Attracting foreign visitors to China takes more than easing visa rules or improving transport links; visitors also need to navigate the country once they arrive. In an economy where much of daily life runs through digital platforms, seemingly small tasks – from paying for a meal to accessing everyday services – can become obstacles that shape how accessible the country feels to outsiders.
China’s effort to make itself more welcoming to tourists has thus also extended into its digital ecosystem. Tencent’s TenPayGo offers a glimpse of how one of China’s largest technology companies is approaching that challenge.
TenPayGo is a standalone payment app built around Tencent’s existing Weixin Pay network. Tencent publicly launched the app on September 24, allowing foreign visitors to pay using supported international bank cards and overseas e-wallets, like Apple Pay. It also offers translation and travel-related features, with additional transport and lifestyle services being introduced gradually.
The ability to pay with international bank cards on China’s digital platforms is not entirely new: WeChat Pay and Alipay have supported such payments for years. TenPayGo’s main distinction is that it gives foreign visitors a dedicated entry point to Tencent’s existing payment services. This could lower the barriers to using Tencent’s services and make them more visible to foreign visitors.
China recorded more than 150 million inbound visits in 2025, with spending exceeding $130 billion. Spending through mobile payment platforms reached more than $11 billion. Tencent reported that, between January and August 2026, the value of transactions made through overseas wallets in China rose 80 percent, while the volume increased 81.8 percent. These figures point to rapid growth in cross-border payment activity.
Other Chinese fintech giants are already in this market. Ant Group, the parent company of Alipay, said in September 2024 that the number of international visitors using its mobile payment services in China had quadrupled over the previous six months. Both companies have already spent years adapting their payment services to foreigners. TenPayGo therefore looks less like the creation of a new payment service than a move to make Tencent’s existing network more accessible and competitive.
TenPayGo also arrives as Beijing seeks to address a problem its own officials have already acknowledged: Visitors still face barriers when navigating China’s digital services. On February 5, 2026, 11 government agencies issued a policy plan aimed at making these services more accessible. By 2027, China wants to significantly improve the convenience of digital services for visitors, largely removing barriers in areas including accommodation, healthcare, payments, tourism, and public services, while expanding the range of situations in which these services can be used.
By 2030, it seeks to establish a more interconnected digital ecosystem aligned more closely with international practices. The plan also calls for multilingual services, integrated digital service platforms, more convenient digital payments and stronger data security and personal information protection.
In July, authorities launched a year-long initiative in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Chengdu and Sanya to improve digital services for foreign visitors.
TenPayGo reflects this broader effort, but it also illustrates the difference between making China’s digital ecosystem easier to access and making it more open. TenPayGo uses Tencent’s existing merchant network while simplifying the way outsiders enter it. This is a first step. But whether China can achieve digital openness will depend on how far it goes beyond the individual apps.
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