One week,
in the right order.

Last verified with Shenzhen Government source: 23 August 2026

None of the first-week admin in Shenzhen is difficult. The difficulty is the order. Each step depends on the one before it, and taken at random they have you walking back to the same three counters. A mainland mobile number unlocks the apps; the apps and a registration slip unlock the bank; the bank makes the flat and the salary straightforward. In sequence, three to five working days. Out of sequence, it can drag on for weeks.

The order, and why it is the order

Each of these has its own guide here. What follows is only the sequence, and the reason for it.

1. A mainland SIM card. First, always. The apps, the bank, deliveries, hospital registration and the metro QR code all verify against a mainland number — getting a SIM card and home internet.
2. Temporary residence registration. Within about a day of arriving. Banks and visa offices ask to see the slip, so skipping it blocks things you have not thought of yet — residence registration explained.
3. WeChat and Alipay. With a number in hand, so you can pay for anything at all. A foreign card linked to either carries you until the local account exists — setting up WeChat and Alipay.
4. A bank account. Needs the number, usually needs the slip, and needs a weekday. Salary, rent and deposits wait on it — opening a mainland account.
5. Transport. Once a wallet works the metro is a QR code and you stop thinking about it — the Shenzhen metro guide.
6. Housing, if it is not settled. Viewings, contract, deposit, keys, and the landlord’s cooperation on step two — renting an apartment.
7. The soft things. Groceries, a pharmacy, a doctor located before you need one, and enough data to get lost safely.

The shape below is a template, not a rule — shift it around your job and your jet lag. But keep steps one to four in that order, because they do not work any other way.

Arrival day

Assume you land tired and half of what you planned will not happen. Two things are worth doing anyway.

Get the SIM. There are carrier counters in the Bao’an terminals and flagship shops in every district; both want your original passport, and real-name registration is not optional — the exact document list is set by the carrier and changes, so confirm it with the shop before you queue. If you land at two in the morning, do it before breakfast — but before anything else, because everything else asks for the number.

Then settle where you are sleeping. In a hotel, registration is filed for you at check-in; ask for a printed copy anyway. In a rented flat or a friend’s spare room, it is on you and your landlord, and the clock has already started.

Day two: the slip, then the wallets

Temporary residence registration (临时住宿登记) is the step foreigners skip most often and regret most often. Every foreigner must be registered at the address where they sleep. Hotels file it automatically; private addresses do not. The rule is generally stated as within 24 hours of arriving or moving in — read the city’s own guidance at sz.gov.cn ↗ and confirm it there rather than on a forum, because the procedure and the online routes have both changed before.

Take your passport and your landlord — or the landlord’s ID and property documents — to the neighbourhood police station, and keep whatever slip you are handed. Photograph it too. The walkthrough, including the online routes, is on the registration page.

With a number and a slip, spend the evening on WeChat and Alipay. Register both with the mainland number, enter your name exactly as your passport spells it, and link a foreign card to at least one. Do it sitting down on decent wifi, not at a checkout with a queue behind you.

Days three to five: the bank, the metro, the keys

Bank first, on a weekday morning. Opening an account for a foreigner is a branch-level decision rather than a national one, so choose a large branch and carry more paper than you think you need — passport, permit, registration slip, address in Chinese, employment letter. Expect an hour or two of forms, and expect that you may be turned away and have to try elsewhere. It is not personal. Identity and address requirements are set by regulation and reinterpreted branch by branch, so treat any list — including mine — as a starting point and confirm the current one with the bank before you go. The fuller version is on the bank account page.

Transport is the easy one. Once a wallet works you have a metro QR code and never queue for a ticket; a physical Shenzhen Tong card is a sensible backup for the day your phone dies at Chegongmiao. Fares, first and last trains and interchange rules are all operator decisions that change with each new line opening, so check them against the city’s own pages at sz.gov.cn ↗ or the station signage in front of you. The overview is in the metro guide.

If you still need somewhere to live, this is the window. The thing to establish while standing in the flat is whether the landlord can and will support your registration — ask before the deposit, not after. Viewings, agency fees and deposit conventions are in renting an apartment.

The first weekend: the softer half

The admin is done, or nearly. What is left decides whether the city feels manageable by week two.

Groceries and delivery. Set up one grocery app and one food app, then order something small while you are home to receive it. The first delivery is where you learn that your address can be written three ways and only one reaches your gate. In central districts it usually arrives inside the hour.

A doctor and a pharmacy, before you need them. Find the nearest 24-hour pharmacy and the nearest hospital with an international or VIP department, save both in your maps app in Chinese, and check how you would reach them at two in the morning. Twenty minutes on a Saturday, and the most useful thing on this page.

Maps. Amap or Baidu, searched with Chinese names, home and work saved down to the gate number. Then walk your neighbourhood once with no destination — where the metro exits surface, which corner sells fruit at midnight.

What to carry, every day

For the whole first week, one small bag that does not get unpacked:

• Your original passport. Not a photograph of it — the original.
• Paper copies of the photo page and the visa or residence permit page. Several. Counters keep them.
• The registration slip once you have it, plus a photo of it on your phone.
• Four to six passport photos, the small white-background kind. Any print shop does a set for a few tens of yuan.
• A few hundred yuan in cash, for the one taxi or noodle shop that will not take a QR code.
• A pen. Genuinely.

What actually derails week one

Three things, in order of how often I see them.

Losing access to your home-country SMS

People put the new SIM in the only phone they own, then find their home bank cannot send a verification code — on the day they need to wire a deposit. Keep the old number alive on cheap roaming until everything here is running.

A landlord who cannot register you

Sometimes the property paperwork is not in order; sometimes the landlord just does not want the visit. Either way you have no slip, and without it the bank and any later visa step stall. Ask before you pay anything.

Arriving into a closed week

Banks open accounts on weekdays, and Chinese public holidays shut everything for days at a stretch. Landing on a Friday afternoon in early October means week one is really week two. Check the holiday calendar before booking the flight; if you cannot, do the soft things first and the counters after.

If you only do three things

Get a mainland SIM. Get registered at your address and keep the slip. Get one payment app working. Everything else here can slip a week without consequence — those three cannot.

If you would rather not work out which counter to stand at, running this week in person with the Chinese handled is one of the things I do — relocation days start at around ¥1,500. [email protected], or WeChat gioalex.