This checklist is the starting point for BJNEW. It is designed for people who are not only visiting Beijing, but trying to make the city work for study, employment, family relocation, or a longer stay.
Work through it in order. Each stage assumes the stage before it is done: documents before travel, registration before long-term housing decisions, and daily systems before you try to optimize anything.
Before arrival
- Confirm which visa or entry route you are using and whether it can support your real purpose in China.
- Prepare passport scans, degree documents, employment paperwork, marriage certificates, birth certificates, and notarized translations when relevant.
- Ask your employer, school, or host which documents must be originals.
- Decide where you will stay for the first two weeks, because temporary accommodation can affect registration and early logistics.
- Save emergency contacts, embassy information, insurance documents, and key addresses offline.
Add three things people often forget: a digital backup of every document stored separately from your phone, a written note of your first address in Chinese, and a plan for your first 48 hours — airport arrival, connectivity, and a payment method that works before your local setup is complete. If your entry route involves work authorization, read Beijing work visa basics before you book anything non-refundable. This checklist is a planning guide, not legal advice.
First 30 days
- Track the deadline for temporary residence registration.
- Confirm whether accommodation registration is handled by your hotel, landlord, school, or employer.
- Confirm the next step for residence permit, work permit, student registration, or family documents.
- Choose housing based on commute and daily services, not only rent.
- Find nearby hospitals or clinics that can communicate in your language.
- Build a renewal calendar for visa, lease, insurance, school, and tax deadlines.
Official accommodation registration starting point: Accommodation Registration Guide for Foreigners in Beijing
The detailed registration walkthrough is in Accommodation registration in Beijing. In the same first weeks, get your phone number, payment apps, and bank access working in the order explained in Payments, SIM cards, and banking in Beijing: number first, payments second, bank account when your stay requires one.
For housing itself, compare districts by commute, schools, international services, and daily convenience rather than by rent alone — the trade-offs are laid out in Best Beijing districts for foreigners.
Days 30 to 90: settle into systems
- Register with the healthcare route you will actually use: identify your nearest hospital, an international-facing clinic if your budget or insurance supports one, and your insurance contact. See Healthcare and insurance in Beijing before you need it, not during an emergency.
- Learn your routine transport properly: the subway lines you use daily, a backup bus or ride-hailing option, and how you would reach the railway station and the airport.
- Set a monthly rhythm for bills, rent, subscriptions, and phone top-ups, and confirm how each one is paid.
- If you work, confirm with your employer how your social insurance and housing fund position works in practice; Social insurance and housing fund in Beijing maps the official sources.
- If you study, finish every campus registration step and keep your school’s international office contact saved; Studying in Beijing collects the official entry points.
- If children joined you, work through school planning early rather than mid-term; start with Beijing international schools: planning guide.
First year: renewals and routines
The first year runs smoothly if your calendar does the remembering. Keep one renewal list and review it monthly:
- Passport, visa, and residence-related expiry dates, with reminders set early enough to act.
- Lease renewal or move-out dates, including the registration update a move triggers.
- Insurance renewals for you and your family, and any employer or school policy dates.
- School terms, application windows, and document requests for children.
- Tax and employment paperwork your employer or school handles on a yearly cycle.
Build the daily layer in parallel: a regular market or supermarket, a pharmacy, a clinic, a barber, a repair shop, and the community routines — rubbish sorting, quiet hours, delivery pickup points — that make a compound feel like home. Explore beyond your district on weekends; the official Visit Beijing portal is a good source for attractions and events.
Official entries to bookmark
- Beijing International Web Portal — the main English-language portal for living, working, and studying in Beijing.
- Quick Guide Services for Foreigners — official quick guides for common foreigner service scenarios.
- Beijing Government Service — the online portal for Beijing administrative services.
- China Railway 12306 — official train schedules and tickets for trips beyond the city.
Keep the Beijing official links and hotlines page as your single bookmark for emergency numbers, the 12345 citizen hotline, and the immigration service hotline. For a week-by-week version of your first month, continue with the Beijing first-month quick start guide.