China stops granting passport renewals for non-essential travel

Envato [illustration]

China's National Immigration Administration said it will not be renewing passports for non-essential travel while the international COVID-19 epidemic situation is still severe and cross border travel poses "great security risks".

The administration said in a statement on social media it will "normally issue passports" for individuals who need to travel abroad for study, employment, or business.

But rumours it will issue passport renewals for individuals looking to travel abroad for leisure are false, the authority said.

China has tightened controls over its citizens' cross-border travel to lower the risk of the virus being brought in from overseas and spreading domestically.

It has suspended the issuance of new common passports for individuals who intend to go abroad for non-urgent matters.

More from International News

  • Trump says Iran war goals nearly accomplished in televised address

    The United States will carry out aggressive strikes on Iran over the next two to three weeks and is nearing completion of its main strategic objectives in the war, President Donald Trump said in a televised address to the nation on Wednesday.

  • One killed as Indonesia earthquake damages buildings

    An earthquake of magnitude 7.6 has struck in Indonesia's Northern Molucca Sea on Thursday, killing one person, damaging some buildings, and triggering tsunami waves, authorities and witnesses said.

  • Florida vice mayor shot dead, husband jailed as suspect

    The vice mayor of Coral Springs, Florida, has been shot and killed on Wednesday, with her husband taken into custody as the lone suspect in what police called a case of domestic violence, officials said. Nancy Metayer Bowen, 38, was the first Black woman and first Haitian American woman to serve as commissioner in Coral Springs, a town of about 134,000 people, some 72 km north of Miami. She was elected to the commission in 2020, re-elected in 2024, and named vice mayor by her fellow commissioners, according to the city's website. Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris named her as

  • NASA launches first crewed lunar mission in half a century

    Four astronauts have blasted off from Florida on NASA's Artemis II mission, a high‑stakes 10-day trip around the moon that marks the United States' boldest step yet towards returning humans to the lunar surface this decade before China's first crewed landing.

  • Tsunami warning issued after powerful Indonesia earthquake

    An earthquake of magnitude 7.4 struck the Northern Molucca Sea off Indonesia's historic spice island of Ternate on Thursday, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said, triggering a tsunami warning for neighbouring Southeast Asian nations.

On Virgin Radio today

Trending on Virgin Radio