Clear expectations for using ChinaVisaMail.
ChinaVisaMail.com is a private visa-support service operated by Carefree Charters LLC. We help customers prepare for the China visa process and, where our service is available, handle the physical drop-off and pickup at the applicable Chinese Consulate or Embassy so you don't have to make the trip yourself.
The Chinese Embassy, Consulates, and other visa authorities — not ChinaVisaMail — decide whether a visa is issued, and what validity, entries, and length of stay are granted.
We explain what our service includes, handle passports and documents with reasonable care while they're in our actual possession, and keep you informed when something needs your attention.
Some parts of the process — including government decisions and how independent shipping carriers perform — are outside our control. The sections below explain exactly where our responsibility begins and ends, especially around your passport and your shipment.
ChinaVisaMail.com is operated by Carefree Charters LLC, a private business based in Mill Valley, California. We are an independent document courier and concierge drop-off service.
We are not the Chinese Embassy, a Chinese Consulate, or any part of the Chinese government, and we are not affiliated with any government agency. Government visa authorities — not ChinaVisaMail — make all visa decisions. You are always free to complete the official China visa process yourself, directly, without using our service.
Depending on the order you place, our service may include:
Exactly what's included in your order is shown on the Apply page and confirmed in the email we send after you submit your application. We do not perform services beyond what's described there.
Our job is to make the process easier, catch avoidable problems, and perform the services included in your order. Visa decisions and government processing belong entirely to the visa authorities. ChinaVisaMail does not control, and is not responsible for:
Any processing time we quote — including the timelines shown on our website — is an estimate, not a guarantee, unless we've told you otherwise in writing for your specific case. Estimated timelines can be affected by:
Choosing our faster (Express) service speeds up the portion of the process we control. It does not guarantee a specific issuance date or return date, because the consulate or embassy sets its own pace.
By using our service, you agree to:
Every passport that comes through ChinaVisaMail is personally handled from start to finish — received, reviewed, hand-delivered to the consulate or embassy, picked up, repackaged, and shipped back — by our founder. There is no call center and no unnamed "processing facility" in between.
We use reasonable care while your passport and original documents are in our actual possession. We are not able to promise that any process is completely without risk — no honest business can promise that about physical mail and government offices — but we can tell you exactly how a passport moves through our process and where responsibility sits at each step:
The three custody periods below — before we receive your package, while we actually have it, and after we ship it back — are governed differently, because different parties are in control during each one.
Before your package is actually delivered to ChinaVisaMail, it is in the custody and control of you and the independent shipping carrier you use — not us. You're responsible for:
To the fullest extent permitted by law, ChinaVisaMail is not responsible for loss, theft, delay, misrouting, or damage caused solely by the shipping carrier before we actually receive your package — including issues caused by an address error on your end. If we provide a prepaid shipping label, that does not make ChinaVisaMail the carrier or a guarantor of the carrier's performance; it's a convenience, not a warranty.
We exercise reasonable care while your passport or original documents are in our actual possession. Nothing in these Terms limits liability for fraud, willful misconduct, gross negligence where the law does not allow that to be limited, or any other liability that cannot lawfully be waived.
We do not claim that loss during this period is impossible, and we don't ask you to accept that we're "never responsible" for anything that happens while your passport is physically with us — that kind of blanket disclaimer wouldn't be fair, and we don't think it would hold up anyway. What we do ask is that this period be judged on its own terms, separately from carrier custody before and after it, because we are the ones actually in control during it.
Once we package your passport appropriately, address it to the return address you confirmed, and hand it to the shipping carrier with tracking, your passport is then in the custody of that independent carrier — not us.
To the fullest extent permitted by law, ChinaVisaMail is not responsible for loss, theft, delay, misrouting, or damage caused solely by carrier actions or events outside our reasonable control during return shipping. If something goes wrong with the carrier, we will reasonably assist you with tracking, missing-mail searches, carrier claims, and providing proof of mailing and acceptance records we have. Helping with a claim is not an admission that we caused the problem.
Any insurance or indemnity coverage on a shipment is provided by the carrier (for example USPS), under the carrier's own terms, exclusions, coverage limits, and claim deadlines — not by ChinaVisaMail. We do not guarantee reimbursement for a lost or damaged shipment, and carrier coverage does not extend to downstream costs like airfare, hotel bookings, missed trips, tours, cruises, lost wages, or a replacement passport's full cost. If we ever offer an optional premium or insured shipping upgrade, its terms will be described accurately at the time it's offered.
You are responsible for giving us a complete, accurate return address — including apartment or unit number and ZIP code — before we ship your passport back. We confirm the address with you before return shipment where practical. ChinaVisaMail is not responsible for loss caused by an incorrect or incomplete address you provided.
We cannot guarantee visa issuance or a specific government processing date, and you remain responsible for your own travel decisions. Any timeline we give is an estimate, not a guarantee. Please leave enough time before travel — the estimated processing windows on our site already build in some cushion, but consulate and embassy speed can vary. To the fullest extent permitted by law, ChinaVisaMail is not responsible for downstream travel losses (missed flights, hotel charges, cancelled trips, and similar costs) caused by events outside our reasonable control.
To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, ChinaVisaMail is not liable for indirect, incidental, special, or consequential damages arising from events outside our reasonable control — including carrier delay or loss, government processing delay, visa denial, a request for more documents, government office closures or system outages, policy changes, or transportation disruption. Examples of excluded damages include missed flights, airfare changes, hotel charges, cancelled trips, tour or cruise costs, lost wages, and lost business. This section does not limit any right that cannot lawfully be excluded under applicable law.
To the fullest extent permitted by law, ChinaVisaMail's total liability for direct damages arising from an affected service will not exceed the amount you paid us for that specific service. This limitation does not apply to fraud, willful misconduct, gross negligence where the law does not allow that to be limited, or other liability that cannot lawfully be limited.
We are not responsible for delays caused by events reasonably outside our control, including shipping-carrier disruptions, severe weather, natural disasters, government or consulate/embassy closures, government system failures, policy changes, labor disputes, transportation interruptions, or civil emergencies. This does not excuse careless handling of your passport while it is actually in our possession — Section 8 above still applies.
Current pricing for Standard and Express service, what's included, and what's not, is always shown on our Apply page before you submit an order — that's the authoritative source, since it reflects any pricing changes immediately. As a general rule, our published price is intended to be all-inclusive of our service fee, the applicable Chinese Consulate or Embassy's own visa fee, and tracked return shipping; the one cost not included is shipping your passport to us. Accepted payment methods and the timing of payment are confirmed in the instructions we email you after you submit your application.
If a visa application is rejected by the consulate or embassy, the government's own visa fee is non-refundable, per that office's policy — this is true regardless of who submits the application. What happens to our service fee depends on the stage of the process your case had reached; because that can vary case by case, please contact us directly and we'll work through it with you. We're committed to publishing a clearer, stage-by-stage cancellation schedule here as soon as it's finalized.
We review your application, help identify avoidable problems, and perform the services included in your order. We cannot guarantee visa approval, a specific visa validity period, or a specific number of entries, because only the visa authorities can make those decisions.
Parts of our service rely on independent third parties, including shipping carriers (such as USPS), our order-form provider, our email provider, and the Chinese government's own COVA visa portal. Each of those providers operates under its own terms, which may apply to you directly.
If a shipment is lost or damaged, you agree to reasonably cooperate with any carrier missing-mail search, insurance or indemnity claim, and proof-of-loss process, including providing evidence needed for a passport replacement if applicable. We agree to preserve and provide you with the tracking numbers, proof-of-acceptance records, and other relevant shipping records we have.
You agree to use this website lawfully and not to interfere with or abuse it. All content on this site — including text, design, and graphics — belongs to Carefree Charters LLC or its licensors. Visa rules can change, and we update our website content as we learn about those changes, but we cannot guarantee the site reflects the very latest government policy at every moment — always confirm critical requirements with the consulate/embassy or the official COVA system directly.
These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, without regard to conflict-of-law principles, and any dispute will be handled in the courts located in California. We have not included mandatory arbitration, a class-action waiver, or a jury-trial waiver in these Terms; any decision to add provisions like those would require separate legal review.
We may update these Terms from time to time. The "Last Updated" date at the top of this page reflects the most recent version, and the current version always governs going forward.
Questions about these Terms? We're a real, reachable, single point of contact — not a call center.