VPN for Hotel Wi-Fi in China: How to Connect

Why hotel Wi-Fi needs a VPN

Hotel Wi-Fi in China goes through a local Chinese network. Airalo says Google (including Gmail and Maps), Instagram, Facebook, X, YouTube and WhatsApp are generally inaccessible on local networks. A July 2026 travel article in the Bega District News says the same: if you rely on local Wi-Fi at hotels and cafés, these apps will still be blocked.

To use them over hotel Wi-Fi, you need a VPN.

A roaming eSIM doesn’t help on Wi-Fi

Airalo says its eSIMs for China get around the blocks by routing your traffic through gateways outside mainland China. That only works while you use the eSIM’s mobile data. When your phone joins the hotel Wi-Fi, it switches to the Wi-Fi, and blocked apps stop working. In Airalo’s words, you get full access to blocked sites “as long as you are using your eSIM data (and not the hotel Wi-Fi)”.

A laptop on hotel Wi-Fi has the same problem. It needs a VPN, or your phone’s hotspot. For when to rely on each, see eSIM or VPN for China?.

Set up the VPN before you fly

Astrill, a VPN provider, says VPN provider websites are blocked in China and VPN apps have been removed from local app stores. It advises installing, configuring and testing your VPN before you land.

• Install the VPN on your phone and laptop, sign in and connect once at home.
• Save your provider’s China advice, linked below.
• If your provider offers manual setup files, such as Surfshark’s WireGuard files, download them before you go.

Before you travel, also read whether using a VPN is legal in China.

Log in to the hotel Wi-Fi first, then connect the VPN

Hotel Wi-Fi can show a login page before it lets you online. NordVPN’s help center calls this a captive portal. Your VPN can stop that page from loading. NordVPN gives two reasons: auto-connect connects the VPN as soon as you join the Wi-Fi, and a kill switch blocks all traffic outside the VPN.

1. Before you join the hotel Wi-Fi, turn off your VPN’s auto-connect and kill switch, then disconnect the VPN if it’s still on.
2. Join the Wi-Fi and complete the login page.
3. If the login page doesn’t appear, open a plain http address such as http://example.com in your browser. NordVPN suggests this to bring the page up.
4. Connect the VPN.
5. Turn the kill switch back on once the VPN has connected.

NordVPN’s guide is written for its own app. For other VPNs, look for the same settings in the app’s help pages. Official guide: How to log in to a captive portal Wi-Fi network while using NordVPN.

Some login pages time out and ask you to log in again later. ExpressVPN’s guide for its Aircove router says you may then need to disconnect and reconnect the VPN to make the login page appear.

If the VPN won’t connect

Each provider below publishes its own China advice. Start with your provider’s steps. If you use NordVPN, follow our NordVPN manual setup guide. To compare VPNs, see our VPN page.

ExpressVPN

ExpressVPN’s China status page says keeping the app up to date is critical to getting connected. It lists protocols to try in this order:

• Windows, Mac, iPhone and Linux: Automatic, Lightway UDP, Lightway TCP, WireGuard, then OpenVPN.
• Android: Automatic, then Lightway TCP.

It also says connections may take longer than usual. Wait for the app to finish trying, and only try again once it says the connection failed. The page was last updated in February 2026. Official page: China connection status. Prices and recent reports are on our ExpressVPN page.

Surfshark

Surfshark’s China page says: “At the moment, we strongly recommend connecting manually using the WireGuard protocol if you can’t connect via the Surfshark app.” It links step-by-step guides for Windows, Android, iOS, macOS and Linux. Official page: Connecting from China.

Surfshark’s iOS guide works like this:

1. Log in to your Surfshark account and go to Products, VPN, Manual setup, Desktop or mobile, then WireGuard.
2. Generate a new key pair, or enter the public key of one you already have.
3. Choose a location and download its configuration file.
4. Install the WireGuard app, select Add a tunnel and import the file.

Do this at home, and download files for more than one location so you have a spare. Official guide: How to connect to Surfshark on iOS from China using WireGuard. More on our Surfshark page.

Astrill

Astrill offers four protocols: OpenWeb, StealthVPN, WireGuard and OpenVPN. It says OpenVPN “is often blocked in China”.

• StealthVPN. Astrill’s FAQ says its dual layer of encryption makes it hard to detect and block in countries with high censorship, such as China.
• OpenWeb. Astrill says it performs well in countries with elevated censorship, and its traffic looks like regular website browsing.

OpenWeb, StealthVPN and WireGuard need Astrill’s own app. If StealthVPN won’t connect on the hotel Wi-Fi, try OpenWeb, or the other way round. Official pages: VPN protocols and FAQ. More on our Astrill page.

Backup: your eSIM’s hotspot

If the VPN still won’t connect, take your laptop off the hotel Wi-Fi and use your phone’s eSIM data instead.

1. Turn Wi-Fi off on your phone, so it uses the eSIM’s mobile data.
2. Turn on the phone’s personal hotspot.
3. Disconnect your laptop from the hotel Wi-Fi and join the phone’s hotspot.

Your laptop then uses the eSIM’s data instead of the hotel Wi-Fi. Check your plan’s hotspot rules first:

eSIM	Hotspot
Airalo	Allowed if your device and the network support it
Holafly	Allowed, up to 1 GB a day
Nomad	Allowed
Saily	Allowed

Whether blocked apps work on an eSIM depends on how the plan routes your data. Each plan’s routing is on its page and in our eSIM comparison.