C China Medical Guide

TCM in China

Can you take Chinese herbs home?

Sometimes, but three separate sets of rules apply — and only one of them is about quantity. Most people worry about how much they are allowed. That is the least dangerous question.

Reviewed 2026-09-20. Based on Chinese Customs publications and the Customs Law, cited at the foot of this page. This is general information, not legal advice.

Read this page before you buy, not after. The dangerous question is not how much you are carrying — it is what is in the formula. Some ingredients are prohibited outright, and the prohibition does not care how small your packet is.

Rule set 1: Ingredients that are prohibited outright

Chinese Customs publications are explicit, and several regional customs offices state the same list in answer to public enquiries. The following are prohibited from leaving China:

For tiger bone and rhinoceros horn the rule is absolute: no organisation or individual may transport, carry or post them across the border. There is no permit route. Customs states this explicitly — including for prepared medicines containing rhinoceros horn or tiger bone, which do not benefit from the exception described below.

For musk and toad venom, one customs office describes a narrow exception: prepared medicines containing only trace amounts — 麝香还阳膏 and 六神丸 are the examples given — may pass within reasonable quantities for personal use.

Customs offices do not all answer this the same way, and you should not count on the exception. Nanjing Customs, replying to the same question, states flatly that prepared medicines containing musk, toad venom, tiger bone, rhinoceros horn or cow bezoar are prohibited from being carried out — with no trace-amount allowance mentioned. Where one office describes an allowance and another describes a prohibition, assume the stricter reading applies to you. Declare the medicine and let an officer decide. Both replies are linked at the foot of this page.

One practical implication people miss: 牛黄 (cow bezoar) is on the prohibited list, and it is an ingredient in well-known prepared medicines. If you are buying a boxed medicine rather than raw herbs, read the ingredient list before you assume it is fine.

Rule set 2: CITES — the international layer

Some species used in traditional formulas are regulated under CITES, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

Pangolin (穿山甲) is listed in CITES Appendix I, which prohibits international commercial trade. Appendix I species and their products are treated as prohibited — the Chinese endangered species authority does not issue export permits for them. The same applies to tiger bone and rhinoceros horn.

For regulated species generally, the requirement is a matching pair of permits: an import permit issued by the CITES authority in your destination country, and an export permit issued by the Chinese authority. Both, before you travel. Carrying the item without them is treated as smuggling, not as a paperwork mistake.

Real enforcement example. In 2019, Xiamen Airport Customs found 450 g of dried seahorse in an arriving passenger's luggage. The seahorse was identified as a CITES Appendix II species, and the passenger was carrying a restricted item without declaring it and without a permit. The outcome was a warning and a fine.

Seahorse, note — not pangolin. Appendix II, not Appendix I. The enforcement net is wider than most people assume. Xiamen Customs has made similar seizures since, including over 700 dried seahorses in a single case in 2024.

Rule set 3: The "self-use, reasonable quantity" principle

If your herbs are not on a prohibited or restricted list, the governing principle comes from the Customs Law:

"Self-use" means for you or as a gift — not for resale. "Reasonable quantity" is determined by Customs case by case, based on your situation, purpose of travel and length of stay.

There is no single official figure for "how much is allowed". Anyone quoting you one is either working from a rule that is no longer in force or guessing.

About the limits you will find online

This is worth flagging, because the figures in circulation are wrong in most places you will read them — including in some official enquiry replies that are still online.

You will find ¥150 (to Hong Kong, China / Macao, China) and ¥300 (to other countries) quoted as the carry-out limit for Chinese medicines, along with postal limits of ¥100 and ¥200. Those figures come from 《海关总署令第12号》 — the regulation on carrying and posting Chinese medicines and prepared medicines out of China.

That regulation has been repealed. Asked about it directly, China Customs has stated that following the repeal, the carriage and posting of Chinese medicines is handled by reference to Announcement No. 43 of 2010 — under which the per-mailing limit is ¥800 for items sent to or from Hong Kong, China / Macao, China / Taiwan, China, and ¥1,000 for other countries and regions. That announcement was itself amended in 2024.

In other words: the old ¥150/¥300 numbers are still being repeated, in English and in Chinese, by sites that have not noticed the repeal. Plan around the self-use, reasonable quantity principle instead, and confirm your own case before you travel.

How to confirm: the China Customs service hotline is 12360. This is the number Customs itself directs enquiries to.

Declare it

Article 47 is not optional. If you are carrying herbs or prepared medicines, declare them and let an officer look. A declared packet that turns out to be restricted gets refused or confiscated. An undeclared packet gets treated as an attempt to evade Customs supervision.

Under the Customs Administrative Penalty Regulations:

Smuggling — concealment, misdeclaration, or movement outside a Customs post — carries the heavier penalties and can be criminal.

Your destination country's rules are a separate hurdle

Chinese Customs itself advises outbound travellers to check the entry rules of the destination country in advance. Complying with Chinese export rules does not mean you are allowed to import the same thing elsewhere.

Two things to check before you fly:

  1. Your country's CITES authority — whether the species in your formula is regulated on the import side, and whether you need an import permit.
  2. Your country's plant and animal health import rules — dried plant material of any kind is treated as a biosecurity matter in a number of countries, independent of whether the species is endangered.

Do not rely on a seller's assurance that "tourists take this home all the time". The seller is not the one who gets stopped.

Practical checklist

A note on scale

Most TCM formulas prescribed for a common complaint contain ordinary plant material — roots, seeds, bark, flowers — and travelling home with a personal course of treatment is a routine thing that millions of people do without incident.

This page is long because the exceptions are severe, not because the common case is risky. The problem is that you cannot tell which case you are in without reading the ingredient list.

Spotted something inaccurate, or has a rule changed? Tell me and it gets corrected.

Sources

Everything factual on this page traces to the following. Where a rule is time-limited or still in draft, that is stated in the entry.

Most of these are Chinese government or hospital pages. A few of them load slowly outside China, or refuse requests from non-Chinese networks. If a link does not open, search the document's title or its reference number — for example 鄂医保发〔2026〕22号 — and you will find the same document elsewhere.

  1. Hohhot Customs — rules on carrying or posting Chinese medicines and prepared medicines out of China — the prohibited list as Customs states it; the self-use, reasonable quantity principle; the move to Announcement No. 43 of 2010 for posted items; the 2024 amendment to that announcement
  2. Nanjing Customs — carrying prepared Chinese medicines out of China — confirms that prepared medicines containing musk, toad venom, tiger bone, rhinoceros horn or cow bezoar are prohibited, and that otherwise the reasonable self-use standard applies
  3. Huangpu Customs — enquiry reply on posting Chinese medicines to Australia — states the prohibited list AND the trace-amount exception (麝香还阳膏, 六神丸), while still quoting the pre-repeal ¥150/¥300 figures — an example of how the obsolete limits persist in circulation
  4. General Administration of Customs — online interview confirming the repeal of Order No. 12 — states that after Order No. 12 was repealed, posted Chinese medicines are handled under Announcement No. 43 of 2010 (¥800 per mailing to Hong Kong, China / Macao, China / Taiwan, China; ¥1,000 elsewhere)
  5. People's Daily Fujian — Xiamen Customs seizes dried seahorses from an arriving passenger — 2024 case: 758 dried seahorses (3.59 kg) identified as CITES Appendix II species; Customs states that carrying or posting such items without a permit is unlawful and can be criminal. The article was published the day after the seizure and records the items as detained with the investigation ongoing — it states no penalty
  6. China Customs media, contributed by Xiamen Customs — enforcement examples involving Chinese medicines (mirrored copy) — the 2019 case described above: Xiamen Airport Customs found 450 g of dried seahorse in an arriving passenger's luggage; identified as CITES Appendix II and a restricted import; the passenger had not declared it and held no permit, and was given a warning and a fine. The link is to a mirrored copy of a China Customs publication — the original is not reliably reachable outside China
  7. People's Daily — CITES obligations and endangered-species ingredients in medicines — background on why CITES-listed ingredients in traditional medicines attract enforcement
  8. Customs Law of the People's Republic of China, Articles 46 and 47 (full text — General Administration of Customs) — Article 46: personal luggage and posted items are limited to self-use and reasonable quantity, and are subject to Customs supervision. Article 47: the owner must declare truthfully and submit to inspection
  9. Shanghai Customs — inbound and outbound passenger clearance service pages (official definitions of 自用 and 合理数量) — defines self-use as for the traveller's own use or as a gift, not for sale, rent or carrying on commission, and reasonable quantity as the normal quantity Customs determines from the purpose of travel and the length of stay — the basis for deciding "case by case"
  10. Regulations on Implementation of Customs Administrative Penalties, Articles 19 and 20 (full text — General Administration of Customs) — Article 19: undeclared restricted personal items above the prescribed quantity — warning, and a fine of up to 20% of the value of the items. Article 20: undeclared prohibited items — confiscation, return, or destruction under Customs supervision

Reviewed 2026-09-20.

Why the 2019 seahorse case is described and the 2024 one is only summarised: the 2019 case, with its penalty outcome, was published by Xiamen Customs itself. The 2024 case is reported as an ongoing seizure, with the outcome not stated, so no penalty is attributed to it here.

This page is informational only and is not legal advice. Customs rules, prohibited item lists and permit requirements change, and enforcement is decided case by case. Confirm your specific situation with China Customs (12360) and with your own country's customs and CITES authority before travelling. Last reviewed: 2026-09-20.