How to buy Gulangyu ferry tickets with a foreign passport

Two piers, and most visitors go to the wrong one

Xiamen has a ferry terminal right by Zhongshan Road, called Lundu. It is the obvious place to go and it is the wrong one. During the day Lundu carries Xiamen residents only, at a resident fare of ¥8. Visitors from anywhere else, Chinese or foreign, are sent away.

The daytime tourist ferry leaves from the International Cruise Center, about
 km north. Locals call the terminal Dongdu, and signs call it Xiagu (厦鼓). Tell a taxi driver “Dongdu youlun matou” or show them 邮轮中心厦鼓码头. Metro Line 2 has a Cruise Center station.

In the evening the rule flips. From 17:50 between October and May, and from 18:50 between June and September, tourists can board at Lundu for a seven-minute crossing. The last sailing is 23:45.

Routes and what they cost

Fares are from the ferry company's site and include the return. You can come back from any pier on the island, and boats run back to Xiamen until around midnight. Some guidebooks still quote ¥50 for the First Wharf route. The operator lists ¥80.

Children under 6, or under 1.2 m, travel free, two per adult. Ages 6 to 14 pay half.

The passport problem

Tickets are real-name: one ticket, one identity document, checked at the gate. For Chinese visitors that means tapping an ID card on a reader. The official booking channel is a WeChat and Alipay mini-program called 屿见厦门 (Yujian Xiamen).

The mini-program does have a passport option. In practice, foreign visitors keep reporting that they could not complete a booking, usually because it wants a mainland phone number for verification. One Malaysian traveller who wrote up her trip in detail put it plainly: foreigners cannot buy online, only at the pier, unless a friend in China books for you.

So there are three routes that work.

1. Buy at the Dongdu counter. Bring the passport. On a quiet weekday this is simple. On a busy day the next available sailing may be hours away.
2. Have someone with a Chinese account book for you. A friend, your hotel or an agency adds you as a passenger with your passport number. On the day you still go to the counter to have the passport scanned and collect a boarding slip, so arrive half an hour early.
3. Travel with a licensed agency. The booking is made in advance and a guide handles the counter with you.

Whichever you choose, carry the original passport. A photo on your phone will not get you through the gate.

When tickets go on sale, and when they run out

Since February 2026, visitors report that sailings are released 15 days ahead at 9:00 each morning. We have not found that in an operator notice, so treat the number as likely, not certain. What is not in doubt is the pattern. Around the National Day week, the May holiday and summer weekends, the 8 and 9 am boats disappear within minutes. Afternoon sailings and the ¥80 route last longer.

If you are shut out, check again very early in the morning. Returned tickets are put back on sale, and several travellers have picked up seats at dawn for the same day.

Gates close five minutes before departure. Under rules in force since 1 September 2026, a missed boat is not simply refunded: you can change to a later sailing the same day for a 20% fee.

The “ferry tickets” that are not ferry tickets

Search for Gulangyu on a Chinese delivery or review app and you will find tickets at ¥39.9, a few yuan more than the real thing and available when the official ones are sold out. These are group tours. The pattern visitors describe is consistent: a meeting point, a forty-minute bus ride, a guide with a loudspeaker selling sight packages at several times the gate price, a detour through a pearl shop, and a return leg that turns out not to be included. One couple left their hotel at 11 am and stepped onto the island after 2 pm.

The same goes for anyone who approaches you outside the terminal offering a speedboat, a guide or a “last ticket”. Buy from the counter inside, the official mini-program, or an agency you chose before you arrived.

On the day

Aim to be at Dongdu 20 to 30 minutes before your sailing. There is a security check, and the counter queue for passport holders moves slowly when it is busy. Large suitcases can be left at the terminal's storage desk, which is what you want: the island is all stone paving and steps.

Take water. A bottle on the island costs around ¥5, several times the mainland price. Wear shoes with grip.

If you have a choice of landing pier, pick Sanqiutian for a first visit. It puts you a short walk from the old consulates and the main lanes. Neicuo'ao is calmer but leaves you with a long walk before you reach anything, which matters with children or in summer heat.

When the boats stop

Fog, mostly on mornings between January and May, and typhoons between July and September both suspend the ferry. Fog usually clears in a few hours. A storm can take out a day or two. Cancelled sailings are refunded automatically if you booked through the official channel. Our month-by-month guide shows when the risk is highest, and it is the reason we tell everyone to put Gulangyu early in a trip, never on the last day.

What to do once you land

That is a different article. Our Gulangyu guide covers the island itself, and the two-day itinerary shows how a ferry morning fits with the rest of the city.

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Keep planning

• Gulangyu island guide
• 2-day Xiamen itinerary
• Getting around Xiamen
• Best time to visit Xiamen
• Xiamen cruise port
• Things to do in Xiamen