Chinese Group Visa for Kailash from Nepal: What Happens to Your Existing Visa

Last updated 4 October 2026. Fee figures come from the Embassy of China in Nepal's published fee notice, which I read on 4 October. Everything about how we run the process is our own practice, and I say so where it is.

If you go to Kailash overland from Nepal, you do not travel on a Chinese visa you bought at home. You travel on a Chinese group visa, issued in Kathmandu for your whole group, and any Chinese visa already in your passport is cancelled when that group visa is issued. A long-validity visa you paid for is not a head start. It is gone. If you hold one, or are about to apply for one, read this page before you do anything else.

One more thing before the detail. As of 4 October 2026 Kailash departures from Nepal are on hold, and I have not found any announcement for 2027. So this page is about how the visa works, not an offer to start one. I will not apply for anything on your behalf until the route is open and your dates are firm. The current position, with a source for each line, is on our page on what is confirmed and what is not for 2027.

What is a Chinese group visa, and why does Kailash need one?

A group visa is a single visa application for a named group travelling together on one itinerary. Individual tourist travel to Tibet is not possible, so a Tibet trip is always a group booking, and the visa follows the same logic. For an overland trip from Nepal it is issued at the Chinese Embassy in Kathmandu, through an agency that applies for the whole group.

People arrive convinced the visa is the hard part. It is not even the right document on its own. Kailash needs four, and the visa is only the first.

Document	What it does	Who applies
Chinese visa (for us, the group visa)	Lets you into mainland China. It does nothing more than that	The agency, for the whole group
Tibet Travel Permit	Lets you into the Tibet Autonomous Region. A Chinese visa alone will not get anyone in	Only a registered agency
Aliens' Travel Permit	Covers travel beyond Lhasa	The agency
Military or border permit for Ngari	Kailash sits in a restricted border prefecture	The agency

Our permit guide goes through all four in more detail. Here I stay with the first one.

What happens to the Chinese visa already in my passport?

It is cancelled. That is how it has worked for our groups, and it is the point I want every person to hear before they commit. It does not matter whether the visa is a ten-year multiple-entry visa, a single-entry visa from last month, or one issued for a different purpose. If it is in the passport that goes into the group application, it goes.

I cannot show you a line in a government notice that says so, because I did not find one on the embassy's English pages. What I can tell you is that it is the rule we have worked with, and it is easy to check: ask the Chinese Embassy in Kathmandu about your passport, through the contact details on the embassy website. A tour company that says the old visa is fine to keep is making a promise I would want to see in writing from the embassy.

Does it matter which kind of visa I hold?

It matters for what you do next, not for whether it survives. Here is how I would think about each case.

Your situation	What I would do
You hold a long-validity or multiple-entry visa	Count its value honestly. If you need it for another China trip, Kailash overland from Nepal is the wrong trip for that passport
You hold a recent single-entry visa for a separate trip	Tell us before we apply. Once the group application is made, the old one cannot be saved
Your old visa has expired	Nothing to lose. Do not apply for a new one at home
You have no Chinese visa	Do nothing. Do not apply at home or at a consulate on your own
Your passport allows visa-free entry to mainland China for short stays	I cannot confirm how that works with the overland crossing from Nepal, so I will not guess. Tell us your passport and we ask before you pay anything

If you have onward plans in mainland China after Tibet, say so at the start. A group visa is built around the submitted itinerary, and I would rather plan that with you early than discover it at the embassy.

Who issues the visa, and can I apply myself?

The Chinese Embassy in Kathmandu issues it. You do not apply yourself: we apply on your behalf, with the other members of your group, and the embassy decides. I cannot promise that an application will be approved. What I can do is tell you what we need and when.

You will see other routes mentioned online. A visa from your home country is not a substitute, because it does not give you the Tibet Travel Permit, and the permit is the document that actually decides whether you cross. This is also why I ask people not to buy a visa in advance. It costs money and it is cancelled anyway.

What does the embassy charge for a group visa?

The Embassy of China in Nepal publishes its fee schedule in Nepali rupees, by passport, in a notice dated 26 December 2025. The notice says the reduced fees run until 31 December 2026, and the table has applied since 1 May 2024. It lists a group visa, single entry, with a regular, an express and an urgent rate. These are the rows most of our guests will fall under.

Passport category in the embassy table	Regular (NPR)	Express (NPR)	Regular, roughly in US dollars
All passports not named in a separate row	2,900	4,250	about 19
United States	15,300	16,650	about 99
Canada	6,100	7,450	about 40

The dollar figures are my conversion at about NPR 154 to the dollar and will move. Other countries, such as Brazil, Israel, Argentina and Romania, have their own rows, so read the embassy's fee notice for your passport. Two honest limits. First, the reduced fees end on 31 December 2026, and I do not know what the 2027 schedule will be. Second, this is the embassy's fee, not a price for our tour, and I am not publishing any 2027 tour price on this page. You may see different visa figures elsewhere. I can only vouch for the embassy table.

How long does it take, and when must I be in Kathmandu?

In our experience the group visa is issued in Kathmandu in about five working days once the application is complete. Treat that as our working figure rather than an embassy promise, because I did not find a processing time for group visas on the embassy site. Holidays can lengthen it: the Chinese Visa Application Service Center in Kathmandu lists Nepali and Chinese public holidays as days it adjusts or closes, and the embassy keeps its own holiday notices.

The visa is placed in your physical passport, so the passport has to be in Kathmandu. That has a practical consequence. While it is with the embassy you cannot use it for anything else, such as a domestic flight that asks for ID. We plan around that. Lead times for sending scans and for the original passport depend on the season and the group, so I will not print a number here. When there is a confirmed season, we give each person the exact days in writing.

Is it different for Indian, American or British passports?

The Chinese side decides eligibility by the passport you travel on, not by where you live and not by which route you take. Indian-passport and non-Indian-passport travellers are handled as separate groups, and the fee table above shows that fees differ by passport too. If you hold a foreign passport and also an Overseas Citizen of India card, tell us. We confirm which group applies before you pay anything.

On quota, I promise nothing. The 2026 Indian pilgrim quota was set at 24,000 and was full by mid June, as I wrote in our page on the cap. For passports from other countries our guide for foreign passport holders sets out the process, and the Indian-passport process is in our guide for Indian citizens. No 2027 quota has been announced for anyone.

What does the visa not do?

It is easy to treat the visa as the finish line, so here is what it does not give you.

• It does not get you into Tibet. The Tibet Travel Permit does that, and only an agency can apply for it.
• It does not override the age limit. Pilgrims over 70 are not permitted by the Chinese authorities, and no visa changes that. Check your date of birth before you spend anything. Our age and fitness guide covers the medical side.
• It does not promise the inner kora. That is not something the authorities grant as a matter of course, and I will not tell anyone it is included.
• It does not fix a date. Departures follow the Chinese side's season and the state of the road.

What if the border stays shut after my old visa is cancelled?

This is the risk that worries me most, so we avoid it in the way we sequence things. We do not start the group visa until the route is open and your dates are firm. Until then your existing visa stays untouched. If you are on our list for 2027, the order is: dates and route confirmed first, then your passport details, then the application.

On money, the terms are the same as on our 2027 page. The deposit for Kailash and Tibet is 25 per cent. It is not refundable, and we do not give refunds when the client cancels. What we offer is free rescheduling with at least 7 days' notice, to any date within one year. If we cannot run your trip, we refund what you have paid, less taxes, bank or card charges and any money already spent on your behalf, such as permits or flights. A cancelled visa cannot be restored, which is the reason to decide before the application, not after.

What should I do now, while the season is closed?

1. Do not apply for a Chinese visa at home, and do not buy one in advance for this trip.
2. Look at the visas in your passport and tell us about any Chinese one, with its type and expiry.
3. Check your date of birth against the over-70 rule.
4. Check your passport has plenty of validity beyond the trip. I will give you the exact requirement when the season opens rather than guess now.
5. Pick the months you could travel and whether you prefer the overland route or the western route. Our month-by-month guide helps with the first. The two routes are in our 14-day overland tour, our helicopter tour and our main Kailash Mansarovar tour.

The questions people ask me about the visa

Can I use my existing Chinese visa and skip the group visa? No. Overland from Nepal, everyone travels on the group visa, and the old visa is cancelled.

Can I apply for the group visa myself to save money? No. We apply for the group, and the Tibet permits can only be applied for by an agency in any case.

If I fly into Lhasa instead, do I still need the group visa? I would not assume otherwise. It is one Kailash and one permit system, and the entry point is a route choice, not a way round the rules. Ask us for your passport and we will confirm.

Will the visa be approved? I cannot promise that. If a permit cannot be issued for a reason outside our control, the refund terms above apply.

How do I check you are right that the old visa is cancelled? Ask the Chinese Embassy in Kathmandu about your passport. I would rather you checked than took my word for it.

How do I get in touch?

Message me on WhatsApp on +977 9810351300 or email [email protected]. Please tell me your passport nationality, your date of birth, any Chinese visa you hold with its expiry, and the months you could travel. Joining our list does not hold a place or mean you owe us anything. I will write when there is a confirmed route, a quota and a price.

About The Everest Holiday

We are a family company in Kathmandu, three generations of family guides, registered in 2016 and a member of the Trekking Agencies' Association of Nepal, number 1586. When you book with us you deal with the family, not a call centre.

Written by Shreejan Simkhada, CEO of The Everest Holiday. TAAN Member #1586.