Dan Wang, MD
China has quietly become one of the easiest long-haul destinations for Europeans. Most EU passports — along with the UK, Norway and Switzerland — now enter China visa-free for stays of up to 30 days, a policy running through the end of 2026. No embassy visit, no application fee, no waiting. That changes the maths on a kind of trip Europeans have been taking to Thailand and Turkey for years: the health check holiday.
What the visa-free policy means in practice
You book a flight and go. On arrival you fill in a landing card, show a passport valid for the trip, and walk in. Thirty days is long enough for any itinerary we build — most of our trips are ten days to three weeks. The policy covers tourism, business and visiting family, and a morning at a health screening centre sits comfortably inside an ordinary tourist trip.
The list of eligible countries has expanded in stages, so check your specific passport before booking — or simply ask us. Confirming the entry route is the first thing we do for every trip, before hotels, before guides, before anything.
Why add a health check to the trip
Because the economics are lopsided in your favour. A comprehensive private health screen in Western Europe — the kind with real imaging, not just bloods and a stethoscope — typically runs well into four figures once you add a CT or an MRI, each billed separately. In China, a bundled package with a low-dose chest CT, a brain MRI, a dozen ultrasounds and a full cancer marker panel costs between $549 to $1,499 — roughly EUR 480 to EUR 1,300.
The screening takes one morning. You register with your passport between 8:00 and 10:30, complete the fasting tests, eat the included breakfast on site, finish the remaining examinations and walk out around midday. The afternoon is yours.
What the packages include
Every tier covers the fundamentals: full blood work, tumour markers, low-dose chest CT, abdominal and thyroid ultrasound, ECG and a coronary artery calcium score. Higher tiers add an echocardiogram, brain MRI, HPV-28 genotyping, and at the top tier a capsule gastroscopy — you swallow a camera pill instead of having a scope — plus a DNA-based colorectal screening test. The full breakdown is on our packages page.
How to structure the trip
Put the screening early in the itinerary, in your first city. There are three reasons: the fasting morning is easier before jet lag fades into rich holiday eating; if anything needs a quick recheck, you have time; and the report — delivered digitally within days — can be reviewed with us in English while you are still in the country. A typical shape: arrive day one, screening morning on day two, then the trip proper.
Worth knowing before you book
- The visa-free policy currently runs to the end of 2026. It has been extended before, but plan travel within the window or be ready to apply for a visa.
- Travel insurance does not usually cover elective screening — you are paying out of pocket, which is exactly why the price matters.
- Screening results are risk indicators, not diagnoses. Anything flagged deserves a follow-up with your own doctor when you are home.