US Citizens: Get your China Tourist visa with the TDS San Francisco Office

Please send TDS your current valid and signed passport, plus one photocopy of the vital information page. It must not expire within 6 months and must have at least one blank visa page. 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.

New Requirement Beginning Jan 2017, applicants who have passports issued January 1st 2015 or later, will be required to submit their original previous passport as well.  If you do not have your previous original passport, you must state a reason why you cannot provide it under 3.7 on the application. Common responses are i lost previous passport or this is my first passport.  Secondly, if either of these passports contain a stamp/visa from Russia, Turkey, Jordan, or Israel, you will be required to submit a letter detailing the exact dates you were in those countries and the reason for visiting.  Please note that the Consulate may require additional documents and or a personal appearance at their discretion.

If your passport expires between 6-12 months at date of submission for your 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 Consulate.

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

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.

Additional documentation required for minors aged under 18.

Applicants under the age of 18 must provide their original birth certificate, plus their parent's original passports if the parents are not applying for visas at the same time as the minor.

If a parent does not have a passport they must provide a copy of a notarized ID and a signed notarized letter of parental consent, if only one parent is applying for a visa then there must be a copy of the parent's passport or a notarized ID, plus a letter of parental consent. 

Minors application must be signed by both parents.

1) Media and Religious ministers or anyone who works for a religious organization for tourist visas must write a letter on the organization's letterhead declaring, their name as it appears in their passport, when they plan to travel to China, where they plan to be while in China, what they will be doing in China and that they will NOT perform any religious activities while visiting China. Letter must be signed.

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

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.

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.