what works in china
50 apps: works, blocked, or swap it
the roaming esim is the cheat code. trust.
- on local chinese networks (hotel wifi, a chinese sim), google, whatsapp, instagram, youtube, x, reddit, chatgpt and claude are blocked
- a roaming esim routes your data out of china before it hits the internet, so most blocked apps just work. the second you join wifi, they stop
- chatgpt and claude are the exception: many china esims exit in hong kong, which openai and anthropic don't serve. home-carrier roaming usually works
- some apps are useless even when they load: uber (use didi), airbnb (use trip.com) and google maps (use amap or apple maps)
- apple maps, imessage, icloud, outlook, teams, apple music and bing work on any connection
the question everyone googles the night before their flight: “will my apps work in china?” the honest answer is “some yes, a lot no, and it depends how you connect.” so we went app by app through the ~50 things travelers actually use and sorted each one into four buckets.
the status table
| app | status | use instead | the real story |
|---|---|---|---|
| google mapsmaps | use the alternative | amap or apple maps | blocked on local networks. on a roaming esim it loads, but china’s map data is outdated and the street layer is offset from satellite, so your blue dot floats. |
| apple mapsmaps | works | — | inside china it runs on amap’s local data, so it’s accurate and needs no vpn. smaller places often only show chinese names. |
| amap (gaode)maps | works | — | what locals use. english since jan 2025, 14 more languages since july 2025. best transit directions in the country. |
| whatsappmessaging | needs roaming esim / vpn | blocked on local networks, “connecting…” forever. works fine on a roaming esim. | |
| wechatmessaging | works | — | how everyone in china messages you. sign up at home: new accounts sometimes need an existing user to verify you. |
| imessagemessaging | works | — | generally works on any connection. |
| facetimemessaging | works | — | usually works. call quality on hotel wifi can be rough. |
| telegrammessaging | needs roaming esim / vpn | blocked on local networks. | |
| signalmessaging | needs roaming esim / vpn | blocked on local networks. | |
| linemessaging | needs roaming esim / vpn | blocked on local networks. | |
| messengermessaging | needs roaming esim / vpn | everything meta is blocked on local networks. | |
| alipaypayments | works | — | the one app you can’t skip. link a foreign visa/mastercard, verify your passport. didi, metro codes and delivery live inside it. |
| wechat paypayments | works | — | takes foreign cards too. handy backup when a shop’s qr only takes wechat. |
| wise / revolut in alipaypayments | works | — | linking the physical card usually works. virtual card numbers get rejected more often. alipay adds about 3% on payments over roughly $30. |
| apple pay / google walletpayments | partially works | alipay | only works where there’s a contactless terminal that takes foreign cards: international hotels, some big chains, some metro gates. most small shops are qr-only. |
| instagramsocial | needs roaming esim / vpn | xiaohongshu (rednote) | blocked on local networks. posts fine on a roaming esim. |
| facebooksocial | needs roaming esim / vpn | — | blocked on local networks. |
| x (twitter)social | needs roaming esim / vpn | blocked on local networks. | |
| redditsocial | needs roaming esim / vpn | — | blocked on local networks. download the threads you need offline. |
| tiktoksocial | needs roaming esim / vpn | douyin | tiktok doesn’t operate in mainland china. on a roaming esim you’ll see your usual feed, just not chinese content. |
| douyinsocial | works | — | china’s tiktok. chinese-only, but genuinely great for searching restaurants (try “上海美食”) and seeing real, recent food videos. |
| xiaohongshu (rednote)social | works | — | china’s instagram-meets-pinterest. the best place to find cafes, photo spots and current opening hours. |
| chatgptai + search | needs roaming esim / vpn | deepseek, doubao, kimi | blocked on local networks. on a roaming esim it depends where your data exits: openai doesn’t serve mainland china, hong kong or macau, and many china esims exit in hong kong. home-carrier roaming usually works. |
| claudeai + search | needs roaming esim / vpn | deepseek, doubao, kimi | blocked on local networks. anthropic doesn’t support mainland china or hong kong, so a hong kong-routed esim won’t work either. home-carrier roaming (exits in your home country) usually does. |
| geminiai + search | needs roaming esim / vpn | deepseek, doubao, kimi | google is blocked on local networks. the gemini app is available in hong kong, so most roaming esims are fine. |
| deepseekai + search | works | — | chinese ai chatbot, works on any connection, english is fine. |
| google searchai + search | needs roaming esim / vpn | bing or baidu | everything google is blocked on local networks. |
| bingai + search | works | — | works without a vpn. results inside china are filtered. |
| google translateai + search | needs roaming esim / vpn | apple translate, baidu translate, youdao | blocked on local networks. download the offline chinese pack before you fly so the camera mode still works. |
| apple translateai + search | works | — | works in china and offline. download chinese in settings first. |
| gmailwork | needs roaming esim / vpn | outlook | blocked on local networks. forward anything important (bookings!) somewhere you can open offline. |
| google drive / docswork | needs roaming esim / vpn | — | blocked on local networks. make key files available offline before you go. |
| outlookwork | works | — | microsoft mail usually works without a vpn. |
| microsoft teamswork | works | — | works, though calling international phone numbers can be flaky. |
| zoomwork | partially works | — | joining meetings often works on local networks, but quality is unstable. do important calls on a roaming esim. |
| slackwork | partially works | — | reports in 2026 are mixed: blocked or painfully slow on many local networks. plan on a roaming esim. |
| notionwork | partially works | — | has been blocked and unblocked over the years. as of oct 2026 it’s unreliable on local networks, so double-check and keep offline copies. |
| icloudwork | works | — | works for accounts registered outside china. photos backup on hotel wifi can be slow. |
| dropboxwork | needs roaming esim / vpn | — | blocked on local networks. |
| youtubestreaming | needs roaming esim / vpn | bilibili | blocked on local networks. download videos for the flight with youtube premium. |
| netflixstreaming | needs roaming esim / vpn | iqiyi, tencent video | not available in mainland china. on a roaming esim you get the catalog of wherever your data exits (often hong kong). downloads made at home play offline. |
| spotifystreaming | needs roaming esim / vpn | apple music, qq music, netease cloud music | spotify isn’t available in china and won’t load on local networks. download playlists before you fly. |
| apple musicstreaming | works | — | officially available in mainland china, works on any connection. |
| bilibilistreaming | works | — | china’s youtube. lots of travel vlogs. |
| uberrides | use the alternative | didi | uber sold its china business to didi in 2016. open it in shanghai and you get an empty map. |
| didirides | works | — | china’s uber. english app takes foreign numbers and cards, or use the didi mini-app inside alipay. |
| trip.combooking | works | — | the easiest way to book trains, flights and hotels that accept foreigners, in english. |
| 12306booking | works | — | the official railway app and site, with an english version. clunkier than trip.com. |
| booking.combooking | partially works | trip.com | usually loads, but mainland inventory is thin outside international chains. fine for a price check. |
| airbnbbooking | use the alternative | trip.com, tujia | airbnb removed its mainland china home listings in july 2022. book places that can register foreign guests. |
| meituan / dianpingbooking | works | — | food delivery and china’s yelp. pay through alipay or wechat pay. the mini-programs inside those apps are easiest. |
nothing matches. try another filter.
sources we checked
- anthropic: supported countries and regions
- openai: supported countries and territories
- google: where you can use the gemini app
- shanghai gov: amap adds 14 new languages (july 2025)
- cnbc: airbnb closes its domestic business in mainland china (2022)
- esimdb: how travel esims route data around the great firewall
“status” means what happens on a normal chinese connection: hotel wifi, cafe wifi, or a local chinese sim. tap a category to narrow it down, or tap “needs roaming esim / vpn” to see exactly what you’ll lose without one.
the four buckets, explained
works. these are fine on any connection. chinese apps (wechat, alipay, didi, amap), plus a surprising amount of apple and microsoft: apple maps, imessage, facetime, icloud, apple music, outlook, teams and bing.
needs a roaming esim or vpn. blocked on local networks. this is google (search, gmail, maps, drive, translate, youtube), meta (whatsapp, instagram, facebook, messenger), x, reddit, telegram, signal, netflix, spotify and the western ai chatbots. they work fine once your data is routed outside china.
partially works. they load, sometimes, slowly. zoom, slack, notion, booking.com and apple pay live here. don’t plan a work call or a hotel check-in around them.
use the alternative. the app might even open, but it’s pointless in china. uber left in 2016 (it sold its china business to didi), airbnb pulled its mainland home listings in july 2022, and google maps’ china data is outdated and literally offset from the satellite layer.
why a roaming esim “bypasses” the firewall
this is the single most useful fact about phones in china, and most people don’t know it.
the great firewall filters traffic on mainland chinese networks. when you use a chinese sim or hotel wifi, your data enters the internet inside china, so it gets filtered. when you roam, your phone still uses china mobile or china unicom towers, but your data is tunneled back to the network that issued the sim and only hits the open internet there. for travel esims that’s usually hong kong or singapore. for your home carrier’s roaming, it’s your home country.
so the firewall never sees your traffic as “chinese internet traffic,” and google, whatsapp and instagram behave like they do at home. no vpn app, nothing to switch on. this isn’t a hack, it’s just how international roaming works everywhere, and it’s why every guide (including our internet in china guide) says to sort an esim before you fly.
two catches:
- wifi turns it off. the moment your phone joins hotel or cafe wifi, you’re on a local connection again. if instagram suddenly dies, check whether you auto-joined the lobby wifi
- where your data exits matters. if your esim exits in hong kong, you browse as if you’re in hong kong. that’s fine for almost everything, except services that don’t operate there. chatgpt and claude are the big ones (more below). netflix will show you the hong kong catalog
if you’ll be streaming or video calling home every night, the unlimited plans save you from watching a data counter.
chatgpt, claude and ai in china
this is the one that catches people out, so it gets its own section.
on local networks, chatgpt, claude and gemini are all blocked. on a roaming esim it depends on where your data exits:
- openai doesn’t serve mainland china, hong kong or macau, and anthropic doesn’t support mainland china or hong kong either. many cheap china esims route through hong kong, so chatgpt and claude can refuse to work even though google loads fine
- home-carrier roaming exits in your home country, so it usually works for both. check your esim’s breakout location before you buy if ai matters to you
- gemini is available in hong kong, so a hong kong-routed esim is usually fine for it
- chinese ai apps like deepseek, doubao and kimi work on any connection and handle english well
as of oct 2026, double-check the providers’ supported-region pages (linked in the sources) before relying on any of this for work.
what to download before you fly
app stores get awkward from inside china, especially on android, since the google play store is blocked. do this at home on good wifi:
- alipay with your passport verified and a card linked. see the alipay + wechat pay setup
- wechat, signed up and verified
- amap set to english, or just use apple maps on iphone
- didi, or find it inside alipay
- trip.com for trains and hotels. the china train guide covers booking
- offline chinese in apple translate and/or google translate
- offline playlists, shows and maps, plus any boarding passes saved as pdfs
our china travel apps guide walks through setting up each of these. and if you haven’t checked your entry rules yet, run your passport through the visa-free checker.
do you still need a vpn?
with a roaming esim, most short-trip travelers never open one. a vpn is the backup for when you’re stuck on hotel wifi, using a local sim, or on a long stay. china’s rules only allow government-approved vpn services. plenty of visitors use others anyway and enforcement against tourists is rarely reported, but that’s your call, and it isn’t legal advice. if you do want one, it has to be installed before you land, because vpn sites and app listings are blocked from inside china.
the vibe check
- roaming esim = most of your apps just work. wifi undoes it
- chatgpt/claude need an exit point outside china and hong kong. deepseek works anywhere
- swap, don’t fight: didi for uber, amap or apple maps for google maps, trip.com for airbnb
- set up alipay and wechat at home. they’re the two apps you truly can’t do without
cite or embed this
this table is free to cite, screenshot or link to. please credit china insider’s guide with a link to this page (chinainsidersguide.com/guides/apps-that-work-in-china). china’s internet changes often, so we re-check the list regularly, and the “last verified” date at the top of the table tells you when we last did.
the kit for this trip
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