What if your passport number changes while you hold a China residence permit?

The passport number is a registered item

Article 33 of the Exit and Entry Administration Law says that the registered items of a foreign residence permit include name, sex, date of birth, reason for residence, duration of residence, date and place of issue, and the number of the passport or other international travel document. If a registered item changes, the holder applies within 10 days to the exit-entry administration of the public security organ at or above county level in the place of residence.

Those 10 days apply to a person already residing in China whose registered item has changed. Changing the passport number is not an application for a new visa and does not automatically extend your permitted stay for treatment. If the stay itself is too short, see What if treatment in China may outlast your visa?.

Damage or loss is a different application

If an ordinary visa, stay permit, or residence permit is damaged, lost, stolen, or robbed and needs to be reissued, apply to the exit-entry administration at or above county level in the place of stay or residence. Reissue is not the same application as altering a registered item. A lost passport is usually reported to your own embassy or consulate in China first. You then use the new passport for the Chinese alteration or reissue.

If the passport is renewed abroad

The law requires an application to alter the registered item within 10 days, at the exit-entry administration where you reside. If you are still abroad and plan to return with a residence permit that shows the old passport number, do not assume the new passport and the old permit can be used together. Before departure, ask the Chinese embassy or consulate, or the office that issued the residence permit, which old documents to carry at entry and how soon to alter the record after arrival.

If a hospital appointment or invitation letter still uses the old passport number, tell the hospital. For visa documents, see China medical visa invitation letter and hospital documents. SinoCareHub can help list the appointments, hospital letters and itinerary records that need checking against the old and new passport numbers, and pass update questions to the hospital. Confirm residence-permit changes and documents needed for entry with the responsible authority.