In the first quarter, against the backdrop of the visa-free regime, 220,000 Chinese citizens visited Russia for tourism, business and personal purposes, which was 24% more compared to the same period of 2025. Tourism helps strengthen business ties, but problems yet remain. Revenue from Chinese tourists is not fully reaching the Russian economy. According to expert estimates, between USD 800 mln and 1.5 bln a year is potentially not being monetised within Russia. Among the reasons is the incompatibility of payment and digital systems, which encourages the creation of special arrangements outside Russian jurisdiction.
The visa-free regime between Russia and China should be extended, according to the Russian-Chinese Committee for Friendship, Peace and Development. ‘We will recommend this to the president and the government,’ the committee’s co-chairman, Boris Titov, said on May 18.
China introduced a unilateral one-year visa-free regime for Russian citizens from September 15, 2025. In response, Russia introduced its own visa-free regime for Chinese citizens from December 1, 2025.
‘China opened visa-free access to Russians two and a half months earlier, and the effect was immediate. Moreover, it proved to be explosive. Before the New Year, hotel bookings in China by independent Russian tourists rose by 70%,’ Titov noted.
According to him, rapid growth continued in 2026. Based on official statistics cited by the committee, Russians made 396,000 tourist trips to China in the first quarter of this year. That was 62.4% more than in the same period of 2025. China became the third most popular destination for Russian travellers after Egypt and Turkey
However, beyond satisfying Russians’ desire for long-distance travel, at a time when access to many countries remains either closed or significantly complicated, the visa-free regime is expected to provide more practical economic benefits.
One example mentioned by the committee is that visa-free travel simplifies the environment for short business trips and production inspections, especially in border regions. It creates an ‘economy of quick decisions’. Crossing the border ceases to be a major event and instead becomes a practical tool for inspecting production facilities, closing deals on site, verifying suppliers and assessing the market.
As for tourism itself, the visa-free regime has also helped increase the number of Chinese tourists visiting Russia, although in practice the flow has been almost half the size of Russian travel to China over the same period.
According to the committee, 220,000 Chinese citizens visited Russia in the first quarter of this year for tourism, business and personal purposes, up 24% year on year. This was the strongest result since the Covid pandemic began.
‘After visas were abolished, the number of one-day and short trips by Chinese visitors to Russia’s border regions increased. The leaders in terms of growth are short trips to Vladivostok and Blagoveshchensk. Nature-focused travel has also grown, including trips to Baikal and the Arctic. There has been an increase in travel by small groups and couples,’ Titov said.
However, the two capitals and the border cities of the Russian Far East remain the main destinations for Chinese tourists
‘There has not yet been a mass turn by Chinese tourists towards “deep Russia”,’ Titov explained.
According to him, the results could have been more significant if service and financial barriers caused in part by external pressures were removed. The biggest mutual disappointment has been the incompatibility of payment systems and bank cards, digital applications and services, as well as SIM cards. The visa-free regime does not resolve banking settlement issues, nor does it simplify transactions or eliminate logistical barriers.
For example, Russian tourists travelling to China are not always able to connect to Chinese payment systems without Chinese banking infrastructure. Chinese tourists visiting Russia face similar restrictions. This directly affects the Russian economy, which fails to receive a significant share of revenues because the money ultimately remains in China.
Roman Gareev, an associate professor at the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, told Nezavisimaya Gazeta that this reflects a specific model used by Chinese service providers to monetise tourist flows.
First, China’s outbound tourism market has historically been oriented towards package tours
‘A Chinese tour operator sells an all-inclusive package to a client, and the money remains in yuan in the accounts of the Chinese company,’ Gareev said. ‘Russia acts merely as the receiving side, getting paid for accommodation and transfers after the services are delivered, often at intra-corporate rates or through settlements with Chinese partners.
Second, large Chinese tour operators own diversified assets. ‘Even when a tourist arrives in Russia, the operator earns money from so-called optional excursions or shops it has agreements with,’ the expert continued. If a group is taken to a shop operating through the Tax Free system or Chinese payment terminals such as Alipay or WeChat Pay, commissions and margins ‘still flow to China or to the Chinese diaspora operating through agency schemes’, he said.
Third, there is a genuine acquiring and cashless payment problem. ‘Following the departure of Visa and Mastercard, and due to problems linking Russian Mir bank cards to Chinese payment systems, Chinese tourists physically cannot fully pay with Russian bank cards in China before travelling, while Chinese cards cannot be used for many services within Russia,’ Gareev explained.
As a result, tourists carry cash yuan or buy roubles in China before travelling. But even that does not help solve the problem: domestic flight tickets in Russia, insurance purchases and hotel prepayments are still booked through Chinese aggregators, meaning the money is debited from accounts in China and effectively remains there.
‘China’s cashless and platform infrastructure allows the tourism economy to remain closed within the country of origin. Even when services are physically consumed in Russia, part of the added value does not arise within Russian jurisdiction but accumulates among Chinese intermediaries and in prepayments made before crossing the border,’ confirmed Yaroslav Kabakov, strategy director at Finam.
According to estimates Kabakov provided to Nezavisimaya Gazeta, if annual Chinese tourist flows reach around 2 mln people, close to pre-pandemic levels, and average spending is USD 800 to 1,000 per trip, total turnover could amount to roughly USD 2 bln.
‘However, substantially less actually reaches the Russian economy, around 40% to 60%. Potentially, around USD 800 mln to 1.2 bln a year is not monetised within Russia, rising to as much as USD 1.5 bln in more severe scenarios. This is lost added value resulting from the structure of tour packages and payment chains,’ Kabakov believes.
The infrastructure imbalance is evident.
‘China possesses excessively developed logistics, payment systems and tourism platforms, whereas Russia is constrained by the capacity of eastern transport routes, air connections and financial settlements. As a result, the deficit in connectivity and monetisation is more impactful on the Russian side, which misses out on the multiplier effect,’ the expert added.
The Russian-Chinese Committee for Friendship, Peace and Development hopes that the joint digital platform Molniya will soon become operational. The project, developed by IT specialists from both countries, is intended to combine multiple services in a single interface, including communication, hotel and ticket booking and payments, excursion services, guides, maps and transport schedules. At the end of last year, reports said the launch of the Russian messenger app Molniya was planned for early 2026.
In addition, according to Titov, the visa-free regime has finally started to increase the number of independent Chinese tourists who make payments within Russia itself, providing the first signs of a shift in the quality of tourist flows.
