In recent days, news that international passenger train services between China and North Korea are resuming has been spreading rapidly across the travel industry.
The trigger was an announcement from the official WeChat account of China Railway stating that, starting March 12, 2026, international passenger trains will operate in both directions between Beijing and Dandong in China, and Pyongyang in North Korea.
Xiangyu, a tour guide at a travel agency in Dandong, said that much of the online excitement may be premature.
“Right now the whole internet is spreading the news about the March 12 train reopening to North Korea,” he said. “But the service is mainly for business travelers and specific personnel. In other words, only business visas are currently available — tourist visas for ordinary travelers have not been reopened at all.”
He added that many tour operators are already promoting “first departure” tour packages.
“I’ve been working along the border for more than a year and have been watching the situation closely. There has been no official notice about reopening tourism to North Korea. Agencies asking people to pay now to ‘lock in a spot’ or selling so-called inaugural tour groups are basically charging people an ‘intelligence tax’ —gambling with travelers’ money on a possibility.”
In fact, rumors about the reopening of North Korean tourism are not new. In August 2024, foreign media also reported that North Korea might resume tourism. At the time, the Chinese travel industry was preparing eagerly, but Pyongyang never confirmed the reports and the discussion gradually faded away.
According to official North Korean statistics, more than 200,000 foreign tourists visited the country in 2018, a record high, with about 90% from China.
Now that the China–North Korea international train service has resumed, travel data platform VariFlight shows that on March 11, flight searches to Dandong increased by about 50% compared with the previous day, while train ticket searches to the city rose roughly 20%.
This suggests that even after six years of suspended international tourism following the border closure, Chinese travelers’ interest in North Korea has not faded.
