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Payments

Payments

WeChat Pay, for the shops and the chats.

WeChat Pay is the QR code inside WeChat. You want it when a hotel, a guide, or a menu only exists as a chat. The screens change. The order does not: install WeChat, verify a passport, link a card, then make a tiny payment while you still have familiar internet.

WeChatWeChat PayOr TenPayGo, if you skip WeChat

Set it up before the flight

  1. Install WeChat from the App Store or Google Play, not from a link in a message. The publisher should be Tencent.
  2. Register with a phone number you can still receive texts on. A number that dies when you land is how people lock themselves out.
  3. Open the pay section and follow the visitor or international-card path. It asks for a passport and a card. Use the passport you will carry.
  4. Make a small payment, or accept the app’s own test if it offers one, before you fly. A bank confirmation text is easier at home.
  5. If the app refuses the card, stop. That refusal is the answer. Use Alipay or TenPayGo, and carry cash.

How a payment actually looks

Most counters show a QR code. You scan it inside WeChat, check the merchant name and the amount, and confirm. Sometimes the cashier scans a code on your phone instead. Do not screenshot that code and send it to anyone.

A table sticker often opens a mini program: a menu inside WeChat, then a pay button. That path needs a WeChat account. TenPayGo can pay many of the same merchants, but it will not open the chat menu. If the only menu is inside WeChat, order at the counter and pay with the shop’s code, or use WeChat.

Person-to-person transfers and red packets are a different product from paying a shop. A new visitor account is often blocked from sending money to a stranger. Do not plan to pay a guide by transfer until you have seen it work.

Limits, and the things it is not

Foreign cards have limits, per payment and over a period, and the app is the only place that knows today’s number. A hotel deposit or a rail booking can exceed them. That is why a second method belongs in the other pocket. The Payments page is the map of those methods.

WeChat is also the country’s default messenger. Download offline translations and ticket PDFs anyway. Some familiar apps do not load on an ordinary Chinese connection, and WeChat is how a delayed train actually gets explained to you.

Official starting points are weixin.qq.com and pay.weixin.qq.com. If a blog’s screenshot disagrees with the app, follow the app.