Five days free, no card

VPN and China: sort it out before you fly

In China you cannot download the tools that get you out. Everything has to be on the phone when you board at Heathrow.

Have a key cut How it is cut

No card, no account. The key is cut and delivered in Telegram in about a minute.

60 sfrom the bot to a working key
5devices on one key
6locations, two of them in the UK
0logs kept

Locations · online

London9 ms
Manchester14 ms
Dublin19 ms
Amsterdam16 ms
Madrid34 ms
New York78 ms

Every location runs VLESS over Reality, which reads as ordinary HTTPS on a filtered network.

Hallmarks

Fits v2rayNG, Hiddify, V2Box, Streisand
No app of ours to lose
Five devices on one key
Five days free, then a flat price per term
No logs, no account

Two weeks before

Ask @royalkey_club_bot for a key. If the trip is longer than five days, choose a term that covers it.
Install two clients on your phone, for example Hiddify and v2rayNG, or Streisand and V2Box on an iPhone.
Import the key into both of them.
Save the key offline, as a screenshot of the QR code and as text in a notes app.
Test everything at home, on Wi-Fi and on mobile data.

The day before

Download offline maps of the cities you will visit.
Save your hotel addresses in Chinese characters.
Install a translation app that works offline.
Tell your bank that you are travelling.
Check your UK network's roaming rates for China. They are high, but roaming data is usually routed by way of home and is therefore unfiltered.

On landing

1Join the airport Wi-Fi, or switch roaming on, and let the phone settle.
2Open a client and try the nearest location that we have. From China that means Amsterdam or London, since we have no exit in Asia.
3Give it a full minute before you judge it.
4If it fails, try the second client, and then a second location.
5If the hotel network defeats you, try roaming data before giving up. The two are filtered quite differently.

Why VPNs in China fail

The firewall studies the first packets of every connection, compares them with the known patterns of VPN protocols, and probes suspicious servers to see how they answer. A server that replies like a VPN is blocked by the afternoon. That is why articles about the best VPNs for China name different winners every season. A Reality server answers a probe in the way a well known public website would, so there is nothing distinctive to flag. That is an advantage. It is not a guarantee, and distance counts against us. Our nearest exit is in Europe, so expect the connection to be slower than it is at home.

The legal position, plainly

Beijing's rule is that only state approved VPN services may be offered, and the approved ones are sold to companies, not to tourists. In practice the authorities have gone after the people who run and resell unapproved services on the mainland. A visitor with a client on a personal phone has not been what they look for. Treat that as how things have gone so far, and not as permission. Keep it low key, stay out of political argument online, and on a business trip do what your employer's security team tells you. We are not lawyers, and this is not legal advice.

Things that surprise first time visitors

✓Hong Kong and Macau are outside the firewall.
✓Payment in China runs on phone apps. Set up the tourist version of one before you go.
✓Video calls work on good days only.
✓Around sensitive dates, everything gets worse.
✓Support is hard to reach from inside the country, so ask your questions before you fly.

Try Royal Key free: 5 days, no limits

Start free

Five days, no card

VPN and China: sort it out before you fly - 5 days free

Open the Telegram bot and get your personal VLESS key in about 30 seconds.

Key in Telegram in under a minute
No card, no email, no KYC
Fits the client you already have
Five devices on one key

Have a key cut

Nothing is charged and nothing renews on its own.

The ledger

We keep no ledger of you, only of the key

There is no account here, so there is nothing to attach a log to. You never give us an email, a phone number or a name. The bot knows a Telegram chat, a key and an expiry date, and that is the whole record. We say so plainly instead of pretending to be beyond every jurisdiction.

Nothing on file

No registration, no email, no phone number
No browsing history, no connection logs
Connection times and IP addresses
Card details: payment stays inside Telegram
Nothing renews and nothing is charged silently

At the counter

What people ask before the first key is cut

Does a VPN work in China?

Some do, on most days. None works every day.

Can I get a key once I am there?

Hardly, since Telegram is blocked. Get it before you travel.

Which location should I use?

Amsterdam or London. Try both.

Is it illegal for tourists?

Unlicensed services may not operate there. Visitors have not been the focus of enforcement. It remains a grey area.

Will roaming work without a VPN?

Usually, and it is unfiltered. It is also expensive.

Does Royal Key have a server in Asia?

No. Our six locations are in the UK, Ireland, mainland Europe and the US, which is a drawback for this particular trip.

Still unsure?

Support and your key live in the same Telegram bot. The setup page shows which client to install.

Open the Telegram bot

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