How do foreigners use Alipay and WeChat Pay in Chengdu?

Download Alipay and WeChat before you travel. Register with your home phone number, complete identity verification with your passport, and add a Visa, Mastercard, American Express, JCB, or Discover card. Alipay has an English interface; WeChat Pay is inside WeChat and less foreigner-friendly.

Once linked, you can scan a merchant's QR code or show your payment code. Some transactions may incur a service fee; check the current terms in the app.

• Register with your phone number
• Verify your passport
• Link an international card

Alipay and WeChat Pay are accepted almost everywhere: restaurants, convenience stores, taxis, metro gates, and market stalls. Some small vendors may only accept one of the two, so having both is useful.

Hotels and malls accept cards, but mobile payment is faster. For metro, the Alipay or WeChat mini-program generates a QR code at the gate.

If a card is declined, try another card or link it to the other app. Bank fraud controls may block the first transaction; call your bank before you travel and enable international use. Test with a small purchase at a convenience store.

Keep your phone charged and carry a power bank. A dead phone means no payment. Carry a small amount of cash as backup.

• Try both apps
• Notify your bank
• Carry cash backup

Budget for fees and limits. Both apps generally allow a certain number of small transactions without a fee and charge a percentage on larger ones; the threshold and rate have changed more than once, so check the current terms inside the app before you rely on it for a big purchase. Some merchants, especially hotels, still prefer a physical card or cash for large amounts, and refunds can take days to return to your international card. Keep a second payment method linked in case one card's fraud system blocks a transaction mid-trip.

Verification is the step that trips people up. You need a phone number that can receive an SMS while you are in China, and passport verification may ask for a photo of the ID page and, sometimes, a face scan. Do this at home on reliable Wi-Fi rather than at a hotel desk at midnight. If you plan to buy a Chinese SIM, note that changing your number later may complicate the account. Test the setup with a small purchase, such as a bottle of water, before you depend on it for a taxi or a meal.

Also verify what happens when your phone dies or the network is slow. Carry a power bank, keep a physical card and a few hundred yuan in cash, and do not rely on screenshots of payment codes, because most codes refresh and the screenshot will fail. In markets, vendors may display a personal QR code and expect you to enter the amount yourself, which is where typos happen. Read the amount on screen before confirming, and ask for a receipt if the purchase is significant.