What you need before you book
A Forbidden City reservation is built around a single piece of identification: the passport number you enter when you book is the one checked at the gate, so decide which document you are traveling on before you start. You will also need a payment method that works from outside mainland China if you are booking through the official site rather than the WeChat mini-program, and a firm visit date, since tickets are date- and time-specific rather than open-ended. If you plan to use the WeChat route, having the mini-program set up and your details entered in advance saves time once the booking window opens, because popular dates can fill within the release window. Group members traveling together generally need to be booked individually, each against their own passport, so gather everyone's passport numbers before you sit down to book.
Booking without a mainland phone number
International visitors who try to book through the WeChat mini-program sometimes hit a wall where the flow expects a mainland Chinese mobile number for verification, which most travelers do not have. The Palace Museum's own workaround for this is an email booking route: send your full name, passport number and intended visit date to bookingticket@dpm.org.cn at least one calendar day before your visit. This email option is slower to confirm than the app, so build in a buffer rather than sending it the night before you plan to go. If email booking still feels uncertain, a hotel concierge in Beijing or a licensed local booking agent can usually complete the reservation on your behalf using the passport details you provide, which is a reasonable fallback if the digital channels are giving you trouble close to your travel date.
Choosing your date and entry time
The Forbidden City follows a fixed weekly and seasonal pattern that shapes which dates and times are worth booking. It is closed on Mondays year-round, with an exception during national traditional holidays when it may open instead. Entry times also shift by season: from 1 April to 31 October the museum runs 08:30 to 17:00 with last entry at 16:00, and from 1 November to 31 March it runs 08:30 to 16:30 with last entry at 15:30. Because tickets for international visitors can only be reserved up to seven days in advance, and the booking window for a given date opens at 20:00 seven days before, you cannot lock in a Forbidden City slot as part of an early trip-planning pass — it has to be handled in the week before you actually go, which is worth flagging if you are building a longer Beijing itinerary around it.
At the gate on the day
Entry to the Forbidden City is through the Meridian Gate, or Wu men, on the south side of the complex, which is the gate matched to your online reservation; the site also has a north gate, the Gate of Divine Prowess, and eastern and western Gate of Prosperity entrances, but those are not where you check in for a booked ticket. Staff verify the passport you used to book against the name and number on your reservation, so a different passport, even a second valid one, will not match. The museum caps daily visitors at 40,000, and that cap is enforced through the reservation system itself rather than through a queue at the door, so a confirmed booking is what secures your place rather than arriving early.
If your plans change
Plans shift, and the Palace Museum's refund rules reward canceling early rather than not showing up. If you cancel through your original payment method before 24:00 the day before your visit date, the refund goes through with no penalty. Cancel later than that — any time up to 20:00 on the visit day itself — and it is treated as a missed appointment rather than a clean refund. After 20:00 on the day of your visit, no refund is possible at all. This matters beyond the money: the Palace Museum tracks missed appointments, and three of them within 180 days results in a 60-day ban from booking further tickets, which is worth knowing if your Beijing plans are still loose enough that a Forbidden City date might get bumped.
What this guide does not cover
This guide covers the reservation mechanics for entering the Forbidden City itself, not the adjoining Tiananmen Square, which runs its own separate security screening and reservation process and is not unlocked by a Palace Museum ticket. It also does not quote ticket prices or the cost of add-on exhibitions and special halls inside the complex, since those change and are best checked on the official booking page at the time you book rather than taken from a guide written months earlier. If your visit involves a specific temporary exhibition, verify on the museum's own site whether it requires a separate ticket on top of general admission.