What to Pack for China: The Few Things You Can't Buy There

Published 9/17/2026Last updated 9/17/2026

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Most packing lists for China are written as if you’re going somewhere remote. You aren’t. China is the world’s factory and its most enthusiastic retail market — there is a convenience store on your hotel’s block, a supermarket under the mall, and a phone shop next to it. Whatever you forget, you can buy, usually within a ten-minute walk and often for less than you’d pay at home.

So this isn’t a list of everything you might need. It’s the opposite: the short list of things you actually can’t buy once you’re there, plus a few things that will get you into trouble at the airport if you pack them. Get those two right and the rest of the suitcase takes care of itself.

The 30-second answer

Bring your own prescription medicine. Chinese pharmacies sell by Chinese brand name, your foreign prescription isn’t valid here, and some common Western drugs are restricted or banned. This is the single item you cannot improvise.
If you’re at the top of your home size range, pack enough. Men’s shoes above about EU 45 and true plus-size clothing are hard to find in stores.
The digital half of your bag gets packed before you fly — eSIM, VPN, and the four apps. Not because they’re unavailable in China, but because you can’t install them there.
What you pack depends far more on the season and your itinerary than on China. A winter trip to Harbin and a winter trip to Shanghai need different bags.
Leave the lighter at home. Matches and lighters are banned from both carry-on and checked bags on flights in China — yes, even in your suitcase.
Pack a small landing kit in your carry-on: the first 24 hours are the only time you’ll be in China without working internet or working payment.

Rule one: if you can buy it there, don’t bring it

Here’s roughly what a duplicated item costs you in the first hour.

Thing	Buy it in China?	The honest version
Universal power adapter	Yes	A few tens of yuan at any supermarket or electronics stall, and hotel front desks usually lend one. China runs on 220V/50Hz with flat two-pin sockets (plus the angled three-pin type) — most of Europe, the UK and Australia need an adapter; US flat-pin plugs usually fit, but a 110V-only appliance like a hair dryer still won’t work.
Umbrella	Yes	Convenience stores sell them for pocket change and most hotels lend one at the desk.
Shampoo, body wash, slippers	Yes	Standard hotel room supplies. Slippers are almost always provided.
Toothbrush and toothpaste	Mostly	See the note below — this is the one hotel item with an actual rule behind it.
T-shirts, socks, underwear, a warm layer	Yes	Uniqlo and its local equivalents are in every city.
Basic medicine (painkillers, cold, stomach)	Yes	Pharmacies are everywhere and staff will help, though the brand names will be Chinese.
Power bank	Yes	Cheap and everywhere. If your trip includes a domestic flight, buying one in China is actually the fix — see the airport section.
Sunscreen	Yes	Widely sold, though the shelves skew heavily toward whitening formulas; if you want a specific light-textured one, bring your own.

The toothbrush exception. Shanghai has required hotels since July 2019 not to proactively place toothbrushes, combs, razors, loofahs, nail files and shoe-shine cloths in the room. Other cities followed in patches. Two things people get wrong about this: slippers and soap are not on that list (so don’t pack slippers), and “not proactively provided” doesn’t mean unavailable — ask at the front desk and you’ll get one. If you’d rather not ask, bring your own toothbrush. It weighs 15 grams.

Rule two: the things you genuinely can’t buy

1. Your prescription medicine

This is the one category where “I’ll sort it out when I get there” doesn’t work.

Chinese pharmacies dispense by Chinese generic name. Your pharmacist won’t know your brand, your foreign prescription carries no weight in China, and getting a refill means seeing a Chinese-licensed doctor first. Meanwhile China’s customs rules on personal medication are real and enforced:

Ordinary prescription medicine is allowed in a reasonable quantity for personal use. Carry it in its original packaging with the prescription or a doctor’s letter that matches your name to the drug. For a short trip, the working figure is roughly a week’s supply; if you’re staying longer, bring what you need and bring the paperwork to explain it.
Narcotics and psychotropic drugs are prohibited from entering China — including some things prescribed routinely elsewhere, such as ADHD stimulants and certain benzodiazepines. If you genuinely need one for treatment, the exception requires a medical diagnosis certificate (with a Chinese translation) plus your passport, and quantities are capped at a single prescription.
Declare it. If you’re carrying anything controlled or anything injectable, walk the red channel and tell them. “Personal use” is a judgement customs makes, and it goes better when you volunteer the information.

Practically: bring the whole trip’s supply in original boxes, keep a photo of your prescription on your phone, and carry it in your hand luggage — a checked bag that goes missing for two days takes your medicine with it. And for the ordinary stuff you actually use at home — your usual painkiller, your usual hay-fever tablet — bring your own recognisable brand. You’ll find equivalents here, but with names you don’t know, and the first day of a trip is a bad time to be guessing at dosages.

2. Your size

Chinese clothing and shoe sizing runs smaller than US or European sizing, and the in-store range stops earlier. If you’re at the top of your usual size — men’s shoes above roughly EU 45, women’s above EU 41, or you routinely buy XL and up — pack enough of your own, especially shoes. Undersized shoes on a trip with 15,000 steps a day is a genuinely trip-ruining problem, and the fix in China is either an online order that takes days to arrive or a hunt through specialty shops you don’t have time for.

Two smaller versions of the same problem: larger cup sizes are hard to find in physical stores, and the deodorant and tampon aisles are thinner than what you’re used to. None of it is a crisis — it’s all available online — but “available online in three days” is not the same as “available now.”

For everything else, the rule holds: buy it there.

3. The things you can only install before you fly

The digital half of your packing happens before you leave home, and it’s the half people forget.

eSIM or roaming — sorted in advance, because the whole point is to have data when you land.
A VPN, installed and tested — a VPN is nearly impossible to download once you’re inside China. Install it at home and confirm it works.
Your four apps: Alipay, WeChat, AMAP Global, a translator. Google Play doesn’t work in China, and on iPhone your App Store region follows your Apple ID, not your location. And 12306, the rail app, needs your passport verified, which takes a few working days.

We’ve written the full version of this in the apps you actually need in China and how to get online in China. One extra item for the packing list: download offline maps of the cities you’re visiting, and screenshot your hotel’s address in Chinese. On arrival you may have no data, no working payment and no way to explain where you’re going — a screenshot solves all three at once.

What actually decides your list: season and altitude

Pack for the trip you’re taking, not for “China.” The country spans a tropical south and a Siberian-cold north, and — this is the part visitors miss — the heating is not the same everywhere.

Where and when	What the weather does	What to pack
North China in winter (Beijing, Xi’an, Harbin)	Outside can be −10°C or colder. Inside has central heating, so you’ll be in 20°C+ rooms and dry air.	A real winter coat for the street, and short sleeves for indoors — plus lip balm and hand cream. Don’t pack only heavy clothes; you will be overheating at dinner.
Southern China in winter (Shanghai, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Guilin)	Outside is mild, inside has no central heating. Indoor temperatures of 5–10°C in a damp, draughty room are normal.	Thermal base layers — this is what locals actually wear, not a foreigner’s overreaction. A warm indoor layer matters more than a heavy coat.
Summer, anywhere (June–August)	35°C and humid across most of the country, with the main rainy season in the south and east.	Quick-dry, light clothes, a compact umbrella, and a second pair of shoes.
The high plateau (Daocheng Yading, Jiuzhaigou, Huanglong — 3,000–4,700 m)	Strong UV, big day-to-night temperature swings, thin air.	Sun protection matters more than warmth — hat, sunglasses, high-SPF sunscreen, layers rather than one thick coat.
The northwest (Gansu, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia)	Dry, huge temperature swings, dust.	Sun protection, a buff or mask, lip balm.

One item that never changes: comfortable, already-broken-in walking shoes. China’s headline sights are staircases — 999 steps up Tianmen Mountain, the Great Wall’s watchtower climbs, temple after temple. Hotel slippers are for the hotel.

For the “when should I go” question itself, we keep a separate page on the best time to visit China.

What not to bring

A short list, but every line on it has a real consequence attached.

Item	The rule	Why it matters
Lighters and matches	Banned from both carry-on and checked bags on flights in China — this applies to international flights too, not just domestic.	Most countries let you carry a lighter in your pocket. China doesn’t, and the penalty runs to fines of up to ¥5,000. Smokers: buy a lighter after you land, and expect to lose it before your flight home.
Power banks	Carry-on only, never checked. Up to 100Wh is fine; 100–160Wh needs airline approval and a maximum of two. And since 28 June 2025, power banks carried on domestic flights must have a clear 3C certification mark.	This is the newest and least-known trap. International flights are not affected — but if your itinerary includes a domestic flight (Beijing to Xi’an, say), the domestic leg is checked. Reports differ on whether foreign-purchased power banks are exempt: Shenzhen Airport has said overseas products fall outside the rule, while airport hotlines have told foreign travellers that 3C still applies on domestic segments. Practical fix: if you’re flying domestically inside China, buy a 3C-marked power bank there for pocket money and leave yours at home. Also note the rule covers power banks only — camera and drone batteries are checked under the old rules.
Drones	Real-name registration with the CAAC, extensive no-fly zones over city centres, and conflicting information on whether a foreign visitor can self-register without a Chinese ID or phone number. Penalties run to fines and confiscation.	Not worth it for a holiday. Drone surveys and radio-parameter measurement by foreign nationals are a separate, much more serious matter — don’t.
Controlled medicines	Narcotics and psychotropic substances are prohibited, with a narrow medical exception requiring a diagnosis certificate.	See the medicine section above. If in doubt, declare.
Meat, seeds, fresh fruit, plants	Prohibited on entry for agricultural reasons.	Eat the airport sandwich before you land.
Over-sized liquids in your carry-on	The 100 ml container rule, strictly enforced.	Buy toiletries after you land, or check the bag.

The landing kit: what stays in your day bag

Your first hours in China are the only time you’re genuinely without a safety net — no data yet, no working payment method yet, no way to explain yourself. A small pouch of physical items carried on the plane, not checked, covers all of it.

Cash — a few hundred yuan, in small notes. Card-linked apps are the norm, but they need setup and data. Cash is what works when nothing else does. See how to pay in China for the full picture.
Your hotel’s name and address, written in Chinese (screenshot or printout). This is the single most useful piece of paper you will carry.
A copy of your passport and visa page, on paper and on your phone.
Tissues and wet wipes. Public toilets in China commonly have no paper and no soap — it’s not a defect, it’s just how it is. Our toilet guide covers the rest.
Your medicine, in original packaging.
Charger, cable, power bank, adapter — the adapter is the one you’ll want on the plane.
A pen. You may need to fill in an arrival card before you reach the desk.

Pre-departure checklist

Keeping this page accurate

Airline security rules and customs limits change, and the power bank rule in particular is recent enough that you should treat the “what’s actually enforced” details as a moving target. We check this page regularly; the date at the top shows when it was last reviewed. For anything safety-critical, the airline’s own notice and the airport’s signage beat any blog — including this one. If you spot something out of date, tell us.

A note on what this is: practical tips from people who travel here, not a legal or customs authority. Rules on medication and air transport are enforced at the discretion of the officer in front of you. When in doubt, declare it.

Coming from abroad with dietary restrictions? Our halal guide and vegetarian guide cover what to look out for at the table.