Setting Up Alipay and WeChat Pay

Search "Alipay" in the App Store. Download Alipay, not Alipay HK — Alipay HK is built for Hong Kong residents and does not work the same way for most foreign travelers, even if you live in Hong Kong. The one you want has the blue icon labeled "Alipay - Simplify Your Life."

Open the app and enter your phone number with the correct country code. Use your real, working number — both Alipay and WeChat Pay are bound to this number and will send verification codes to it throughout setup and occasionally afterward. Tap through to log in via SMS and enter the code sent to your phone.

Once logged in, tap Account in the bottom navigation. This home screen is where everything branches from: Bank Cards sits right here as its own row, and tapping the chevron (>) next to your name takes you into more detailed settings, showing Alipay Account and Identity Information as separate rows.

This is the step with no way around it. To use Alipay for payment in China, you must provide passport details and personal information: passport number, full name as printed on your passport, date of birth, and a verification photo.

Expect to enter your details more than once — the identity flow is duplicative, and overlapping information across separate screens is normal, not an error. Push through it.

Why bother if basic payments work without it: unverified accounts are capped at much lower transaction limits. Full verification is what unlocks the limits you'll actually need for hotels, shopping, or anything beyond small street purchases.

Go to Bank Cards, then Add your card. Visa and Mastercard work reliably. Amex frequently fails at this exact step, not just at checkout — if you only carry Amex, expect to need a backup card or cash. Enter the card number, expiry, and your name exactly as printed on the card.

This section is the one most likely to be wrong by the time you read it, and it varies person to person. Fee behavior on foreign-card transactions has changed before, differs by which bank issued your card, and has been reported inconsistently even among people setting up in the same week.

What's commonly reported: transactions of ¥200 or under are usually fee-free; above that, a service charge in the low single digits may apply on foreign cards. Your bank may also apply its own foreign transaction fee on top.

What to actually do: don't budget around a specific percentage. Check your own transaction history in the app after your first few payments — treat that as more reliable than any figure quoted here or elsewhere.

You can add more than one card. Alipay shows your default card under Pay/Receive, with an arrow to change it. Tap the card row to switch which card gets charged before you pay — useful if one card gets declined mid-trip or you want to track spending on a specific card.

Why you need both, not just Alipay: Alipay is generally the friendlier experience for foreign users, but WeChat is unavoidable for certain things. Many national park and attraction bookings, ticket purchases, and free timed-entry slots run through WeChat mini programs with no Alipay equivalent.

Download WeChat from the App Store if you don't already have it. If you do, check for an update — payment features are more likely to break on outdated versions.

Open the Me tab and tap Pay and Services — this is WeChat's equivalent of Alipay's account section, everything payment-related lives here.

From Pay and Services, find Bank Card and Bank Account (or equivalent). WeChat accepts UnionPay, Visa, and Mastercard for card binding. As with Alipay, enter the card number, expiry, and cardholder name exactly as printed. You can add more than one card and choose which one to pay from at the point of payment.

Once a payment method is linked, go to Me → Pay and Services → Money (or tap the payment code icon directly). This shows your barcode and QR payment code, the one merchants scan when you're at a bigger shop. Balance (your WeChat wallet) and any linked cards both appear as selectable payment sources here.

Tap the payment method shown under your code (it may say "Balance" or a card name) to open the full list. Select whichever you want to deduct from before you show your code or scan a merchant's — this changes per transaction, it isn't locked to one card permanently.

A practical reason to keep Balance topped up rather than relying only on cards: some smaller vendors and mini programs behave more reliably against Balance than against a freshly linked foreign card, though this is inconsistent enough that it's not a rule, just worth knowing as a fallback.