New rules have come into force in China that tighten control over citizens’ travel abroad. Immigration authorities have been given the power to restrict foreign trips, require proof of the purpose of travel and the route, and for forged documents, false information, and violations, a travel ban of up to three years is now предусмотрен.
The Moscow Times reports this with reference to the BBC. The new rules give immigration authorities the right to restrict foreign travel, including on grounds of national and technological security.
Tom Kellogg, executive director of Georgetown University’s Center for Asian Law in the United States, called the expansion of restrictions alarming because they increase control over citizens. Hong Puchao, deputy director of the Center for Studies on the Development of Mainland China and the Region at Tunghai University in Taiwan, said the rules strengthen control over the movement of specialists and technologies related to national security.
Restrictions on foreign travel had existed in China before. A former government employee from Anhui Province told the BBC that in 2018 he and his colleagues were required to hand in their passports, and for trips they had to apply and explain the purpose of travel. A financial government institution employee in Beijing, Xiao Wang, said he also must surrender his passport and obtain permission for trips abroad, especially to countries that the authorities consider sensitive.
According to Bloomberg, permission to leave the country has also begun to be required from specialists working on artificial intelligence systems at Alibaba and DeepSeek. The rights organization Safeguard Defenders, based in Spain, writes about a sharp increase in cases related to travel bans: in the database of China’s Supreme People’s Court, there were 89 decisions in 2016, and in 2025 — 188,760.
The BBC writes that many citizens learn about the ban only when they try to cross the border. According to the PRC, in 2025 residents of China made about 167.9 million trips abroad.
Sources
