The customs border — leaving China and still staying

A symbolic date

On 18 December 2025 Hainan launched the so-called island-wide special customs operation. The date was chosen deliberately: exactly 47 years earlier, on 18 December 1978, the Communist Party launched the policy of reform and opening at a historic session. Hainan was meant to appear as the next big step of this opening.

Since then the whole island, around 34,000 square kilometres, has been the world's largest special customs supervision area. The official formula: the island isn't being sealed off but opened up further.

The long road there

The idea is older than you'd think. In 1988 Hainan was separated from Guangdong province, made a province in its own right and at the same time China's largest special economic zone. A boom of speculation and unfinished buildings followed, ending in a property crisis in the early 1990s — a story that was to repeat itself decades later on Ocean Flower Island.

In April 2018 the leadership announced that Hainan would become a free trade port. The master plan followed in 2020, then years of preparation: duty-free stores, new rules for investment, ports and control systems. The start of the special customs operation at the end of 2025 was the moment it all came into force at once.

First line open, second line controlled

The principle sounds complicated but is simple. The “first line” is the border between Hainan and the rest of the world. It's largely open: many goods may enter the island duty-free. The “second line” is the border between Hainan and mainland China. Here there are checks so that duty-free goods don't reach the mainland without duty being paid.

Within the island, goods, money and people are meant to circulate freely. In customs terms Hainan thus lies outside China, so to speak, while politically of course it's right in the middle.

What has changed

Before the launch only around 1,900 categories of goods were exempt from import duties. Since then it's around 6,600, about three quarters of all categories. Companies on the island can import machinery, raw materials and components duty-free. Anyone who manufactures something on Hainan and adds at least thirty per cent of value may sell it to the mainland duty-free.

Most visible for travellers is shopping: everyone leaving the island may shop duty-free for up to 100,000 yuan a year — under the new rules foreign visitors too. The duty-free stores in Haitang Bay and Haikou that you've seen on this trip are the most visible side of this system.

A real-world laboratory

Hainan is a real-world laboratory. Rules are tried out here that aren't yet dared for all of China: the medicines in Lecheng approved only here, the commercial rocket launch site in Wenchang, duty-free imports, new rules for foreign companies.

That's why Hainan looks different from the rest of the country. The duty-free palaces, the medical special zone, the Evergrande island, the zero-emission experiment in Bo'ao — all of it belongs to the big attempt to turn a long-neglected island into a showcase. With successes and with ruins.

What you notice when departing

Flying from Hainan to the mainland, you leave the special area in customs terms. Duty-free purchases not taken away immediately are collected after security in the departure area — allow more time for that. Anyone taking more duty-free goods than permitted can expect checks.

The authorities report that operations at the “second line” run smoothly. How much you notice the checks depends on the airport, the crowds and what's in your luggage. If you fly internationally, you go through normal exit control anyway.

What you may take with you

For normal travellers the main points are: keep duty-free receipts, don't split purchases among people who didn't travel themselves, and if in doubt ask when buying how and where the goods will be collected. If you take goods away from the shop immediately, they're already in your luggage.

On the way home to Europe, EU allowances also apply. What was duty-free on Hainan may still be taxable on entry to the EU.

The last look

The trip ends where it began: at Sanya Bay, with palms, promenade and sunset. But having travelled the island like this, you see more than a beach resort as you leave. You see the emigrants and returnees, the exiles and the fishermen, the Li and the Tanka, the pensioners from the north and the billion-yuan projects.

And you see an island trying to become something new — between a duty-free future and the stories that make it so special.