Healthcare in China for Foreigners: How Hospitals Work

Chinese hospitals are graded I to III by function and scale. Grade III hospitals provide high-level specialist care across several regions and carry out teaching and research. Within a grade, hospitals are classed through accreditation, which provinces run on a four-year cycle. In practice Grade III, Class A (三级甲等) is the top tier.

The national standard for Grade III accreditation is revised every few years; the current edition dates from May 2025. A grade describes an institution's scale and scope. It is not a judgement about an individual doctor, and it does not tell you whether the hospital can work with you in English.

If you read older material about hospital grades, check the date. The national Grade III standard has been replaced twice since 2020, and the 2025 edition puts more weight on routine data monitoring and less on on-site inspection.

The Shanghai and Guangzhou governments publish English guides for foreigners that describe the same sequence. Bring your passport: first-time patients are issued a hospital card, and you pay at each step before the next one happens. Shanghai's guide warns that you may need some basic Chinese.

International departments follow the same logic but run their own registration, booking and cashier, often with staff who speak other languages.

Beijing's official guide states that foreigners pay the same standard fees as Chinese residents. International and special-needs departments are priced by the market instead, and national rules cap special-needs services at 10% of a public hospital's services. Shanghai's 2024 measures describe international medical services as "better quality, better price" (优质优价), settled through commercial insurers.

National averages give a sense of scale, not a quote. They cover all patients, mostly insured Chinese residents paying standard fees; international departments charge market prices. Ask the hospital for a written estimate before you travel.

Appointments are tied to an identity document. Beijing's rules require real-name booking and name the passport as a valid ID. In Beijing, the "International Service Beijing" mini program in WeChat or Alipay switches to English, and an English version of the city's 114 booking platform is being piloted with eight international-pilot hospitals.

In Shanghai most hospitals take bookings by hotline or online, and the city's Suishenban app includes booking. Guangzhou's public hospitals offer online and telephone booking with an identity document or residence permit.

This table is built from our hospital profiles and updates when they do. "Not yet confirmed" means we have not found it on an official source — not that the service is unavailable.

A 2024 State Council policy names hospitals among the places that must accept mobile payment, bank cards and cash. Foreign visitors can link international cards — Visa, Mastercard, American Express, JCB, Diners Club and Discover among them — to Alipay and WeChat Pay. In Beijing, 167 medical institutions accepted foreign cards in 2025.

None of this guarantees that a particular cashier takes your card. Ask the department before you travel, and carry a backup.

The national number for an ambulance is 120. For help in your own language with a city service, call the 12345 hotline. The 12308 number you may see online is China's consular hotline for Chinese citizens abroad — foreigners in China should contact their own embassy or consulate.