What a Month in China Costs a Student
Metro fares from the official tables, food from the national statistics, and rent left blank because no official city-wide figure exists.
What it costs
| Figure | Period | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 CNY | Beijing, start fare, journeys up to 6 km | english.beijing.gov.cn — About Subway Fares: the starting price is CNY 3 for journeys within six kilometers | |
| 4 CNY | Beijing, 6 to 12 km | english.beijing.gov.cn — About Subway Fares: CNY 4 for distances between 6 and 12 kilometers | |
| 5 CNY | Beijing, 12 to 22 km | english.beijing.gov.cn — About Subway Fares: CNY 5 for distances between 12 and 22 kilometers | |
| 6 CNY | Beijing, 22 to 32 km | english.beijing.gov.cn — About Subway Fares: CNY 6 for distances between 22 and 32 kilometers | |
| 25 CNY | Beijing, Capital Airport Express, fixed fare | english.beijing.gov.cn — About Subway Fares: with a fixed fare of CNY 25 | |
| 3 CNY | Shanghai, start fare, trips up to 6 km | english.shanghai.gov.cn — Getting around Shanghai: start at 3 yuan (about 44 cents) for trips of up to 6 km | |
| 1 CNY per 10 km | Shanghai, beyond the start fare | english.shanghai.gov.cn — Getting around Shanghai: with an additional 1 yuan per 10 km | |
| 2 CNY | Guangzhou, 0 to 4 km | gz.gov.cn — 地铁票价有点费解？官方来解答: 0~4公里，2元 | |
| 20 CNY | Guangzhou, maximum fare on the network | gz.gov.cn — 地铁票价有点费解？官方来解答: 最高票价20元 | |
| 8631 CNY per person per year | 2025, national, food, tobacco and alcohol | stats.gov.cn — 2025年居民收入和消费支出情况: 全国居民人均食品烟酒消费支出8631元 | |
| 10155 CNY per person per year | 2025, urban residents, food, tobacco and alcohol | stats.gov.cn — 2025年居民收入和消费支出情况，表2：城镇居民 食品烟酒 10155 | |
| 846 CNY per person per month | 2025 urban average, derived from the annual figure | derived: stats.gov.cn urban food, tobacco and alcohol 10155 per year divided by 12 | |
| 40 CNY per person per day | Tsinghua University, 2026 intake, double room | sppm.tsinghua.edu.cn — Costs & Scholarship: Accommodation in students' dormitories on Tsinghua campus, Beijing: RMB 40/day per person for double rooms | |
| 30 CNY per person per day | Tsinghua University, 2026 intake, triple room | sppm.tsinghua.edu.cn — Costs & Scholarship: RMB 30/day per person for triple rooms | |
| 1200 CNY per person per month | Tsinghua double room, derived from the daily rate | derived: Tsinghua RMB 40 per day multiplied by 30 days | |
| 5000 CNY per student per academic year | Sun Yat-sen University, 2023 academic year, South Campus building 351, 19 sq m per student | xxgk.sysu.edu.cn — 2023学年中山大学学生宿舍住宿费收费标准公示表: 南校园 351栋（国际生) 19 元/生.学年 5000 | |
| 10000 CNY per student per academic year | Sun Yat-sen University, 2023 academic year, South Campus building 351, 38 sq m per student | xxgk.sysu.edu.cn — 2023学年中山大学学生宿舍住宿费收费标准公示表: 南校园 351栋（国际生) 38 元/生.学年 10000 | |
| 417 CNY per person per month | Sun Yat-sen lower band, derived from the annual fee | derived: Sun Yat-sen 5000 per academic year divided by 12 | |
| 60 CNY per person per day | Zhengzhou University, Building 17, single room | international.zzu.edu.cn — Accommodation On Campus: Building 17 of Liuyuan, Single-bed room, RMB 60 /Day | |
| 21900 CNY per student per academic year | Zhengzhou University, Building 17, single room | international.zzu.edu.cn — Accommodation On Campus: Single-bed room, RMB 60 /Day, RMB 21900/Year | |
| 1825 CNY per person per month | Zhengzhou University single room, derived from the annual fee | derived: Zhengzhou 21900 per year divided by 12 |
In order
- Fix the unit before you price anything — One month, one city, one housing choice. A monthly figure that mixes a dormitory and a shared flat is two figures added together and is worth nothing.
- Price the commute from the fare table, not from a blog — Every city publishes a distance table. Read the band your daily journey falls into, multiply by the trips you actually make, and keep the band you used.
- Price food from the statistics, then read what it covers — The food line in the national statistics is food, tobacco and alcohol for an average resident. A student who never drinks or smokes is below it, and the figure is a national urban average, not a Beijing one.
- Treat rent as unknown until a city publishes it — No official city-wide rent figure exists for Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou. Project-level affordable housing standards are published, but they are not market rent and cannot be presented as such.
- Write the three lines down with their sources — For each line keep the number, the unit, the period it applies to, the page it came from and the day you checked. A line without those five is an opinion.
- Re-check before the next academic year — Fare bands and statistical releases change. Every figure on this page carries the date it was checked, and the page carries the date it must be checked again.
What a month in China costs a student
This page answers one question: if you are an international student in China, what does a month cost, and where does each number come from. It covers Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, and it gives you three lines: transport, food, and housing.
One of those three lines has no official number, and this page leaves it blank rather than filling it. That is the point of the page, so it is the first thing to say.
The honest summary
| Line | Beijing | Shanghai | Guangzhou | Sourced? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transport, per trip | 3 CNY up to 6 km | 3 CNY up to 6 km | 2 CNY up to 4 km | Yes — official fare tables |
| Food, per month | 846 CNY | 846 CNY | 846 CNY | Partly — national urban average, not city |
| Dormitory, per month | 1,200 CNY | see below | 417 CNY | Yes — three universities, not a market average |
The food figure is the same in all three columns because the statistics are national. Presenting three different food numbers would mean inventing a city split the source does not contain.
1. Transport: the one line you can actually calculate
Each city prices a metro journey by distance, and each publishes the bands. Beijing and Shanghai both start at 3 CNY for the first six kilometres.
Beijing’s table, from the municipal government’s own fare page:
| Distance | Fare |
|---|---|
| Up to 6 km | 3 CNY |
| 6 to 12 km | 4 CNY |
| 12 to 22 km | 5 CNY |
| 22 to 32 km | 6 CNY |
| Capital Airport Express | 25 CNY fixed |
Shanghai charges 3 CNY for the first six kilometres and then 1 CNY for every additional ten.
Guangzhou starts lower — 2 CNY for the first four kilometres — and caps the whole network at 20 CNY.
Work it out for your own commute: find the band that matches the distance between your stop and your campus, then multiply by the number of trips you make in a month. A student commuting 30 minutes each way, twice a day, is usually in the middle bands, not the first one.
2. Food: a national average, and what it does not tell you
The national statistics office publishes household consumption by category. The food, tobacco and alcohol line for 2025 is 8631 CNY per person for the year nationally, and 10155 CNY for urban residents.
Divided by twelve, the urban figure is 846 CNY per person per month. That is the only food number on this page, and three things are wrong with using it as your budget:
- it is an average, so half of urban residents spend less
- it includes tobacco and alcohol, which many students do not buy
- it is national urban, not Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou, where food costs more
Use it as a floor for a student cooking at home, and expect your own number to be higher in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou alike.
3. Housing: dormitory fees, three universities, no market average
No official city-wide market rent is published for Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou. What is published is what a university charges for its own rooms, which is a different number and, for a student, the one that matters.
Three universities publish a fee a reader can check:
| University | City | Room | Published fee | Per month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tsinghua University | Beijing | Double room | 40 CNY per day | 1,200 CNY |
| Sun Yat-sen University (Zhongshan University, 中山大学) | Guangzhou | 19 sq m per student | 5,000 CNY per academic year | 417 CNY |
| Zhengzhou University | Zhengzhou | Single room | 21,900 CNY per academic year | 1,825 CNY |
Three things to read carefully, because they are where these numbers lie:
- The units are not the same. Tsinghua prices by the day, the other two by the academic year. The monthly column is derived — 40 × 30, and the annual fees ÷ 12 — and the assumption is 30 days to a month with a room occupied all year.
- Sun Yat-sen publishes floor area per student, not room type. 19 square metres per student is shared; 38 square metres is 10,000 CNY a year. The page does not say “single” or “double”, so neither does this one. Zhengzhou is outside the three metro cities. The metro fares above cover Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Shanghai’s universities publish their accommodation fees as embedded PDFs or inside application portals that could not be read and quoted, so a Zhengzhou figure with a checkable source is here instead of a Shanghai figure without one.
No official city-wide market rent is published for these cities. These are university-published dormitory fees, which is what a student actually pays.
If you plan to live outside the dormitory, ask the international student office which districts students actually rent in, then treat any figure you find as a starting point to verify rather than a cost.
4. When this page is wrong
- You live outside the dormitory. The housing line is blank, so your total is missing its largest component.
- You are not in Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou. The fare bands above are city-specific; other cities price differently.
- The statistics are revised. The food figure is an annual release, and later revisions change it.
- You travel by bus, bike or car. The transport line covers the metro only.
Measurement, written down before the result
This page is an experiment, and its criteria were fixed on the day it was published rather than after seeing the numbers:
- Success, 28 days: at least 50 impressions in Search Console, and at least one query containing “cost of living china” that this page is shown for.
- Pass, 28 days: at least 10 impressions.
- Failure, 28 days: fewer than 10 impressions and no matching query. The reading then is that this question is asked in forums, not in search, and a page on this site will not rank for it.
Sources and dates
Every figure above was read from the page named beside it and checked on 2026-10-27:
- Beijing fares: About Subway Fares, Beijing Municipal Government, published 2025-04-23.
- Shanghai fares: Getting around Shanghai: Transport options and fares, Shanghai Municipal Government.
- Guangzhou fares: 地铁票价有点费解？官方来解答, Guangzhou Municipal Government, published 2025-08-11.
- Food and consumption: 2025年居民收入和消费支出情况, National Bureau of Statistics, published 2026-01-19.
- Tsinghua University dormitory fees: Costs & Scholarship, Tsinghua School of Public Policy and Management, 2025-03-24.
- Sun Yat-sen University dormitory fees: 2023学年中山大学学生宿舍住宿费收费标准公示表, Sun Yat-sen University information disclosure.
- Zhengzhou University dormitory fees: Accommodation On Campus, Zhengzhou University International.
Next full re-check: 2027-04-25. Fares and statistical releases are checked again then, and every figure on this page is replaced or confirmed with a new retrieval date.
Last checked 2026-10-27, next review 2027-04-25. Every figure above names its source and the date it was read. This page is a guide, not legal, tax or immigration advice — confirm with the authority before acting on a deadline.