Before you start

Passport, and usually a residence permit or valid visa
A Hangzhou address for broadband
An unlocked handset
A payment method for top-ups

Step-by-step

1
Get the SIM on day one
Any China Mobile, Unicom or Telecom shop issues one against your passport under real-name registration. Prepaid data plans are cheap. In a city this cashless, doing this first is not optional.
In personWho: YouDay 1
2
Register it in your own name, not the company's
An employer-registered number takes your bank verification and payment wallets with it when you change jobs. One extra shop visit removes the whole problem.
In personWho: You
3
Order broadband and check the building first
Chinese fibre is fast and cheap; installation depends on the building's wiring and landlord cooperation. Taking over an existing live line in the flat is far quicker than a new install — ask at the viewing.
In personWho: You1–2 weeks
4
Establish how you will reach foreign development infrastructure
For engineers this is specific and practical: package registries, container image hosts, source control and documentation sites are all affected to differing degrees. Chinese mirrors exist for many of them and are widely used. Find out what your team actually does on day one rather than debugging a failing build on day three.
OnlineWho: YouWeek 1
5
Sort out access to critical personal accounts before you fly
Email, password manager, authenticator, banking. Set the arrangement up and test it while you still have unrestricted access.
OnlineWho: YouBefore departure
6
Install the apps the city runs on
WeChat for social and much that is official, Alipay for payments and the whole municipal service layer, Amap or Baidu Maps for navigation, DiDi for taxis, Meituan and Ele.me for delivery. Google Maps does not work in mainland China.
Mobile appWho: YouWeek 1

Documents you’ll need

Passport
Residence permit or valid visa
Hangzhou address for broadband
Payment method for top-ups

Things most newcomers don’t know

For a software engineer, the connectivity question is about build infrastructure, not social media.

The visible losses — Google, Meta, X — are the ones people talk about. The ones that break your work are package registries, container image hosts, documentation sites and source control, which behave inconsistently from a mainland connection. Chinese mirrors exist and are used routinely by teams here. The right question at interview is not 'is there a VPN' but 'how does your build get its dependencies', and the answer tells you a lot about the engineering culture.

Source: community-reported

Alipay in Hangzhou is a municipal service layer, not just a payment app.

Hangzhou integrated city services into Alipay earlier and more completely than anywhere else: transport, utility bills, hospital registration, government service appointments and public transport cards all run through mini-programs. This is convenient once you are set up and a genuine barrier before you are. It is also why the phone number matters so much here — it is the key to the municipal layer as well as to the bank.

Source: community-reported

The Chinese phone number is the root of your identity, and losing it is expensive.

Real-name registration binds the number to your passport, and from there it becomes the verification anchor for your bank, Alipay, WeChat Pay, hospital bookings, delivery apps and often your compound's door access. Re-establishing it after a lapse means redoing the registration and re-verifying every downstream service. Keep it topped up through long absences.

Source: Ministry of Industry and Information Technology

Google Maps does not work here, and that is a data problem rather than a policy one.

China mandates a coordinate offset on published mapping data and Google's mainland base data is poor and misaligned. Amap — an Alibaba company, headquartered in this city — and Baidu Maps are accurate, integrate with the metro and DiDi, and include live transit. Uber does not operate; DiDi does.

Source: community-reported

Common mistakes to avoid

Letting the employer register your SIM in the company's name.
Accepting an engineering role without asking how the build reaches foreign dependencies.
Leaving two-factor authentication on a home number you then let lapse.
Signing a broadband contract without checking for an existing live line.
Relying on Google Maps in a city where it does not work.

Some of this may be out of date. Spotted something inaccurate? Help us keep it right for the next newcomer.