Short answer
Yes and no, and the difference matters. You can download Alipay, create an account and open the app without a passport. You cannot bind a foreign bank card and pay reliably until you pass real-name verification, and for a foreign visitor that verification runs on a passport.
Alipay accepts exactly two identity documents from foreign users: a passport, or a Foreign Permanent Resident ID (the PRC permanent residence permit for foreigners). Tourists do not hold the second one. So for anyone visiting on a normal trip, the working answer is blunt: no passport means no usable Alipay payment ability.
There is one more layer that most guides skip. Every alternative people recommend instead of Alipay, including WeChat Pay and the TourCard prepaid card, also asks for passport details. None of them is a passport-free path. This page explains what verification requires, the exact app path, the reasons it fails, and what to do if you have no passport at all.
Two different questions hiding in the same search
People typing "Alipay without passport" are usually asking one of two very different things, and the answers are not the same:
- "Can I install and use Alipay as a foreigner?" Yes, with a passport and a phone number that receives SMS. That is a normal, well-supported setup.
- "Can I skip identity verification and still pay?" No. Not with a foreign card, not for anything that matters.
The second question is the one with a real answer, so that is what the rest of this page is about. If you do hold a valid passport, the practical guide you want is how to pay in China as a foreigner, which covers card binding, fees and setup in full. This page covers the narrower case where the passport is missing or the verification will not go through.
Why Alipay cannot be generous here
Alipay operates under China's KYC and real-name registration rules. Those rules are a condition of holding a payment licence, not a customer-service choice, and no amount of complaining to in-app support will bend them. Every account that moves money has to be tied to a verified identity.
For foreign users the recognised documents are the passport and the Foreign Permanent Resident ID. Chinese citizens use their national ID card; you will not have one, and the app will not accept a driver's licence, a student card, a residence card from another country, or a photocopy of anything.
That leaves one honest conclusion for a tourist: the passport is not paperwork you can work around. It is the credential.
Verified vs unverified: what actually changes
An Alipay account that exists but has not completed identity verification is not a payment account in any useful sense. Here is the practical comparison.
| Without verification | After passport verification | |
|---|---|---|
| Open the app and browse | Yes | Yes |
| Bind a foreign card | Usually fails; not a supported setup | Yes, Visa, Mastercard, Amex, JCB, Discover, Diners Club and foreign UnionPay |
| Pay a merchant by QR code | Not reliably | Yes |
| Per-transaction ceiling | Severely reduced, and the exact figure is not published per account | About ¥35,000, roughly US$5,000 |
| Annual ceiling | Severely reduced | About ¥350,000, roughly US$50,000 |
| Feature access | Many features locked or hidden | Full consumer feature set, including mini-programs |
| Good enough for a trip | No | Yes |
Do not try to read an exact unverified limit out of that table, because there is not one to read. The honest description is that unverified accounts sit under heavy restrictions that make them useless for travel spending, and the specific caps are applied account by account rather than published as a single number.
How to verify your passport in Alipay
This is the whole procedure, in the order the app presents it. It takes about ten minutes plus the wait for review.
- Install Alipay before you leave homeApp store region and network conditions both get awkward once you are inside China. Do this on your usual home connection.
- Register with your home phone numberForeign numbers are supported. You need working SMS delivery, so check that roaming or your eSIM can receive international texts.
- Open the identity verification screenThe path is
Me→Settings→Account and Security→Identity Information→Identity Verification. Menus get renamed and translated differently between versions, so if the words differ slightly, look for the account security section. - Submit your passportPhotograph the photo page with all four corners inside the frame. The MRZ lines, the two rows of chevrons and text at the bottom, must be sharp and unreadable nowhere. No glare, no fingers, no shadow across the bottom edge. No cover, no sleeve.
- Take the live selfieThe app opens its own camera and asks you to move your head or blink. Good even lighting, no hat, no sunglasses, and take the glasses off anyway if the frames cover your eyes. Do not use an old photo from your gallery, the liveness check will reject it.
- Wait for reviewUsually minutes, sometimes up to 24 hours. Leave the app installed and notifications on while you wait.
- Bind your card and test it smallOnly now add the card under payment settings. Buy something trivial, a bottle of water, a metro ticket. Finding out at a hotel desk that a card does not work is a worse way to learn it.
Once it works, the fee structure is the same one described on every other page in this section: payments of ¥200 or less are free, and anything over ¥200 carries a 3% fee applied to the full amount, not just the portion above the threshold. A ¥250 bill costs ¥7.50.
Limits and fees after verification
Verified foreign users sit under per-transaction and annual ceilings that follow People's Bank of China guidance. The figures currently reported are roughly ¥35,000 (about US$5,000) per transaction and ¥350,000 (about US$50,000) per year. For ordinary travel these are irrelevant. They matter if you are buying electronics, paying a medical bill, or settling something expensive on behalf of a group.
| Item | What applies to a verified foreign user |
|---|---|
| Fee, single payment up to ¥200 | Free |
| Fee, single payment over ¥200 | 3% of the full amount |
| Example: ¥250 bill | ¥7.50 fee, ¥257.50 billed to your card |
| Per-transaction ceiling | About ¥35,000, roughly US$5,000 |
| Annual ceiling | About ¥350,000, roughly US$50,000 |
| Raising the ceilings | Possible through further verification inside the app |
| Your home bank | Usually adds its own 1–3% foreign transaction fee on top |
Note the ordering problem in that last row. Verification is what makes the card usable, but your home bank can still decline the small verification charge Alipay uses to validate a new card. Tell your bank you are travelling to China before you start. That one phone call prevents more failures than anything else on this page.
The alternatives, and whether they still need a passport
Every route people suggest as a way around verification has the same requirement at the bottom of it. This table is the honest version.
| Route | Still needs a passport? | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Alipay with passport verification | Yes | Almost everyone. Card binding, QR payments, transport and attraction mini-programs |
| WeChat Pay | Yes, same real-name verification on a passport | People who already use WeChat, and as a backup where a merchant takes only one app |
| TourCard prepaid virtual card | Yes, you submit passport details to open it | Visitors who would rather top up a prepaid balance than expose a main credit card |
| Physical Visa or Mastercard | Not for the card itself, but you cannot clear immigration without one | International hotels, chain stores, department stores. Not small restaurants |
| Cash | Same as above | A ¥300–500 buffer in small notes, and a fallback when a QR payment fails |
TourCard, and the ghost of Tour Pass
TourCard is the current product, and people often confuse it with something older. It is a prepaid virtual card issued by Bank of Shanghai and opened through an Alipay mini-program. You top it up with an eligible international card and then spend in China from that balance.
Two things to get right. First, opening a TourCard still requires you to submit passport information, so it is not a passport-free option and never was. Second, it is not free of uncertainty: sources disagree on how long a TourCard stays valid, with some saying 90 days and others 180 days, and reported top-up ceilings vary as well. Do not plan around a number you read on a blog. Check what the mini-program shows you at the time you open it, and treat the validity window and the top-up ceiling shown in the app as the only figures that count.
Card network support has the same problem. Visa, Mastercard, Diners Club and JCB are consistently reported as supported. Whether American Express works is disputed, so confirm inside the app before you rely on an Amex card for top-ups.
What is definitively gone is Alipay Tour Pass. That was the earlier prepaid mini-program that let visitors load up to ¥2,000 onto a virtual card. Alipay began phasing it out from late 2023 and by 2026 it is no longer available. Any guide still telling you to top up a Tour Pass is out of date, and do not treat Tour Pass and TourCard as two names for the same thing.
Why passport verification fails, and how to fix it
Rejections are common and almost always come from a short, predictable list. Work through these before you resubmit, because repeated failed attempts make the next one harder.
- A blurry or glaring passport photo. The MRZ band at the bottom is machine-read. If the chevron lines are soft, the app cannot parse them. Photograph on a flat dark surface in daylight, not under a ceiling lamp that reflects off the laminate.
- Name order mismatched. Your passport prints surname and given names in a fixed order, and interfaces disagree about which box wants which. More importantly, the name you enter must match the name on the bank card you plan to bind. A middle name dropped here or added there is a classic rejection and a classic payment decline later.
- Selfie does not resemble the passport photo. Big changes in hair, weight, facial hair, or a photo taken years ago will trip the match. Take the selfie in the same lighting conditions you would want on a new passport photo.
- VPN or a mismatched IP region. If your connection tells the app you are somewhere unrelated to the country that issued the passport, that combination raises flags. Turn the VPN off and verify on your normal home connection.
- App store or account region mismatch. Installing from one country's store while your account, phone number and passport are all from another is a common source of failure. Keep the store region consistent with the rest of your account.
- Passport validity too short. China generally expects at least six months of validity remaining at entry. A passport nearing expiry is a problem before it is a verification problem, so renew first.
If you genuinely have no passport
Write this part down plainly, because it is the most useful sentence on the page: you cannot enter China without a valid passport in the first place. Border control requires it, hotel registration for foreign guests is built on it, and buying a train ticket ties the ticket to it. So "no passport" is not a payment problem you can solve with a clever app. It is a question about whether the trip can happen at all.
If what you actually meant was "I have a passport but I do not want to hand my identity to another app," that is a reasonable position and there is a real answer. Verify once, use it for the trip, and treat the account as a travel tool rather than a permanent financial footprint. The alternative, relying on physical cards and cash for two weeks, works but means no metro QR, no shared bikes, no food-stall payments, and no easy way to split a bill with the people you are travelling with.
If you hold a Foreign Permanent Resident ID, that is accepted for verification and you can use it in place of a passport for Alipay's purposes. Visitors on a tourist entry will not have one.
Before you fly: a short checklist
- Passport valid for at least six months beyond your entry date, with clear scans you can use if you need to redo photos.
- Alipay installed from a store region consistent with your account, and identity verification completed successfully.
- WeChat Pay installed as a backup if a merchant accepts only one app.
- Your bank told that you are travelling, with overseas and internet transactions enabled on the card you plan to bind.
- ¥300–500 in small notes arranged, plus a physical Visa or Mastercard for hotels and large stores.
- A phone number that reliably receives international SMS, and a data plan that works on arrival. See eSIM and data for China if SMS or roaming is going to be a problem.
- One successful test payment made at home before departure, however small.
For the parts that are not about money, the wider apps to install for China section covers setting up everything else in the same order. If you plan to carry more cash as a result of verification trouble, see cash and ATMs in China for what foreign cards can and cannot do at a machine.
Frequently asked questions
Can I use Alipay without a passport?
You can create an account and open the app without one, but you cannot complete real-name verification, which means you cannot reliably bind a foreign bank card or pay merchants. For foreign users the accepted documents are a passport or a Foreign Permanent Resident ID, and tourists do not have the latter.
Can I use Alipay without identity verification?
No, not for paying. An unverified account has severely reduced limits, many features locked, and usually cannot bind an overseas card at all. Alipay's verification requirement comes from China's KYC and real-name registration rules and cannot be waived by support.
What ID can I use instead of a passport?
A Foreign Permanent Resident ID is accepted, but that is the PRC permanent residence permit for foreigners and is not something a visitor holds. Driver's licences, student cards and foreign residence cards are not accepted by Alipay for identity verification.
Is Alipay Tour Pass still available?
No. Alipay began retiring Tour Pass from late 2023 and by 2026 it is no longer offered. The current product is TourCard, a prepaid virtual card issued by Bank of Shanghai inside an Alipay mini-program, and it is a different thing with different rules.
What are the limits without verification?
There is no published single figure. Unverified accounts sit under heavy restrictions that make them unusable for travel spending, and caps are applied account by account. Verified users, by contrast, are reported to be capped around ¥35,000 per transaction and ¥350,000 per year.
My passport verification keeps failing, what now?
Check the usual causes in order: a blurry or glared passport photo where the MRZ lines are unclear, name order that does not match your bank card, a selfie that does not match the passport photo, a VPN or IP region unrelated to the passport's issuing country, an app store or account region mismatch, and a passport with too little validity left. Contact in-app support with the specific step that failed rather than resubmitting the same images.
Does TourCard work without a passport?
No. Opening a TourCard requires you to submit passport information, so it does not avoid verification. Reported validity periods and top-up ceilings also differ between sources, so treat the figures shown inside the mini-program as the ones that apply.
Does WeChat Pay need a passport too?
Yes. WeChat Pay allows foreign cards but requires the same real-name verification, and for a foreign user that means a passport. Installing both apps is still worth it, because some merchants accept only one QR code scheme.
How long does Alipay verification take?
Often minutes, and it can take up to 24 hours according to multiple accounts. A rejection restarts the process, which is why starting a week before departure is safer than starting the day you fly.
Can I just use a physical Visa card in China?
Partly. International hotels, chain stores and department stores usually accept a physical foreign card. Small restaurants, markets, taxis and food stalls generally do not, and those are exactly the places you will spend most of your money. Carry cash as the fallback.
Is there an Alipay fee on foreign cards?
Payments of ¥200 or less are free. Above ¥200, a 3% fee applies to the full transaction amount, so a ¥250 bill costs ¥7.50. Your home bank may add its own 1–3% foreign transaction fee on top of that.
Can someone else pay for me with their Alipay?
Practically, people do ask a travelling companion to scan for them. It is not a solution to verification, it means you depend on that person for every purchase, and it breaks down the moment you are apart. Get your own verification done if you have a passport.
Related reading
Written and checked on 28 September 2026 against Alipay in-app verification guidance, platform help documentation and Chinese regulatory reporting on KYC and payment limits. Verification rules, accepted documents, TourCard terms and account limits change without notice, so treat the app as the authority and confirm current terms there before relying on any figure quoted above.