Great Hall of the People, Beijing

Can you visit the Great Hall of the People?

Yes, on days when nothing official is happening, with a paid real-name booking. Tickets cost ¥30, students ¥15. The only way to book is the WeChat mini-program 人民大会堂参观预约 (it shows up in English as “The Great Hall of the People Visit Reservation”), 1–3 days ahead. There's no ticket office, no same-day tickets and no group sales.

Each new date is released daily at 17:00 Beijing time, so log in exactly three days before your visit at five. Weekends and school holidays sell out fast.

Xinhua and China Daily have warned about fake tickets and scalpers: the Great Hall has authorised no one else to sell tickets. Agencies and resellers listing “Great Hall tickets” for $25 or more are booking the same ¥30 slot on your behalf — fine as a service, but there's no guarantee if the hall closes.

Can foreigners book with a passport?

Yes. Choose passport as your ID type and enter it exactly as printed; staff check the original passport at the door against your booking. The mini-program is in Chinese, and guides report that some foreign phone numbers fail validation — try again later or with a different number, or let a tour guide or your hotel book for you.

You pay inside the mini-program with WeChat Pay, which accepts foreign Visa and Mastercard once linked. Under-18s and over-60s enter free according to Bendibao and TravelChinaGuide, but the ID list Bendibao quotes covers Chinese ID cards, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan permits and foreigners' permanent residence cards — not ordinary passports. Expect to pay full price.

Children under 14 must come with an adult who has their own ticket.

Opening hours and closures

Sources agree that tours finish at 15:00 and ticket checks stop at 14:30. Start times differ: Bendibao and a 2024 Visit Beijing article say 9:00, TravelChinaGuide says 8:30, and an older Visit Beijing listing gives seasonal hours. Go by the slot in your booking.

Mondays are unclear. Visit Beijing's English article says the hall is closed on Mondays; the more recent TravelChinaGuide and Bendibao pages describe it as open daily. The mini-program simply won't offer dates that are closed.

Closures mostly follow parliament's calendar. In early March the annual sessions of the National People's Congress and the CPPCC take over the building and there are no tours. It also closes for other meetings, official ceremonies and visiting delegations. Notices go out in the mini-program, by text message and on screens at the entrance.

What's inside the Great Hall of the People?

• Central Hall — the first room you enter: about 3,600 m² of coloured marble and twenty vermilion columns over 10 m tall.
• Great Auditorium — the 10,000-seat chamber where the National People's Congress meets, under a ceiling with a red star ringed by concentric circles of lights. This is the highlight.
• Provincial halls — Hunan, Liaoning, Shanghai, Guangdong, Sichuan and others, each decorated in its region's style. Which ones are open varies.
• Reception Hall — home to the building's largest traditional Chinese painting, “This Land So Rich in Beauty”.
• State Banquet Hall — about 7,000 m², used for official banquets.
• Press Conference Hall — where the route ends.
• The route is fixed and signposted. A separate exhibition hall sits to the right of the main building, entered through a semi-basement.

Where is the entrance?

The building fills the whole west side of Tiananmen Square. Its colonnade and national emblem face east across the square to the National Museum of China. Mao's Mausoleum is to the south, Tiananmen Gate is north across Chang'an Avenue, and behind the hall to the west is the egg-shaped dome of the National Centre for the Performing Arts.

Visitors go in from the square side. Bendibao puts the entrance at the building's southeast corner; TravelChinaGuide routes you through square security checkpoint 07 and a two-minute walk north to the east entrance. Either way you clear the Tiananmen Square check first, then a second one at the hall.

Visit Beijing and TravelChinaGuide say a Great Hall booking also gets you onto the square. The square booking is free, so make one as well in case the checkpoint wants it.

Is it worth it, and how long does it take?

The tour itself takes about an hour, ninety minutes with security. The halls are vast and formal — marble, chandeliers, carpets and that star on the auditorium ceiling. It's 1950s state architecture, not antiquity, and there are few exhibits to read.

It's worth it if you're curious about how modern China presents itself, or you've already done the Forbidden City and the square and want to see rooms you normally only glimpse on the news. On a short first trip the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven come first.

If you can't get a booking, the colonnade and emblem make one of the best photos from the square anyway.

A short history

The hall was approved in summer 1958 as one of the “Ten Great Buildings” for the People's Republic's 10th anniversary. It went up in about ten months and opened in September 1959, alongside the rebuilt square and the museum on its east side.

It hosts the National People's Congress, the CPPCC, Communist Party congresses and state receptions; Richard Nixon was given a banquet here in 1972. The hall has been open to the public in its current form since 15 July 1979.

Great Hall and its neighbours on the square

A good day: the mausoleum at 8:00, then the National Museum or the Great Hall, and Tiananmen Gate into the Forbidden City after lunch. The Great Hall is the only one of the four likely to shut without warning.

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How to do it right

• Log in at 17:00 exactly three days ahead — that's when the next date opens.
• Screenshot your booking; mobile data around the square can be slow.
• Bring an empty bottle and fill it inside.
• Arrive by 14:00: last entry is 14:30 and there are two security checks.
• Skip early March — the annual sessions close the hall.
• If your foreign phone number won't validate, a guided tour can handle the booking.

Questions