China is probably the first country in the world to be cashless for tourists in my opinion. Other countries may claim to be cashless but they may have a tipping culture which necessitates cash. China has no tipping culture.

I have to make the cashless distinction for tourists vs locals. For locals there is still Chinese New Year custom of giving red packets of cash, although the trend of digital red packets to replace paper-based ones is growing amongst the younger generation.

I don't want to go into geopolitics, so I will not discuss the how you should think of "China". China (Mainland) includes everything excluding Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.

China (Mainland)

I haven't carried cash in China since 2017. You may even have read about how difficult China is for tourists up until 2024 when you could bind your Visa/Mastercard to the dominant local payment methods of AliPay and WeChat Pay. As a tourist, once you have followed one of the many guides - or just follow the English UI of AliPay or WeChat Pay, you will wonder how you ever lived without cash.

A misconception is QR-code only payments in China. AliPay has introduced tap-t0-pay also, although I find that a step backward in some aspects. After COVID-19, you can see why QR codes are sanitary and tap-to-pay is not.

An increasing number of shopping malls support credit cards and they make it incredibly obvious to tourists by huge stickers advertising that at the entrance.

There is no tipping culture in China as I said at the top of this post. You may even have seen some pictures online of homeless with QR-codes. While this is not universal, it is common in the rare situations that you see a homeless person in China in a major city like Beijing or Shanghai.

You decide what "rare" is for yourself comparing Beijing and Shanghai to New York and San Francisco, or any other major city you're familiar with.

ATMs still exist in China, and you occasionally still see a few locals pay with cash. If they're over 60 years old, perhaps they haven't adopted the technology yet. If they're under 60, I'm fairly certain they're evading taxes, money laundering, or both.

Outnumbering ATMs are the CRS - Cash Recycling Services - machines. They take your cash (in bills) and deposit into your bank account. Instead of being irritated a place does not take cash, I'm honestly more irritated by the rare instances where people give me cash or the inability to sometimes deposit the old and worn cash at the CRS machines.

Hong Kong

See my upcoming cash in Hong Kong review.

Macau

See my upcoming cash in Macau review.

Taiwan

See my upcoming cash in Taiwam review.