The legend of Le Shan lives on. It is still the easiest place in China to extend visas. Read on to find out exactly what you need to do for a Chinese visa extension in Le Shan
30 days… to see China???
We’d entered China on a 30 day tourist visa that we got in South Korea with the intention of staying longer. There’s no way you can do justice to this enormous and fascinating country in 30 days! There is so much we want to see. So we did some research and found out on the travellers grapevine that the best place to go in China for a visa extension was Le Shan in Sichuan Province. We headed there when it was time to renew to buy ourselves more time here. There’s no doubt about it… The best place to go for a Chinese visa extension is Le Shan.
Chinese Visa extension in Le Shan
Latest update 20 May 2019 – We are pleased to have been informed that this visa extension process is still the same as we have reported here with a one day turnaround
Why Le Shan?
I’m not sure. What I do know is the big cities like Beijing and Shanghai are notoriously difficult to renew tourist visas. They request extra documentation like proof of funds in Chinese bank accounts and proof of onward tickets and they are also slow at issuing the extensions, keeping people waiting up to 7 days. We wanted to avoid all that and take the easiest option. Le Shan also fitted into our travel plans so we thought we’d try our luck there.
First of all… be prepared
We got the documents together we needed. Not too difficult for an application in Le Shan. All you need is…
- Your passport with your Chinese visa in.
- Your hotel registration slip. This is a pink piece of paper you get when you check into your hotel or hostel. Do not forget this as you will not get the extension without it.
And that’s it!!! The other documents you will need can be obtained at the PSB when you apply, namely a photocopy of your passport and Chinese visa and a photograph which will be done digitally.
NOTE : It’s important to stay in a hotel or hostel that registers you and provides this pink slip. Not all of them do. We chose the Leshan Haiyun International Youth Hostel which provides the slip. The rooms are really nice too!
When to apply?
We had heard you need to apply at least 7 days before your current visas expire. I assume that is because most other offices take up to 7 days to approve them. We wanted enough time to plan our exit from China if they were refused so we applied 9 days before expiry. The risk of doing this is if you are only given 30 days from the new visa issue date and it is issued straight away then you will lose valuable days. If they allow your new visa to begin from your old visa expiry date then it’s a win for you.
Go to the PSB office
The office is on the third floor of the Government Affairs Service Centre at 580 Feng Huang Lu Road in the north of the city. It’s marked on Maps.me.
You can take bus 6 or 22 there from the centre of town, 1Y and the office is a 5 minute walk from the bus stop. Go in the main door, turn right, go up the stairs in the corner to the third floor and the application centre is on the left. You need counter number 6.
Our experience
We got there just before they reopened after lunch at 1pm. A friendly lady took our passports and registration slips and used them to take our details. She then returned them to us and told us to go out to an adjoining room to get digital photos done. The machine was in Chinese and a little confusing so the equally friendly assistants helped us with it. Mandy had to remove all 22 of her earrings for the photo as they are not allowed for some reason!
You get a printout from the machine with your photo on when it’s done.
Next you fill in the visa extension application form. It is pretty straightforward. Remember your hotel address and phone number as you will need to write that in. I took a card from the hostel to make it easier.
Once that is done you are sent downstairs to get photocopies of your passport and Chinese visa. This cost us 6 Jiao or 0.60 Yuan for 4 pages, 2 each, or you can bring your own.
Next stage
We returned to counter 6 where the lady processes your information and then sends you a few counters down to another employee who inputs all of your data into the system. At this point they gave us a form to write in our itinerary for the next 30 days of travel. We listed the main tourist cities and sights, leaving out the more controversial areas. Make it up. We left out hotel information, telling them we hadn’t booked anything yet until the extensions were approved. They were happy with that.
Once completed they gave us our passports back with a receipt. They told us to bring them back tomorrow after 11am to collect our visa extensions and that it would cost 160 Yuan each. It was that easy. We left at 1.55 pm. The whole process took less than an hour. We were the only people applying and there must have been 8 people behind the counters!
Extra days please
We asked if the 30 days could be added on to the current visa expiry date because we wanted the maximum amount of time. It was 24 April and our current visa expired on 3 May. We’d heard they only give you 30 days from the new issue date which would mean we would lose 8 days. They said no problem, the new extension would last until 3 June, so we were happy with that!
Collecting our new visas
The next day we returned at 10.40. 20 minutes early. They didn’t mind and again were not busy at all. We were told to go to counter 2 to pay for the visas, 160 Yuan each. That lady then sent us to her colleagues, 2 counters down with the receipts. They really share the workload out here! This guy took the receipts and our passports and stuck in our shiny new visas. Job done!
We were gobsmacked it had all been so easy. We double checked the details on the new visas as is definitely advisable, and all was in order. Sure enough the extensions had been given until June 3rd. That’s 61 days in China in total. We’d even got a bonus day on top of the 2 x 30 day visas! We thanked all the friendly staff and walked out, 2 very happy travellers. The payment and collection process had taken less than 10 minutes.
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- Lenin Peak trek – Kyrgyzstan
- Ala-Kol Lake trek – Kyrgyzstan
- What is the cost of travel in Kyrgyzstan?
- Pamir Highway adventure
- Kazakhstan train travel tips
Leave a comment
Have you managed to get an extension in Le Shan? Is there anything else you’d like to know?
Please feel free to contact us with comments or questions. We’d love to hear from you.
8 thoughts on “How to apply for a Chinese visa extension in Le Shan”
Thank you very much for this informative article!
It’s our pleasure! I haven’t heard of any changes to the process in Le Shan but will be sure to update the article if things change. Le Shan is a lovely place to spend a couple of days anyway – laidback and with beautiful mature trees everywhere.
Thanks for the info. We can confirm everything as of today. We just got a 30 day Visa extension, one day turnaround. Very friendly staff, no problems.
Excellent! Thank you very much for letting us know. Hope our post was of use to you, and it’s great to know that this is still an excellent place to get a visa extension in China.
they are able to understand english else it required to get translator
There were two people who spoke very good English.
Hello. Thanks for sharing! Do you think that we need for the extension flight tickets and hotel reservations?
They didn’t ask us for flight tickets – wanted us to write out an itinerary of where we were planning to visit, what we were going to see, and the number of days in each place, so we just wrote down 4 main cities with a basic sightseeing plan. It was quite easy for us as we were actually heading to Beijing, Shanghai & Xi’an.. we just didn’t mention that we’d be travelling through to Kyrgyzstan!