China brings rail tickets into fully digitalised e-invoicing from 1 November 2024 (Announcement No. 8 of 2024)
This page records one dated change. For the rules in China as they stand today, see the China guide →
- Jurisdiction
- China
- Tax
- VAT
- Change type
- E-invoicing
- Status
- In force
- Impact
- FYI
- Announced
- 29 September 2024
- Effective
- 1 November 2024
- Instrument
- CN-JOINT-ANNOUNCEMENT-2024-8
- Authority
- 国家税务总局 (State Taxation Administration of the People's Republic of China)
- Verified
- Fetched from official source · high confidence
Domestic rail passengers and the businesses that reimburse or deduct their fares, including VAT general taxpayers claiming input VAT on domestic rail passenger transport.
No action — monitoring only.
STA Announcement No. 8 of 2024 (joint announcement with the Ministry of Finance and China State Railway Group Co., Ltd.), issued 29 September 2024 and effective 1 November 2024: fully digitalized e-invoices (数电发票) are promoted for use in domestic rail passenger transport. Railway carriers may issue e-tickets for ticket sales, refunds, and changes through the 12306 system. Paper rail tickets remain reimbursable for travel dates up to 30 September 2025.
What changed in detail
The State Taxation Administration, the Ministry of Finance and China State Railway Group Co., Ltd. issued Announcement No. 8 of 2024, dated 29 September 2024. It took effect on 1 November 2024 (point 11).
Under the announcement:
- Railway carriers selling, refunding or changing domestic passenger tickets through the railway ticketing system may issue an electronic invoice (railway e-ticket), which is a fully digitalised e-invoice (数电发票).
- The invoice carries a 20-digit number, the buyer’s details, the passenger’s ID details, the journey, the fare and a QR code.
- Passengers obtain it through China Railway 12306 after the journey ends or after paying a refund or change fee. The carrier issues it from the buyer name, unified social credit code and journey details the passenger supplies.
- Passengers who need to claim reimbursement must obtain the e-invoice. Paper ticket reimbursement vouchers for travel dates up to 30 September 2025 could still be booked, and the two cannot both be issued for one trip.
- VAT general taxpayers use the railway e-ticket as the input-VAT deduction voucher for domestic rail passenger transport, confirming its use in their tax digital account. Errors are corrected through a red-letter e-invoice and a red-letter confirmation form.
What it means
This change is spent as a transition: the paper-voucher window closed on 30 September 2025, so the railway e-ticket is now the only reimbursement and input-VAT document for domestic rail travel. Expense teams should collect it from 12306 or from their tax digital account.
The channel rules are about to be tightened. Announcement No. 22 of 2026 (4 November 2026) will, from 1 December 2026, limit issuance to 12306, station windows and ticket machines and bar third-party ticketing platforms from issuing, delivering or downloading these invoices. Travel-platform invoice feeds built on this 2024 framework need to switch over.
Proof
税务总局、财政部、中国国家铁路集团有限公司（以下简称国铁集团）决定在铁路旅客运输领域推广使用全面数字化的电子发票The STA, the Ministry of Finance and China State Railway Group Co., Ltd. (“China Railway”) have decided to promote the use of fully digitalised electronic invoices in railway passenger transport.
Source snapshot of the official page. Open full size ↗