How do you accept Alipay and WeChat Pay as a foreign business?

Most guides stop at “use a payment provider.” That’s the easy part. The harder question is whether the wallets will accept your business at all, and whether the payment still works on a phone.

We read the providers’ documentation and WeChat Pay’s own rules, so this guide gives the conditions. It’s part of our guide on how to find Chinese customers.

Stripe, which sells access to these wallets, calls them the main methods Chinese consumers use online.²⁷

Can a foreign business accept Alipay and WeChat Pay?

Yes, usually through a provider connected to the wallet. WeChat Pay limits direct access to Hong Kong and Britain. Elsewhere, its main route is an acquiring institution.³

Each provider sets its own limits, so a yes from one tells you little about another.

Route	Wallet	Who can use it	The catch
Stripe	Both	22 locations for WeChat Pay, 39 for Alipay 12	Listing isn’t approval
Antom	Alipay	Acquiring in Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong, US, EU, UK 7	KYC and compliance review
Alipay+	50 wallets, including mainland Alipay 8	Through an acquirer such as Antom, 2C2P, MultiSafepay or KOMOJU 8	The acquirer’s terms apply
Airwallex	WeChat Pay	HK and SG businesses, for the CN and HK apps 6	Others can’t take those apps
Checkout.com	Alipay	Hong Kong, with Singapore, EEA and UK in beta 9	Your account manager enables it
PayPal	Alipay	Beta, by approval, countries not stated 10	Payers in China only
WeChat Pay direct	WeChat Pay	Hong Kong and Britain 3	One merchant ID per settlement currency 25
Chinese entity	Both	A company set up in China. One 2026 guide puts this at 3 to 6 months 29	A full market-entry decision

Stripe’s own pages differ. Its overview lists 22 locations for WeChat Pay, and its Checkout guide lists 35.¹¹¹ It points you to your payment settings to confirm eligibility.¹

On Shopify, check before you plan. Antom’s July 2026 page says availability depends on provider, merchant location, buyer country and integration. It describes wallet support for Hong Kong and Singapore, lists Alipay and WeChat Pay for Chinese shoppers “where available,” and names no eligible merchant locations.²⁶

See WordPress, Shopify and Webflow in China for the platform side.

Antom’s warning applies to every row: coverage “does not equal automatic merchant approval.”⁷

Is your business allowed to use them?

Maybe not, and this is the check most of the guides we read skip. Stripe requires you to follow each wallet’s own rules on top of its own.¹² WeChat Pay’s list is long, and it reaches ordinary service businesses.

WeChat Pay publishes a list of permitted categories, 82 forbidden ones, and 5 restricted ones that need its pre-approval, a list it calls not exhaustive.⁴ Alipay’s terms through Stripe cover 79 prohibited products and 7 restricted ones.⁵

You sell	WeChat Pay rules 4	Alipay terms via Stripe 5
Goods to consumers	Permitted (“trade of goods”)	Not barred as a category
Flights, hotels, tourism tickets	Permitted	Not named
International logistics, conferences	Permitted	Not named
Overseas education	Permitted	Not named
Training, courses	Listed, online use unclear. Investment courses forbidden	Not named, except financial investment courses
Medical services	Permitted	Not named, though some medical products and services are barred
Software, apps	Digital entertainment and app downloads permitted, not virtual asset top-ups	Not named, except financial trading software and malware
Consulting	Forbidden, except medical, psychological and education	Not named
Legal, accounting, auditing	Forbidden	Not named
Advertising, trademark design	Forbidden, except an individual buying an ad	Not named
Immigration	Forbidden	Investment immigration prohibited
Real estate	Sale and investment forbidden	Sale prohibited, leasing restricted
Insurance	Forbidden, with narrow exceptions such as travel accident and student health	Life and return-paying prohibited, other restricted
Cloud servers	Forbidden	Cloud restricted

“Not named” doesn’t mean approved. Stripe also bars some merchant codes for Alipay, including insurance underwriting, property rentals, timeshares, charity fundraising and religious organizations.²

Training is the unclear row. It appears in WeChat Pay’s permitted table, but the text we read doesn’t show whether it’s an online or an offline category, and the layout suggests offline. Ask before you sell courses online.⁴

A refusal may come without a reason. In 2022, one agency reported getting Alipay on Stripe and being denied WeChat Pay with no explanation, while a second business got both.²³

That’s one old account, but it’s a useful warning: plan for getting only one wallet.

These lists also change. WeChat Pay says it can adjust its rules,⁴ and Alipay can suspend you if you breach its terms.⁵ Stripe may review your account after activation, too, and says you can contact support to appeal an Alipay restriction.²

Will the payment work on a phone?

Alipay’s path is documented. WeChat Pay depends on where the buyer opens your page, so a desktop test can mislead you. CNNIC says 99.6% of Chinese internet users go online by mobile.¹⁷

Where the buyer is	WeChat Pay	Alipay via Stripe
Computer browser	Scans a QR code 1	Scans a QR code or signs in 2
Phone browser	H5 payment, after a separate review 13	Continues in the app or mobile site 2
Inside WeChat	JSAPI, tied to an Official Account 1416	Not covered in what we read
Your own app	Native integration 1	Custom integration 2

The phone browser row is the weak spot. Stripe’s guides describe QR codes and native apps, and one says WeChat Pay is “currently only available on Web.”¹¹¹¹²

We found no description of what a buyer sees in a phone browser.

A buyer can’t easily scan a code that’s on the phone in their hand. Test this yourself before you trust it.

H5, WeChat’s mobile browser payment, needs extra approval. Airwallex says it takes an offline scheme review, and the domain must match the one you submitted, or the app won’t open.¹³

WeChat Pay’s own pages differ, and both show a March 2025 update. One says H5 is open only to key account merchants who apply, and points to Official Account payment instead.¹⁴ Another says it covers merchants in most countries, regions and industries.¹⁵

That second page still excludes Indonesia, Cambodia and Laos, plus games, large digital goods merchants, and computer programming and data processing (MCC 7372).¹⁵ If you sell software, check this first.

Inside WeChat, H5 fails. PingPong’s documentation says the buyer gets an error, and must either pay through JSAPI or open the page in an outside browser.¹⁶ WeChat Pay ties JSAPI to an Official Account.¹⁴

That covers any link opened from a WeChat chat. Whether a foreign company can open that account is disputed, so read WeChat for foreign businesses.

The checkout also has to load from China, and here the evidence is mixed. GreatFire rates stripe.com “Mixed,” with 17 of 28 tested URLs disrupted, 9 accessible and 2 without a verdict.¹⁹

URL tested by GreatFire	HTTP result	HTTPS result
js.stripe.com 19	Connected in 3 of 3 conclusive tests, to October 25, 2026	Intermittent
checkout.stripe.com 20	Connected in 1 test, August 27, 2026	Intermittent

Stripe’s own script is loaded over HTTPS,¹² so the HTTPS column is the one that matters. GreatFire also notes that 2 tests had connections refused, which it no longer counts as blocking.¹⁹

Those are small samples, and they aren’t a test of your site. Don’t let a script hold up your page, and test from China on your own checkout.

What does it cost, and what are the limits?

We verified one price list. Stripe’s French page gave 2.9% + EUR 0.25 per successful charge for both wallets, plus 2% if currency conversion is required.¹⁸

Antom gives no price on the page we read, and the one comparison table we found dates from 2022. Get a current quote for your country.

The rules around the fee matter just as much, and they differ by wallet and by provider.

Rule	Stripe, Alipay 2	Stripe, WeChat Pay 1	Other providers
Refund window	90 days	180 days	Airwallex WeChat Pay 1 year 6, PayPal Alipay 360 days 10
Chargebacks	None	None	Airwallex gives no terms 6
Minimum	USD 0.50	USD 0.50	Airwallex CNY 0.01 6
Maximum	USD 999,999.99	Not stated	Airwallex CNY 300,000 6
Subscriptions	Invite-only preview	Private preview	Airwallex: fixed amount and frequency 6
Manual capture	No	No	Not checked

A few of these change how you run the business.

• Subscriptions: Plan on one-off payments. If you sell monthly plans, this can rule out both wallets on Stripe.
• No delayed capture: You can’t authorize now and charge when you ship. The money moves at the sale.
• No chargebacks: Stripe says a dispute never pulls funds from your balance, and a complaining customer may be sent back to you.¹² Your own refund policy still applies.
• Settlement: Airwallex sets a USD 800 threshold and T+1 settlement (the next business day) for WeChat Pay,⁶ so small volumes may wait.

Buyers have limits as well. Chinese individuals have an annual foreign exchange quota of USD 50,000. It was set in 2007, and a Chongqing government page still listed it in June 2026.²⁴³¹

We couldn’t confirm how wallet purchases from a foreign merchant count against it, so ask your provider.

Free check

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How do you set it up?

Work in this order, so you don’t spend developer time on something a compliance team will refuse. The steps below follow the Stripe and Antom documents. Other providers will differ.

1. 1Check your category
2. 2Confirm your country
3. 3Fix your site
4. 4Prepare company documents
5. 5Apply
6. 6Show Chinese checkout
7. 7Test with a real wallet

1. Check your category. Read both lists above against what you actually sell, not your company’s broad description.
2. Confirm your country in writing. Ask whether wallets from mainland China can pay you, on which methods and in which currency.
3. Fix your site. Stripe’s Alipay conditions are concrete. The site must be public, with no login or redirect, and must show your products, prices and delivery terms, and disclose drop-shipping.²
4. Gather company documents. Antom lists company details, ownership and control, authorized representatives, business operations, your website, settlement arrangements and contacts.⁷
5. Apply, then check what’s active. Antom warns that onboarding doesn’t turn on every method.⁷ On Stripe, you enable each wallet in your payment settings.¹²
6. Show the checkout in Chinese. Stripe Checkout supports Simplified Chinese with the zh code.²¹ Buyers see the amount in CNY on both wallets.¹²
7. Test with a real wallet. Ask someone with a Chinese account to pay on a phone, in a phone browser and through a link opened in WeChat. Then refund the order.

Taking the money doesn’t settle tax, customs or your contract.

• A client wants a fapiao: Read invoicing Chinese clients.
• You ship goods into China: See how to sell without being in China.
• Your own case: Take it to a local adviser.

Which wallet should you add first?

Add the one your business type allows, and if both are open, try for both. Some buyers may use only one of them.

We can’t give you a reliable split. Share figures circulate online, attributed to an OECD note, but we couldn’t open that note, so we don’t repeat them.

If you must pick one on Stripe, our reasoning favors Alipay. It’s listed in more locations,¹² it’s documented on phone browsers,² and its terms name fewer services.⁴⁵

That’s our reading of the documents, not a measured result. WeChat Pay may still be the better wallet for buyers who find you inside WeChat.

The bottom line

If you remember one thing, make it this: check your category before you check your checkout. A provider can connect you to both wallets, but their rules decide whether you stay connected.

Then test on a phone, from China, with a real wallet. Your desktop test proves very little.

How Index in China can help

We don’t set up payments, and we don’t act as a payment provider or advise on your eligibility. Our work comes earlier: helping Chinese buyers find you.

We translate your site into Simplified Chinese with a human reviewer, work on getting it indexed on Chinese search engines and send a monthly report on Chinese traffic.

See what we do, or book a 30-minute call.

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