Moving to China: What to Do Before and After You Arrive

Before you make a moving checklist, make a much shorter list with three labels:

Confirmed. Provisional. Unknown.

Apply those labels to six things:

This sounds simple, but it prevents a common planning mistake: solving a decision near the end of the move before the decision it depends on has been settled.

If you have accepted a job in Shanghai and your employer has confirmed both the start date and who is coordinating the work-permit process, you already have useful anchors. You can start building a realistic arrival plan and comparing temporary accommodation.

Now change the scenario. The job is fixed, but your partner and two children are moving with you and no school has been chosen. The housing decision may now depend on the school campus as much as the office. If school admission is still uncertain, a long lease chosen only around one parent's commute may be premature.

Neither move is automatically “easy” or “complicated”. They simply have different dependencies.

You do not need every answer before you start planning. You do need to know which answers are still missing. An unknown city, an unconfirmed start date or an unclear responsible party should stay visible in the plan instead of being hidden under an arbitrary deadline.

If your purpose is still unclear, resolve that before building the rest of the move. If the purpose is clear but the city is not, compare cities before researching apartments. If both route and destination are reasonably firm, move on to timing and documents.

“Getting a visa” is often used as shorthand for the entire immigration side of a move. It is not a good planning model.

There are different questions to answer:

• What permission, if any, do you need to enter China for your intended purpose?
• What must happen after entry if you will live, work, study or join family in China?
• Do you need a residence permit?
• If you will work, what work authorization is required?
• Who handles accommodation registration after you arrive?

These are connected, but they are not interchangeable.

China's official guidance distinguishes entry visas from in-China stay and residence procedures. Where a visa states that a residence permit must be obtained after entry, the National Immigration Administration requires the application to be made with the exit-entry authority in the intended place of residence within the applicable period. Work authorization is a separate part of the employment route, with the employer carrying responsibilities of its own.

You do not need to master the immigration system yourself before moving. You need enough clarity to know which authority decides, which organisation is responsible for supporting the process, which part belongs to you, and what evidence shows that a step is actually complete.

A simple ownership table helps:

This is the point to keep expensive decisions reversible.

Getting a shipping quotation is not the same as releasing your household goods. Researching schools is not the same as paying a deposit. Shortlisting neighbourhoods is not the same as signing a one-year lease. Holding a flexible flight is different from building the entire move around a date that still depends on an unresolved official step.

The aim is not to delay everything. It is to stop a downstream commitment from outrunning the decision it depends on.

A service provider may help coordinate documents, appointments or communication. It cannot issue an immigration approval, replace the competent authority or guarantee the result.

Once your route and arrival window are credible, the move stops being a list of topics and becomes a timeline.

Do not start with a generic question such as “What should I do 90 days before moving to China?” Start with the first date that is genuinely difficult to move.

That may be:

• an employment start date;
• a school start date;
• an official appointment or document milestone;
• the date your current housing ends;
• a family member's travel window;
• the date your passport must be available for travel.

Then work backwards from that point.

A good pre-arrival plan does not try to finish everything from overseas.

Some decisions depend on physical inspection. Others depend on the exact bank branch, mobile operator, address, school, hospital or local authority you will actually use. Some simply become easier once you have tested your real commute and daily routine.

Use three categories:

Housing is the easiest example. Photos and maps can help you shortlist areas, but they cannot tell you how a building feels, whether the commute works at the actual hour you travel, whether the person offering the property is authorized to lease it, or whether the handover condition matches the listing.

Money and mobile setup work similarly. China supports multiple payment routes for overseas visitors, including mobile payment, bank cards and RMB cash. That makes it sensible to arrive with backups rather than betting the first day on one app, one card or one phone.

The goal is not to postpone useful preparation. It is to know what evidence makes a decision ready.

Your first three days are not the time to perfect every system. They are the time to make the arrival lawful, functional and recoverable.

A useful order is:

The first month is where temporary workarounds become systems you can rely on.

The order will differ by route, but the principle stays the same: deal with status-dependent formalities first, then stabilize the services you use every day.

Finish the formalities tied to your route

If your entry route leads to a residence, work, study or family-related process after arrival, follow the responsible authority and your employer, school or host for the actual sequence and deadlines.

Do not copy another foreign resident's timeline unless the route, city and circumstances really match yours.

Make your phone setup recoverable

Once you choose a longer-term mobile setup, think beyond data allowance.

Ask what happens if you lose the phone, replace the device, change the number or need to recover an account. A number used for banking, payments and other services becomes part of your daily infrastructure.

Stabilize payments, then decide whether you need local banking

China's official guidance allows overseas visitors to use several payment methods, including mobile payments linked to eligible overseas cards, bank cards and cash. If you expect to receive salary, make local transfers, manage foreign exchange or use other resident banking services, a local account may become useful or necessary for your situation.

The selected bank branch should confirm the account type, documents and services it can provide. Do not assume that a checklist from another person or another branch is universal.

Build a healthcare plan before you need one

The useful questions are practical:

• Where would you go for routine care?
• Where would you go for urgent care?
• Does your insurer require a network provider, pre-authorization or reimbursement?
• If anyone depends on medication or ongoing treatment, how will continuity be handled?
• Can you access your insurer and emergency information if your main phone is unavailable?

For a city such as Shanghai, public and private care options differ in service model, language support, insurance arrangements and availability. Confirm the actual facility and your insurer rather than choosing a hospital category based on a general stereotype.

Review the first month using real evidence

Before extending temporary commitments, compare your assumptions with daily life.

How long is the commute at the hour you actually travel? Which payment method are you really using? Is the temporary home in the right part of the city? Is the school journey workable? Is your healthcare plan accessible from where you live?

The point of the first month is not to optimize everything. It is to replace guesses with evidence.

Housing should not start with a list of attractive neighbourhoods.

Start with the destinations your household has to reach repeatedly:

• workplace;
• school or childcare;
• healthcare;
• partner's workplace;
• regular support or family commitments;
• major transport connection if you travel frequently.

Put those anchors on the same map before comparing rent or floor area.

A home that is cheaper but adds two difficult daily journeys may not be cheaper in any meaningful sense. A larger apartment may not improve family life if the school run consumes several hours every day. A fashionable area is not useful if it breaks the schedule that brought you to the city in the first place.

This is why temporary accommodation can be valuable when important anchors are still provisional. It gives you time to test the route rather than trusting a map estimate.

When you do view long-term housing, separate the lifestyle decision from the transaction checks.

Look at the property condition, building access, noise, light, heating or cooling, water, appliances, storage and actual commute. Then check who you are contracting with, their authority to rent or sublet the property, the full cost, deposit and payment terms, utilities, inventory, handover record, repair responsibilities and what support is available for accommodation registration.

In Shanghai, housing-leasing regulations set requirements around lawful rental housing, lease contracts, rent and deposit terms, utilities, registration and filing, and lessor/lessee responsibilities. Other cities can have their own implementation, so use the local rules where you actually rent.

Take photos at handover. Record meter readings where relevant. Keep the agreement, payment evidence and inventory.

Housing is where the relocation plan gets stress-tested. If the property works but the household logistics do not, it is not the right solution.

A family move is not a solo relocation with extra suitcases.

Each person has a separate status, document set, health situation, arrival plan and daily schedule. Children add another dependency: education can determine where the family can realistically live.

The useful sequence is usually:

status and eligibility → school pathway → admissions timing → campus and transport → housing

—not “choose a nice neighbourhood, then find a school nearby”.

Shanghai shows why. The city's current education guidance identifies several pathways for children of foreign residents, including schools for children of foreign nationals, international divisions of local schools, and local public or private schools, with eligibility and admissions rules depending on the pathway and annual/local policies.

That means the school question is not simply “Which school is best?”

A better comparison asks:

• Is the child eligible for this pathway?
• Does the curriculum fit where the child is coming from and likely to go next?
• What language support is available?
• Which campus would the child actually attend?
• What are the admissions stages and decision dates?
• What are the fees, deposits and withdrawal terms?
• How would the school journey interact with both parents' work?
• What happens to the housing plan if admission is not yet confirmed?

Sometimes the school should lead the housing decision. Sometimes the right answer is temporary housing until the school position is clearer.

Family healthcare should enter the same plan. If someone relies on medication, specialist care or regular treatment, continuity may matter more than a marginal difference in rent. A staggered arrival can also be sensible when one family member needs to establish work, housing or school arrangements first.

Treat the family as one connected system, but keep a separate control record for each person.

Most of the planning work belongs to you even if you eventually use professional support.

You can define the facts of the move, use official sources, build the timeline, organize documents, compare options, keep records and ask better questions yourself.

That foundation matters because it makes outside help easier to evaluate.