Attraction reservations: why the Forbidden City needs your passport

The single most common “but nobody told me” moment in Chinese travel: you walk up to a major attraction and it’s sold out — for the next seven days. Since COVID, China’s big sights run real-name, advance, capacity-limited reservation systems. Here’s the map.

The sites that need advance booking

• Forbidden City (Beijing) — the big one. Books out ~7 days ahead in high season. Passport = your ticket; foreign passports get a separate (usually shorter) booking line.
• National Museum of China (Beijing) — free but reserved.
• Terracotta Army (Xi’an) — usually same-day-able online, but book ahead in summer.
• Mogao Caves (Dunhuang) — genuinely limited (daily cap); book weeks ahead.
• Jiuzhaigou, Zhangjiajie, Huangshan — seasonal sellouts, book 3–7 days ahead.
• Potala Palace (Lhasa) — requires a Tibet permit and tour; a different beast entirely.

Smaller temples, parks, and city attractions mostly just sell walk-up tickets or are free.

How a foreigner actually books

The systems are WeChat mini-programs or official accounts — some have English, many don’t. The realistic paths, best first:

1. The official WeChat mini-program — search the site’s name inside WeChat. Foreign passports are accepted as ID on the major ones now (this was the 2023 pain point; it’s much better). You’ll need your passport number and sometimes a passport photo upload.
2. The site’s official WeChat account or website — same system, different door.
3. Trip.com — sells tickets to many reserved attractions with a markup, in English, with your passport registered. When a mini-program defeats you, this is the escape hatch.
4. Your hotel front desk — genuinely works in second-tier cities. Show them the attraction, they’ll book it in 2 minutes.

Rules of the system

• Real-name means real-name: the passport that books is the passport that enters. Don’t book for a friend with your ID.
• Time slots are strict: 15–30 minute entry windows. Arrive in yours with the passport you booked with.
• Cancellation windows vary; no-shows sometimes block rebooking for a while, so cancel if plans change.
• Free sites still need reservations (National Museum) — “free” ≠ “walk in”.

Strategy for a 10-day trip

The night you book hotels, book the Forbidden City and anything Mogao/Tibet-adjacent. Everything else: 2–3 days ahead is fine. Keep a note of which passport number booked what — with two phones or a couple, splitting bookings is a common source of mismatch errors.

The backup plan

If something’s sold out: check for next-day releases (many sites release cancelled slots same-day), then check Trip.com’s allocation (they hold inventory), then go at opening and ask about foreigner walk-up quotas — a few major sites keep a small on-site allocation precisely because foreign visitors can’t easily use the apps.