Medical Tourism in China: What International Patients Should Know

China's hospital system is very large, and most hospital care is delivered by public hospitals. The National Health Commission's statistical bulletin counts 38,710 hospitals at the end of 2024: 11,754 public and 26,956 private. Public hospitals handled 83.7% of the 4.50 billion hospital visits that year.

Only a small part of this system is organised for patients from abroad. A 2024 industry report by the China Hospital Association, cited by Xinhua, counts 850 medical institutions in 57 mainland cities offering international medical services. That is an industry figure, not an official one; we have not found an official national count of foreign patients.

Five kinds of provider matter for patients from abroad. The difference between them is less about clinical level than about how they handle booking, language and payment, so check each hospital's profile for what it states itself.

Special-needs (特需) services in public hospitals are priced by the market and may make up no more than 10% of a public hospital's services, so capacity is limited.

There is no single national list of hospitals approved for international patients. Instead, cities and provinces designate pilot hospitals and set service standards. Shanghai's pilot hospitals handled 133,900 international outpatient and emergency visits in the first quarter of 2024 (up 31%), and the city's discharges of foreign and Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan patients rose 25% over 2024. Shanghai also has a local service standard for international medical services (DB31/T 1487—2024).

Beijing reported in 2025 that 156 medical institutions offer foreign-language service at every step, 52 have international departments and 167 accept foreign bank cards.

National policy works through general measures rather than a list of hospitals. In March 2026, nine departments led by the Ministry of Commerce — including the National Health Commission and the National Immigration Administration — called for international medical tourism clusters and wider direct settlement with international commercial insurers.

The Boao Lecheng International Medical Tourism Pilot Zone in Hainan is the one place in China where institutions may use drugs and medical devices already marketed abroad but not yet registered in China, where clinically urgent (vaccines excluded). By May 2026 more than 560 such products had been introduced.

Lecheng recorded 865,300 medical tourism visits in 2025, more than double the year before, but most were domestic: overseas visits were close to 10,000. Hainan's 30-day visa-free entry, now open to citizens of 61 countries, explicitly includes medical treatment — within Hainan only.

Each of these has its own guide. The short version: arrange the hospital first, because the visa depends on it; plan to pay yourself or through private insurance; and collect copies of your records before you leave.

Some agencies sell China medical tourism packages that bundle a hospital appointment with travel, a hotel and an interpreter. ChinaMedMap does not sell packages. Whoever you book through, the treatment itself can only come from a licensed provider: in China no organisation or individual may diagnose or treat patients without a Medical Institution Practising Licence (医疗机构执业许可证).

Two things in any package depend on the hospital, not the agency. The S2 visa used for treatment is supported by a certificate from the hospital, and foreign patients pay the hospital through commercial insurance or out of pocket, because China's public medical insurance does not cover them.

Language support differs widely, even between departments of the same hospital. Official information is often published only in Chinese and can be out of date. City policies set goals — foreign-language booking, insurance direct billing — that individual hospitals meet at different speeds. That is why our hospital profiles separate what each hospital has confirmed from what it has not.

No directory, including this one, can guarantee that a hospital will accept your case. ChinaMedMap is not an emergency service; in mainland China the ambulance number is 120.