How to cross the border from China to Mongolia

This post is based on our experience crossing the border from Erenhot a.k.a. Erlian (China) to Zamiin-Uud (Mongolia) in May 2024.

There are two typical ways to do the Erenhot/Zamiin-Uud border-crossing. You can take the Trans-Siberian train from Beijing to Ulaanbaatar. It costs around 300 USD for soft sleeper and you’ll get stuck on the border for a long time while they change the wheels or something to do with the track gauge.

Or, you can string the journey together with a bus on one side of the border, and then a train. That’s what we did and it worked really well. It cost about 45 USD per person.

So, if you ever wondered how to cross the border between China and Mongolia by road, then read on.

Before you go

Most countries require a visa for China but as of quite recently some European passport holders can travel visa free for fifteen days.

If you’re coming from Mongolia, the easiest and most reliable way to get your Chinese visa is to do it in your home country. We got our Chinese visas in Kathmandu, but getting a Chinese visa outside your home country can be a bit of a gamble.

Going the other way, many nationalities don’t require a visa for Mongolia. Check that your country is eligible for visa-free entry to be on the safe side.

There’s a bank in Zamiin-Uud on the second floor inside the train station, where we changed money. There are also ATMs on both sides of the border.

The border is open during regular daytime hours. As with any other border-crossing day, just get an early start.

The route

The entire trip starting from Beijing and ending in Ulaanbaatar took us almost two days. We went directly on an overnight bus* from Beijing’s Xinfadi station to Erenhot. In Erenhot we took another bus which went quickly through the border and dropped us close to Zamiin-Uud railway station. Once there, we booked tickets on the night train to Ulaanbaatar, which leaves every day at 18:05. We arrived Ulaanbaatar the next morning around 09:30.

*If you don’t love sleeping on a dirty, only partially-reclined bus seat, you can break up the journey by taking the high speed railway from Beijing to either Hohhot or Ulanqab and then take a bus/minibus from there to Erenhot the next day.

Beijing to Erenhot

We read conflicting things about trains to Erenhot: there don’t seem to be any. We also read conflicting information about where in Beijing to catch the bus to Erenhot.

Xinfadi bus station seemed the most promising so we went there in the morning on the day we planned to leave, to book tickets. Take the subway to Xinfadi station. Take Exit A and walk over the highway bridge. The first building you see straight ahead is the station. It looks more like an industrial office building than a bus station. We talked to the people at the information desk via Google Translate and they called the bus company. We booked the tickets and they told us the bus would leave at 16:00. Alipay didn’t work. There are no ATMs so bring cash. The tickets cost 220 yuan each.

We showed up thirty minutes early and waited for an hour. Then a random guy pointed at our tickets and ran off with them. He eventually came back and told (or yelled at…) us to go out front to the parking lot. We assumed the bus was for some reason waiting there, but the man reappeared and yelled frantically some more, and made us hop into a private car. Then we drove for about fifteen minutes to a smaller parking lot with a few buses and a lot of passengers and mountains of luggage of the large duct-taped plastic bundles and cardboard box variety – the hallmark of the importer/exporter business traveler.

We waited here another hour and half before the bus set off around 18:30. The bus is not a sleeper bus but the dirty and only partially-reclining seater I mentioned. It stopped once around 21:30 at a rest stop where you could pick up food. It stopped again around 02:00 outside some public toilets, this time for the driver to get a few hours sleep. That seems par for the course, several buses and trucks were parked there. We started driving again at 05:30 and arrived at 07.45 in small parking lot in Erenhot, about one kilometer away from Erenhot bus station.

Note: This part was a bit complicated. It seems that the bus leaving from Xinfadi goes over the border to Zamiin-Uud, hence all the importers/exporters. There are probably (better) buses that go directly to Erenhot and it would be worth checking a little more into where they depart from before you go to Xinfadi. If you take the Xinfadi bus only book it to Erenhot, because it stops there for a long time before carrying on over the border to Zamiin-Uud.

Crossing the border

We walked to Erenhot bus station and almost immediately boarded a bus that runs through the border and drops you off close to the Zamiin-Uud train station. The bus left the station around 10:00 and we arrived Zamiin-Uud around 11:30 – most of that time was spent on the border formalities, the driving distance is almost nothing. It cost 50 yuan. You can take a taxi (many drivers will accost you) but make sure he will take you all the way to Zamiin-Uud. You can’t walk across this border.

The bus stops and waits at Chinese immigration. Take your luggage and go inside to scan it and get your passport stamped. Then, get back on the bus and you’ll carry on to the Mongolian side. Again, take your bags inside for scanning and get your passport stamped.

We grabbed some Tugrik from the ATMs inside the Mongolian immigration building, while the latest bus driver yelled some more. When you exit Immigration you get back on the bus one last time. It takes you the short distance to Zamiin-Uud and drops you within walking distance to the train station.

It’s an easy border. Welcome to Mongolia!

Zamiin-Uud to Ulaanbaatar

A night train runs from Zamiin-Uud every evening at 18:05. We managed to pick up soft sleeper tickets the same day – apparently they can sell out quickly, you can try to book online in advance if you’re worried. They cost about 81.000 MNT per person.

We changed the last of our yuan in the train station at the bank on the second floor and picked up both a Unitel and Mobicom SIM card. Getting both is a really good idea – you’ll have coverage almost anywhere even in very remote areas.

We spent the rest of the day waiting in Caffe Bene, a chain which is all over the place in Mongolia (WiFi password: lifeisbene. Always). We also picked up some instant ramen noodles in case the train didn’t have a restaurant car – but we were in for a pleasant surprise.

If you arrive late or the train is full there are places to sleep in Zamiin-Uud. There are also buses and shared taxis to Ulaanbaatar if you want to go that way.

The train left Zamiin-Uud right on time (in a small but very atmospheric sand storm) and arrived in Ulaanbaatar around 09:30 the next day. Make sure you have a celebratory beer in the restaurant car. And you won’t have to eat instant ramen, unless you want to.

Read More

Once you get to Mongolia, fancy a roadtrip and some wild camping? Here’s a post about our 16 day self-driving roadtrip in Mongolia.

If you’re still in Nepal and thinking about how to get to China in the first place, have a look at this post about getting a Chinese visa in Kathmandu.

Crossing another border in or out of China? Take a look at these posts about crossing from Kyrgyzstan to China and from China to Pakistan.