Where you can actually pay in China
Linking a card is not the same as being able to use it. Here is what happens at the supermarket, the hotel desk, the train station, and the noodle stall — and why the difference is the QR code on the other side, not your card.
- Business QR codes — reliably fine
- Individual QR codes — the usual failure point
- Deposits fail more often than purchases
Last updated: 5 September 2026
The question this page answers is the one no other China site publishes: once your foreign card is linked, where does it actually go through? These are the patterns. The same card can clear at a supermarket and fail at a noodle stall twenty metres away, because the difference is not your card — it is the type of QR code on the other side. Verify your own card with a real ¥1 payment.
Almost every payment you make in China is a QR code scan, and almost every surprise comes from the fact that there are two completely different kinds of QR code behind the same two apps. Learning to tell them apart at a glance is worth more than any troubleshooting guide: it lets you predict a failure before you reach for your phone.
The three rules that explain almost every result
1 · Business codes are safe, individual codes are not
A registered merchant — supermarket, chain restaurant, hotel, pharmacy — is paid through a business QR code, and international cards clear these reliably. A private individual — a stallholder, a taxi driver, a market vendor, someone selling you a bracelet — is paid through an individual QR code, and that is where foreign cards most often fail. You can usually tell by looking: a business code is a printed card in a holder on the counter; an individual code is a laminated sheet, a screenshot, or something taped to a wall.
2 · Tills and receipts work; handwritten prices do not
If the place has a till, prints or screens a receipt, and charges VAT, it is a registered merchant and your wallet will almost certainly work. If the price is written on a piece of cardboard, it is not, and you should assume you will need the backup. This is not snobbery — it is just how the payment rails are wired.
3 · Deposits are a different transaction from purchases
A hotel deposit, a rental, or anything that holds money rather than taking it is a pre-authorisation. It is processed differently, it fails more often with international cards, and when it does fail the money can sit frozen for days after you check out. Budget for it and always have a second card.
Where your card works, place by place
| Where you are | What usually happens | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Supermarket, hypermarket, pharmacy | Works | Business code, registered merchant, real till. |
| Chain restaurant, coffee shop, mall food court | Works | Business code. Table-side QR ordering is normal and works the same way. |
| Convenience store | Works | Business code, and the most common first successful payment of any trip. |
| DiDi and other ride-hailing | Works | Payment is taken inside the app, not by scanning a driver's code. Link your card at home. |
| Metro and city buses | Usually works | Most large cities sell a ride code inside Alipay or WeChat, charged to the same wallet. Small cities and older machines may not — keep coins for the ticket machine. |
| Independent restaurant, family-run shop | Usually works | Most small businesses have upgraded to business codes. The ones that have not are the ones that fail. |
| Street food stall, night market | Often fails | Individual code. This is the single most common place visitors get stuck — and it is why you carry cash. |
| Street-hailed taxi | Often fails | Drivers are paid to personal codes. Book through an app instead, or pay cash. |
| Hotel — room payment | Works | Registered business, business code. |
| Hotel — deposit or pre-authorisation | Sometimes fails | A hold, not a charge. Fails more often, and refunds can take days to weeks to release. See cash & refunds. |
| Train station counter or machine | Weak point | Machines are built around local bank cards, and counter staff may not be able to help with a foreign card. Book ahead in an app — see the train guide. |
| Scenic sites, museums, attractions | Payment usually works, booking may not | The ticket itself is normally a business code. The reservation is often a WeChat mini-program that wants a local phone number or real-name verification — book through an English channel instead. |
| Temple donations, small vendors, rural areas | Assume no | Cash. This is not a China problem, it is the same everywhere — small cash economies do not take cards. |
The four places first-time visitors get caught
Hotel deposits
The room is easy; the deposit is the problem. A hold on an international card can be declined even when a purchase of the same amount would clear, and when the hold is released the money can stay invisible to you for several days. Use a card with headroom, and treat the deposit as temporarily spent money rather than as available balance.
Station counters and machines
Trains are the best way to travel in China and the worst place to try to pay with a foreign card. Machines are designed around local bank cards and ID, and a counter cannot help you with a card it cannot process. Buy tickets in an app before you arrive at the station — it takes two minutes and removes the entire problem.
Street food and night markets
This is where a working wallet still leaves you standing there. Stalls run on individual QR codes, which foreign cards fail against more than anything else. A few hundred yuan in cash turns the whole category from a problem into a pleasure.
Mini-programs and real-name booking
A growing number of attractions, museums, and even some restaurants require booking through a WeChat mini-program. These frequently ask for a mainland mobile number or a real-name check that a visitor cannot complete. The workaround is to book through an English-facing channel that handles the verification for you, then pay at the gate.
How to check any place in ten seconds
- Look at the code before you order. Printed card in a holder = business = fine. Laminated sheet, screenshot, taped to a wall = individual = probably not.
- Test with something tiny first. Buy a bottle of water. If it clears, everything at that merchant will clear.
- If it fails, do not retry five times. Repeated declines look like card testing to your bank and can lock the card. Switch app, then switch card, then pay cash.
- Keep the cash backup boring and small. A few hundred yuan covers every individual-code situation you will meet in a week.
No guide can. The outcome depends on your issuing bank, your card network, whether you finished identity verification, and the QR type at that specific merchant — which is why we built a compatibility database of real results instead of writing another confident list. Check what people with your card reported, then add your own.
Knowing this changes how you plan
Once you can predict which situations will fail, the rest of the trip gets easier: you book trains in an app rather than at a station, you pay for taxis inside DiDi rather than scanning a driver's code, and you carry just enough cash for the stalls. None of that requires your card to work everywhere — it requires knowing where it will not.
Test your card on a real ¥1 payment See what other travelers reported