How to Use Foreign Credit Cards with Alipay HK

About Alipay

Alipay HK is very powerful. As long as a merchant in mainland China accepts Alipay, you can generally use Alipay HK to make purchases with a US credit card through it (with a few exceptions depending on the payment mode). The main types that usually do not work are:

• Street vendors and small stalls (with no merchant registration; these can usually only accept Huabei)
• P2P transactions (these typically only support debit cards or account balance).

Of course, mainland Alipay + international credit cards has also become quite powerful now. See:

• Using US Credit Cards in China: WeChat, Alipay, Meituan, and More

Compared with mainland Alipay, Alipay HK is a bit more relaxed on risk controls. Mainland Alipay sometimes triggers strange fraud-prevention rules that make it unusable. So if you have the ability to do so, you can also open an Ailipay HK account as a backup.

How to Open an Account

Requirements:

• A Hong Kong mobile number that can receive SMS messages (preferably one that can also make calls) [you can later pay the phone bill with AliPay HK or AliPay Wechat]
• Use your passport for ID verification
• Download Alipay HK [separate app]

There are quite a few suitable Hong Kong SIM cards:

• If you are in China, you can use 3HK, which can be registered online directly. You can also go look on a certain popular marketplace.
• If you are in the US, you can consider China Unicom's three-region card, though the cost is a bit higher (you can consider suspending service when not using it). If you need to apply urgently, you can use a reader invitation code: 096778。册

Linking a Credit Card

• It supports linking all Visa and Mastercard credit cards, which naturally includes US V/M credit cards [note: if you link a mainland China credit card, it cannot be used in mainland China]
• If a card can be linked, just link it directly
• If it cannot be linked, wait a while and try again, or ask the issuing bank to pause 3D verification (yes, looking at you, Chase)
• There are no extra fees at all (including both scanning a code and having your code scanned)

You only need to fill in the following information to link a credit card. Each account can link up to 5 credit cards.

Supported Merchants and Fees

The vast majority of merchants that already support mainland Alipay + UnionPay credit cards also support HK + US (foreign-issued) credit cards [with a few exceptions]. The fees for using foreign credit cards are as follows:

• Paying directly through Alipay: none.
• Spending on Taobao and other Alibaba platforms: 2.5% [requires linking Alipay HK]

[2023 update] The Alipay HK app shows that starting from September 1, 2023, a fee will be charged for credit-card-funded payments/transfers, with a monthly free quota of HKD 3,000. CITIC Bank (Hong Kong), Hang Seng Bank, and Standard Chartered Q credit cards do not need to pay the credit card fee, but transfer fees still apply.For other details, please check the app.

Recommended Credit Cards

For most credit cards, these transactions usually only earn 1x and are not categorized correctly. Since the acceptance range is very broad, this is a great use case for cards that earn 2%, have no FTF, and do not have overly strict fraud controls. For example: SoFi credit card

If you are not worried about fraud controls, then choosing a card with better points earning or cash back is even better. The following cards are all good options:

• No annual fee; can be applied for without an SSN; earns 1%

• No annual fee; earns 1.5% on all purchases, and preferred customers can get up to 2.75% cash back

• 1x UR, which can be quite valuable

If you are interested in this topic, you can also read our detailed guide:

• Best Credit Cards for Spending Outside the US

Summary

Overall, if you are in China, this is still highly recommended. Of course, it does often bug out and stop working.

If you combine “WeChat Pay + Meituan Pay + mainland Alipay + Alipay HK + directly using foreign cards at some merchants,” you can basically cover the vast majority of spending in mainland China with foreign credit cards.