments (0)