China’s State Council has approved new measures that further ease Macau-bound travel rules for residents of neighbouring mainland-China city Zhuhai, as well as for mainlanders resident on Hengqin island next door to Macau. That is according to an annoucement on Friday morning by China’s National Immigration Administration.
Zhuhai, in Guangdong province, is already a key overland gateway for people from all over the mainland that are heading to Macau as tourists. Hengqin, a short stretch of water away from Macau’s Cotai district, is a part of Zhuhai city and has been – in recent years – developed as a mainland special economic zone to support Macau’s economic-diversification efforts.
Starting from January 1, 2025, mainland China residents with their household registration in Zhuhai city will be able to apply for a new “one-trip-per-week” visa to come to Macau, and stay in Macau for no more than seven days each time.
From the same date, mainland China residents possessing household registration and a residence permit for Hengqin can apply for a multiple-entry visa to travel to Macau. No limit is placed on the number of trips, but the maximum period of stay each trip, will be seven days.
Since May 6 this year, there has been a number of other visa-policy easing measures in effect for mainland China residents wishing to travel to Macau. They include the possibility of multiple entries between Macau and Hengqin for mainlanders joining a “Macau-Hengqin tour group” containing at least two people and up to 40 people.
Nearly 6,000 visitors have joined such Macau-Hengqin tour groups since the policy was effected, reported on Monday the Chinese-language radio channel of Macau public broadcaster TDM, citing Hengqin authorities.
Macau recorded nearly 2.78 million visitor arrivals from Zhuhai during the first 10 months of this year, of which 77.4 percent were same-day trippers, according to the latest available data from Statistics and Census Service.
The January-to-October Zhuhai visitor tally represented about 26 percent of the 10.90 million visitor arrivals from Guangdong province. The latter figure represented a full recovery relative to the same period in the pre-pandemic trading year of 2019, the official data indicate.
(Updated 12.40pm, Nov 29)
