How Much Does a Trip to China Cost? A 2026 Budget Worksheet You Can Download

Download the worksheet before you read another price list

The main gap across the pages checked for this page was that none offered a budget file you could download and fill with your own figures, even though most of them published extensive price tables.

One page checked for this page carries six separate cost tables covering flights, accommodation, transport, attraction tickets, visa fees and insurance, and every one of them is rendered inside the page rather than as a file you can keep. [4]

Another page checked for this page publishes a four-tier hotel price table across four city groups, which is exactly the kind of table that is more useful in your own sheet with your own currency column beside it. [9]

Keep one column for the source name and one for the date you read it, because a price list without a retrieval date cannot be compared with anything.

A worksheet is not a substitute for the provider pages; it is the place where you record which provider page you used and when.

Convert every figure once, at the top of the sheet

One page checked for this page states the exchange rate it used throughout its calculations as ¥6.9 to $1, which is the single most useful sentence on the page because it makes every other figure in it checkable. [2]

The same page converts a Great Wall ticket at ¥65 to $9.50, a hostel dorm at ¥50–120 to $7–17 and a three-star room at ¥350–700 to $51–101, so the arithmetic is visible rather than asserted. [2]

Write the exchange rate you used at the top of the sheet and the date you read it, because a rate without a date cannot be checked later.

A yuan figure divided by the rate gives dollars: at a rate of ¥6.9 to $1, a ¥65 ticket is 65 ÷ 6.9 = $9.42, which is the same order as the $9.50 quoted by the source.

A dollar figure multiplied by the rate gives yuan: a trip advertised at $1,500 works out at 1,500 × 6.9 = ¥10,350, which is the figure you check against a local booking site.

This page quotes round-trip flights from the US or Europe at $800–2,000, which is a range wide enough that the exchange rate is not your main uncertainty on that line. [1]

A figure in a third currency has to pass through the rate you actually used, so convert it to yuan first and then to your own currency, and write both steps in the row.

Understand what each daily average assumes

One page checked for this page publishes daily averages of $40 for budget, $100 for mid-range and $248 for luxury, alongside whole-trip totals of $703 for a week and $1,407 for two weeks per person. [10]

A second page checked for this page quotes $38–55, $85–155 and $217–580 or more per day for the same three styles, which shows how far apart two sources can be while both describing the same trip. [2]

A third page checked for this page quotes $50 to $300 per day with no tiers at all, and a fourth quotes $70–120 and $120–250, so the tier names are not standardised between sources. [4]

Check the party size before you compare two figures, because a per-room rate and a per-person rate are different numbers and the gap is roughly half for a couple.

One page checked for this page states plainly that a solo traveller pays the whole room, and another quotes a double room at an average of $74 against a per-person share of $37. [10]

This is the line most solo budgets miss, so write the single supplement as its own row rather than assuming you can halve a couple total.

Add the lines that daily averages leave out

Several pages checked for this page state that their daily figures exclude international flights, and one states that visa fees are listed separately rather than inside the totals. [5]

One page checked for this page quotes a US visa at $140 with a Canadian visa at CAD 75, and another quotes US fees at $140–160 with the UK at £151, Australia at AUD 140 and Canada at CAD 100. [5]

A page checked for this page quotes travel insurance for seven to fourteen days at $50–100 and for fifteen to thirty days at $100–200, which is a line that scales with your trip length rather than your destination. [4]

Add the pre-departure lines as their own table rather than folding them into a daily figure, because they do not scale with the number of nights you stay.

Insurance priced by trip length belongs in the whole-trip table rather than the daily table, for the same reason.

Worked example: building a two-week total

Start from the accommodation line rather than the daily average, because accommodation is the largest single line and the one quoted per room.

One page checked for this page quotes mid-range hotels at $70–120 per night, so a fourteen-night stay is 14 × $70 = $980 at the bottom of that range and 14 × $120 = $1,680 at the top. [3]

Worked example: two travellers sharing one room for fourteen nights pay $980 to $1,680 for the room in total, which is $490 to $840 each, not the full room rate each.

Take the intercity lines separately: one page checked for this page quotes Beijing to Xi'an at $80–90 and Beijing to Shanghai at about $100 in second class, and another quotes Beijing to Guilin at about 800 yuan, or $110. [1]

Two travellers on the same route each pay the ticket price, so a rail line is a per-person line while a hotel line is a per-room line, and mixing the two is the commonest budgeting error.

Worked example: four intercity legs at an assumed $85 each is 4 × $85 = $340 per person, or $680 for two travellers, which belongs in the whole-trip table rather than in the daily figure.

Build the contingency margin from your own stated percentage rather than from a source's, because no source knows how much of your plan is still unbooked.

What the guides disagree about, and how to handle it

Barely any of the pages checked for this page state when their prices were collected, and one says outright that its figures were gathered in early 2026 and have not been re-checked since. [2]

Two pages checked for this page do give useful dated comparisons: one reports hotel rates in Beijing and Shanghai running about ten to fifteen per cent above its own 2024 price list, and another reports a daily average moving from $85 to $100 between 2024 and 2026. [8]

Those two dated statements are worth more than any absolute figure in the other pages, because they tell you which direction the numbers are moving.

One page checked for this page reports that rising hotel rates and peak-season surcharges of thirty to fifty per cent apply during July, August and Golden Week, so a single annual rate is never the rate you will pay. [1]

Where two sources give different figures for the same line, keep both in the sheet with their dates rather than averaging them, because an average of a current figure and an old figure is simply a wrong figure.

Check the figure before you book against it

Read the sheet from the top and confirm that every line has a named source, a currency and a date beside it.

Confirm that per-room lines and per-person lines are labelled as such, and that the total multiplies each by the correct number.

Check that the pre-departure table has been carried into the total rather than left on the first page as a note.

Multiply your chosen contingency percentage by the completed total and write the resulting figure in the final row.

Keep the finished sheet with your booking confirmations, because its value is in showing you which figure you relied on and when.

Download the trip budget worksheet

The worksheet below is an original planning file. Open it, save it, or print it, then record the named source and the exchange rate date beside every figure you enter.

Open the downloadable China trip budget worksheet