国际学生在北京：生活成本、城区分布与校园生活

What Beijing actually costs

A realistic monthly budget for an international student living in a university dormitory is CNY 3,500–4,500. That assumes dormitory accommodation at CNY 800–1,600, meals mostly in the campus canteen at CNY 15–30 per meal, a metro card, a mobile plan of about CNY 60, and modest spending on books and social life.

If you rent off campus, expect CNY 2,500–5,000 per month for a studio or a room in a shared flat in Haidian or Chaoyang, and CNY 6,000+ in the central business districts. Most universities require you to live in the dormitory in your first year, and most students simply stay there — the dorms are on campus, which matters a great deal given Beijing traffic.

Districts that matter to students

Haidian district, in the north-west, contains the largest cluster of universities in the world: Tsinghua, Peking University, Beihang, Beijing Normal University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences institutes, plus Zhongguancun — China's original technology hub. If you are admitted to any of those, you will almost never need to leave the district.

Chaoyang is the business, embassy and nightlife district, with the highest rents and the best international food. Renmin University and the Beijing Institute of Technology are in or near Haidian; the Central Academy of Fine Arts is in Chaoyang. Changping, in the far north, hosts new campuses including Beihang's Shahe campus.

Getting around

Beijing's metro has more than 25 lines and is by far the best way to travel; a student transport card gives you a discount on every journey. Distances are large — a trip from Haidian to Chaoyang can easily take an hour — so most students organise their life around their campus and pick a few destinations in advance.

The city is extremely safe at all hours by the standards of large capitals, and the police presence in student districts is heavy. The main practical irritations are air quality on a handful of winter days and the winter cold, which runs from November to March with daytime temperatures near or below freezing.

Practical first-week tasks

Register your address with the local police station within 24 hours of arrival (your university will usually help), apply for the residence permit at the exit-entry bureau within 30 days, open a Chinese bank account so you can use WeChat Pay and Alipay, and buy a Chinese SIM card — a passport is all you need at the operator's shop.

Beijing's two international airports are Capital Airport (PEK) and Daxing (PKX). Both have metro links into the city; allow 60–90 minutes to reach a Haidian campus.