TIRANA, Jan. 18, 2022 – Albanians will soon have a new — and rather large — global destination they can access without a visa: mainland China.
While Chinese citizens have already had the right to visit Albania without a visa, first as part of a tourist season program which Albania uses to expand its visa-free access every year, a deal signed this week means Albanians and Chinese people holding normal passports can travel between the two countries without a visa.
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama made the announcement on social media, publishing a photo from the signing ceremony conducted by Deputy Foreign Minister Megi Fino and Chinese Ambassador to Tirana Zhou Ding. Rama said Albanians could start traveling to China by the end of February.
Albania’s new access to China rare
China has a very restrictive policy on visa-free travel to its mainland, offering it mostly to small countries, and notably requiring a visa for all EU and NATO member states, with alliance member Albania now being the first exception.
Albania does join Western Balkan neighbors Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina from the region to get 90-day visa-free access to mainland China. The only other European countries with visa-free access are Belarus, Armenia and San Marino. North Macedonia is negotiating a deal, but it has not been finalized, while Montenegrins need a visa. China does not recognize Kosovo as an independent state.
Officials at the Albanian foreign ministry said the offer to remove visas had come from the Chinese side.
The visa-free deal was first announced last month, but the date set for implementation was not known. The deal deals with mainland China, as special regions like Hong Kong and Macao have their own visa and immigration policies.
Travel to and from China has been largely restricted by the pandemic in recent years, but China has recently lifted almost all restrictions.
Albanian visa policy expanding
EU candidates Albania and Serbia were recently chided by the EU, with which the two have visa-free access, for having visa-free policies that are more liberal than the bloc and thus could be used as a backdoor by third-country nationals looking to get in the EU.
Brussels had officially complained to Serbia that citizens of African countries were using it as a jumping point to illegally access the EU. Serbia has already changed its policies under pressure, reintroducing visas for some African countries and India.
Rather than restricting its policies, Albania is expanding them, now offering visa-free access to India and Egypt during the tourist season. Albania has notably not removed visa-free access to Russian citizens from May 1 to Sept 30, despite the strong official stance against Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.
