Is there a way to confirm your Alipay works before arriving in China?

Alipay (支付宝) is now available to non-Chinese, just link up your debit/credit card in the app. However, anecdotal reports suggest that despite completing the setup successfully, on arrival in China sometimes payments don't actually go through at all -- which is a major problem, since in cash is close to extinct in post-COVID China, and nobody accepts Visa/MasterCard.

Is there any way to confirm Alipay is working before arriving in China? Note that using Alipay for any payments outside China is not an option, since foreign accounts are restricted to use in China only.

Searching around, I found quite a few posts saying there's no way to confirm before arrival, but I'm happy to report that there is a way!

If you open up the TripTickets miniapp, you can purchase fully refundable tickets to many attractions like doubtless fascinating "International Calligraphic Carving Museum" (Â¥5) while still outside China. The charge is immediate and thus tests out the full Alipay-to-credit/debit card flow, and can be seen in both Alipay's transaction history and your card history (subject to the usual international transaction lag, mind you):



What's more, if you don't actually use the ticket (= QR code is not scanned on the day of validity), your purchase is automatically refunded in full, meaning this is also a completely free way to test.

Not a direct answer, but too long for a comment. Though generally just providing your credit card data works really well with AliPay, we indeed had some payment problems during a trip in August 2024. All of which, I believe, your test does not cover.

Note that there are also touristically relevant places that will only accept WeChat and not AliPay.

Cash is not extinct in China. We brought the equivalent of 200 dollars and exchanged another 200 or so in the country, and we managed to spend most of it on a two-week trip. We were able to make use of good conversion rates though, including when selling our remaining RMB.