“Now you can make a tax payment appointment through the WeChat mini-program with your passport number, which reduces the time you have to wait in the tax service hall and makes the tax payment process easier.” Carlos Alberto Banda, from Ecuador, praised the new online appointment service during his recent visit to the Sanya tax service hall in China’s southern province of Hainan.

Expats can now register on the Hainan WeChat tax mini-program (海南税务码上办) with their passport numbers.

Recently, the Hainan Provincial Tax Service, State Taxation Administration upgraded the mini-program’s tax appointment function, adding registration options for several different ID documents including passports, permanent resident cards, and mainland travel permits for Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan residents. Now, expats can make an appointment through the mini-program for a convenient time and location to file their taxes, reducing long wait times and multiple round trips due to the lack of required documents, which was often a problem in the past.

In recent years, thanks to the ongoing development of the Hainan Free Trade Port, the Hainan Provincial Tax Service has continued to improve tax services, setting up bilingual service counters offering tax services in both English and Chinese in tax halls across the province in order to make paying taxes more convenient for expats.