Do Indian buyers need a visa for the Canton Fair?

Indian passport holders need a visa to attend the Canton Fair. India isn’t on China’s visa-free list, and there’s no visa-free transit option that covers it either, so this isn’t a formality you can leave until the last week.

The invitation letter question — and why India is one of the markets it doesn’t fully answer

The Canton Fair’s own invitation letter is free and easy to request, and China’s national visa rules do list a “trade fair invitation” as an accepted supporting document for a business (M) visa. So far, that matches what buyers from several other markets can rely on.

India is different. The visa centre’s own notice on visa requirements, dated 20 August 2024, lists trade fair invitations as acceptable — but the same notice also requires a business licence from the inviting Chinese company, provided with a business scope and carrying a handwritten Chinese signature from a named person at that company, not a printed one. Nothing in the text says this requirement is waived when the invitation comes from a trade fair rather than a company. A newer notice, dated 10 April 2026, repeats and tightens the same business-licence requirement without mentioning exhibitions at all.

Here’s what’s now clear about the gap itself, even though neither notice resolves it: the fair’s invitation letter is generated automatically from a template the moment you submit a request, with no manual review step — so a handwritten signature and an attached business licence almost certainly aren’t part of the version you’ll get, since there’s no point in that process where either would normally be added. Check your own letter against the full list of what it does and doesn’t carry. Whether a visa officer treats that gap as disqualifying, or accepts the fair’s letter anyway, isn’t something either notice answers, and it isn’t something this guide will guess at — a missing item on a checklist isn’t the same as a guaranteed refusal.

What this means practically: don’t assume the invitation letter alone will be accepted. Apply for it as you normally would, but also be ready with whatever documentation you can gather from a Chinese business contact — or, if you don’t have one, from the economic and commercial counsellor’s office at a Chinese embassy, which the fair itself names as an alternative source for an invitation. Confirm directly with your visa centre before you submit; a short email is cheaper than a rejected application.

Where you apply depends on your state

Applications go through different jurisdictions depending on where you live, and the checklist isn’t identical across all three:

• New Delhi handles most of the country, including the business-licence requirement above.
• Kolkata covers Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, and West Bengal — and asks for a business licence from an Indian company as well as the Chinese one, a combination the other two centres don’t require.
• Mumbai covers Maharashtra and Karnataka.

Applying in the wrong jurisdiction, or assuming your state follows the Delhi checklist when it follows Kolkata’s, is an easy way to arrive at your appointment with the wrong documents.

What to prepare either way

Beyond the invitation letter itself, a business visa application from India typically needs your passport, a completed application form and photo, proof of your company’s business activity, and evidence of stable finances covering the recent months before you apply. Exact document formats and thresholds are set by the visa centre and do change — confirm the current list on your centre’s own site before your appointment rather than relying on a fixed checklist here.

What’s next

Read how the invitation letter works in general before you request one, or compare the M and L visa routes if you haven’t settled on a visa type.