US Citizens: Get your China Tourist visa with the TDS Washington DC Office

Please send TDS your current valid and signed passport. It must not expire within 6 months and must have at least two blank visa pages. Foreign Embassies cannot issue a visa on a page not labeled as a Visa page. Amendment and Endorsement pages in the back of the passport cannot be used for issuance of a visa.
A visa cannot be stamped on a page even if only one Small Stamp is on the visa page. If you do not have any blank visa pages in your passport, TDS can assist you in applying for additional pages. If your passport expires within 6 months, you must renew your passport and then we will secure your visa with the new passport.

If your passport expires between 6-12 months at date of submission for your Chinese visa, you are only eligible to apply for a single or double entry visa; you are not eligible for the 1-2 or 10-year multiple entry visa.
Please complete and sign the Acknowledgment Statement required by the Chinese Embassy if your passport has limited validity remaining.

The Chinese Embassy would like for you to consider applying for a Passport Renewal before applying for your visa if you have limited validity.

You will need to upload 1 recent professional passport-type photograph to your COVA.
No eye glasses or jewelry are to be worn.
New Chinese Consulate Passport Photo Guidelines Effective 05/12/2017 - Click Here

Common Problems to Avoid:
No smiling, photos should have a neutral expression
No jewelry of any kind
No eye glasses
No light colored shirt, please wear a dark color
Hair not pulled back away from face
No background light or shadows

The Chinese Government has extremely strict photo requirements, do not allow your visa application to be delayed due to an incorrectly formatted visa photo.

Use the Traveldocs digital visa photo service, snap a selfie using your camera, cell phone or tablet and we will return a perfectly Chinese visa photo by email within 1 business day.

1. Media and Religious ministers or anyone who works for a religious organization traveling as a tourist must write a letter on the organization's letterhead declaring:

Their name as it appears in their passport,
Their passport number,
When they plan to travel to China, Date of entry and exit
What cities they plan to visit while in China,
What they will be doing in China and state that they will NOT perform any religious or media related activities while visiting China.
Letter must be signed by the applicant.

2. Applicants will only be issued a one month single entry visa, valid for a stay of between 10-20 business days in most cases.

You will need to download and execute the Visa Application Statement and upload to your COVA

You must upload scan of information page of previous Chinese passports or previous Chinese visas (applicable to foreign citizens, those who were Chinese citizens and have obtained foreign citizenship) as well as Naturalization Certificate.

If you are applying for a Chinese visa for the first time, you should provide your previous Chinese passport held.
If you have obtained Chinese visas before and want to apply for a Chinese visa with a renewed foreign passport that does not contain any Chinese visas you should upload a copy of the previous passport's data page and the photo page if it is separate, as well as the previous Chinese visa page.
If your name on the current passport differs from that on the previous one, you must provide an official document of the name change.

Documentation for a child of Chinese descent born in the U.S.
A child with Chinese descent born in the U.S. applying for a visa for the first time should upload a copy of their Certificate of Birth as well as either parents' passport data page or US Alien Registry (Green) card or other non-US residency permit. (A child with Chinese descent born in the US applying for a visa who has had a Chinese visa before may be able to upload a copy of their former visa in lieu of their Birth Certificate or parents' passport data page and/or residency permit.

Your passport must be signed to apply for a Chinese Visa, please be sure to sign the signature section on your passport before sending to Travel Document Systems.

Please complete the Chinese Online Visa Application (COVA) via the above link.You will also need to to upload a copy of your passport information page and photo as well as other necessary documents as a part of the process.

After you have completed the form and necessary uploads submit it online in the Chinese sytem for review. If approved you will receive a bar coded approval notice within a few days which you will need to print and send to us along with your physical passport. If thee are any interim deficiencies you will receive an email asking you to make adjustments to your COVA and/or requuesting upload of additional documents.

Residents of Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Wisconsin, Nebraska, North and South Dakota please select Chicago as your processing center when you open the Chinese application form.

Questions marked with a (*) are MANDATORY, if some of these questions do not apply to you , please tick "NOT APPLICABLE" to proceed.

Please be sure that all information is complete and accurate before you click the "Submit" button. Once the application is submitted you cannot make any changes unless you receivean email asking you to make changes. You can click the Save button which will save your application for 30 days, to return to your application click the "Retrieve an Application" button, you will need the application ID number and your Passport/Travel Document Number.

Travel Documents will make the appointment at the Embassy/Consulate once we have received all your documents, you do NOT need to go to the Embassy/Consulate.

Note: No physical signature is required.