Which Crossing to Hong Kong from Shenzhen?
Choose the Hong Kong crossing by where you start, where you are going and when you need to pass immigration. Luohu, Futian, Shenzhen Bay, Man Kam To and Liantang connect to different transport, so the wrong gate adds needless transfers.
The short answer
Luohu. MTR East Rail to Lo Wu, the covered bridge, and Line 1 terminates inside the transport building you walk out into; Line 9 at Renmin Nan is the alternative. It is open 06:30-24:00, the widest window on this page, and it is the one crossing where the arrival and the metro are in the same complex. Two stops on Line 1 to Laojie for Dongmen — and note the Dongmen station on Line 5 is a different station, with an exit-and-re-enter change to Laojie. Do not take a car offered in the arrivals hall; the taxi rank is inside the transport building.
Futian if you are coming by rail: East Rail to Lok Ma Chau, 240 m of covered bridge with travelators, and Line 4 runs from inside the building — the least walking of the five. Nanshan is better served by Shenzhen Bay, which Metro Line 13 reaches and which takes the road coaches from Hong Kong airport and the B2/B3 buses from the New Territories. Watch Futian's clock: the port shuts at 22:30 and the last train in leaves Admiralty at 21:29, so after about nine in the evening fall back to Luohu.
If you are coming from Hong Kong airport, take the coach to Shenzhen Bay: the bags ride in the hold, the bus parks once, and both sets of checks happen in the same building. On foot from the MTR, Futian is the easier of the two rail crossings — Line 4 runs from inside the joint inspection building and each deck of the bridge has an 80.5 m travelator, while at Luohu you change levels by escalator and come out onto a block with three separate transport buildings. At Liantang the bus terminus, the taxi rank and the drop-off are all on level B1 of the passenger building itself. Going the other way with a flight to catch, the Shekou ferry checks your bags through to your final destination.
Late: only Luohu and Shenzhen Bay run to midnight (Futian shuts 22:30, Man Kam To and Liantang 22:00), and the Hong Kong side closes first — the last East Rail train towards Lo Wu leaves Admiralty at 23:01 and Hung Hom at 23:07, from Sheung Shui 23:43, and Hong Kong closes the roads to Shenzhen Bay about 30 minutes before the port shuts. Huanggang runs 00:00-24:00, but has no rail link on the Hong Kong side. Early: Luohu, Futian and Shenzhen Bay open at 06:30 and the other two at 07:00, and the Hong Kong stations open first — Lo Wu at 05:45, Lok Ma Chau at 06:28, which is two minutes before its own crossing.
Then you cannot arrive on this page's five crossings at all. In Shenzhen the scheme applies at Bao'an airport and Shekou passenger port only; the eligible-port list gives Guangdong ten ports from 5 November 2025, and West Kowloon high-speed station is the nearby one on the Hong Kong side. Fly into Bao'an or take the ferry into Shekou, or come in by high-speed train through West Kowloon. Once you are admitted you may leave through any open port, so entering at the airport and walking out at Luohu or Futian is fine.
For West Kowloon take the high-speed train from Futian Station — fourteen minutes at the fastest, and remember it is a different place about 2.9 km north of Futian Port — or from Shenzhen North, eighteen minutes at the fastest; immigration for both is at West Kowloon, which clears 06:30-23:30. For Hong Kong airport without entering Hong Kong, the Shekou ferry is the simpler route: one mainland exit formality, about 30 minutes to the SkyPier and no Hong Kong immigration at all, though it is airside only and no use if you want the city. Otherwise the coach from Shenzhen Bay runs to the airport, and its counters at Terminal 2 serve Shenzhen Bay roughly 06:00-22:30.
Liantang, the eastern crossing, built as the eastern half of a deliberate 'west in, west out; east in, east out' split: Metro Line 2 terminates in the port and B7, B8 and 59S run from the Hong Kong side to Fanling, Sheung Shui, Tai Po and Sha Tin. It shuts at 22:00 and the port publishes no bus times, so check the operator. Going the other way — if your target is Futian or Nanshan — Liantang is the long way round, and there is no departure tax-refund desk here.
Side by sideEach cell ends with the date of the notice it was checked against
Swipe sideways; the first column stays put
Luohu Port (Lo Wu Control Point)
罗湖口岸Open the place →- Getting there (Shenzhen side)
- Metro Line 1 terminates inside the transport building — Luohu station, exit A on the transport level, by escalator — and Line 9 is at Renmin Nan, exit A1 by the Shangri-La. Luohu bus station is the next building along, 51 coach routes and about 1,350 departures a day to the Pearl River Delta, Jiangmen, Chaoshan and Macao. The taxi rank is inside the transport building, off He Ping Road, which has had a taxi-only lane into it since 9 April 2026 (traffic police notice · 2026-09-23) · 2025-10-31
- Clearance hours & lanes
- 06:30-24:00 daily, the widest window of the five together with Shenzhen Bay. 190 inspection lanes — 115 self-service (57 inbound, 58 outbound) and 75 staffed (36 inbound, 39 outbound) — and the port office states a design target of nobody queuing more than 30 minutes, on a daily average of about 170,000 crossings and a record 395,000 in one day · 2025-10-31
- What meets you on the Hong Kong side
- MTR East Rail to Lo Wu, then the covered double-deck bridge. The Hong Kong side sets the deadline, not the port: the last train towards Lo Wu leaves Admiralty at 23:01 and Hung Hom at 23:07, from Sheung Shui it is 23:43, and Lo Wu station itself closes at 00:40 — 'open till midnight' has never meant you can still come over at 23:30. Lo Wu station itself is open 05:45-00:40 · 2026-09-23
- Passport & smart lanes
- Passport with a valid Chinese visa or another visa-free basis. The face-scan smart lanes launched here on 5 November 2025 list mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan travel documents and no foreign passport, so queue for one of the 75 staffed lanes; foreign passports are simply missing from the published list, which does not mean foreigners are barred. Since 20 November 2025 the foreigner arrival card can be filled in online beforehand at s.nia.gov.cn, or by scanning a code at the counter; hotline 12367 has English (immigration announcement · 2025-11-04) · 2025-11-03
- 240-hour visa-free transit
- Does not apply. From 5 November 2025 the eligible-port list gives Guangdong ten ports — Baiyun, Bao'an and Jieyang Chaoshan airports, the Nansha, Shekou, Pazhou and Zhongshan passenger ports, Hengqin, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge and West Kowloon high-speed station — and no Shenzhen land crossing is on it. Cross here and you need a visa or another visa-free basis · 2025-11-03
- Best for
- First-timers heading into old Shenzhen, Dongmen or anywhere on Line 1; anyone crossing late, because together with Shenzhen Bay it is the only one still open at 23:00
Futian Port (Lok Ma Chau Control Point)
福田口岸Open the place →- Getting there (Shenzhen side)
- Metro Line 4 runs from inside the building: out of the gates, escalator up to level 1A, then the departure hall on level 3. Line 10 is across the road on the west side, by a bus terminus with six routes; the ride-hail pick-up point is at that terminus and the taxi point is on the east side of the joint inspection building. The street address is 23 Yuheng Road, on the east edge of the Futian Bonded Area (six-department notice · 2025-07-23) · 2025-10-31
- Clearance hours & lanes
- 06:30-22:30 daily — an hour and a half earlier than Luohu at the late end, and open every day within those hours. 146 lanes: departures 78 (20 self-service, 58 staffed), arrivals 68 (20 self-service, 48 staffed), on a design capacity of 250,000 crossings a day · 2025-10-31
- What meets you on the Hong Kong side
- MTR East Rail to Lok Ma Chau, then 240 m of covered two-deck bridge — upper deck out, lower deck in, with an 80.5 m travelator on each Shenzhen deck — straight into the building. Lok Ma Chau sits inside Hong Kong's closed border area: outside the station there is only a taxi rank, green minibus 75 and bus B1. The last train in leaves Admiralty at 21:29 and Hung Hom at 21:35 and the station closes at 23:05, so from central Hong Kong your real deadline is half past nine, not half past ten · 2026-09-23
- Passport & smart lanes
- Passport with a valid Chinese visa or another visa-free basis. Futian is named among the ports where the face-scan smart lanes were rolled out, and the announcement's list of eligible documents covers mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan travel documents only — no foreign passport — so queue for a staffed lane; there are 58 of them outbound and 48 inbound. The arrival card can be filled in online since 20 November 2025 (immigration announcement · 2025-11-04) · 2025-11-03
- 240-hour visa-free transit
- Does not apply. The attachment to the immigration announcement lists ten Guangdong ports from 5 November 2025 and Futian is not among them; for this region the table names Bao'an airport, Shekou passenger port and, on the Hong Kong side, West Kowloon high-speed station · 2025-11-03
- Best for
- anyone staying along Line 4 — Children's Palace, Civic Center, Shangmeilin — and anyone who wants metro-to-metro with no street walking and no level changes outside a building
Shenzhen Bay Port
深圳湾口岸Open the place →- Getting there (Shenzhen side)
- Metro Line 13 reaches Shenzhen Bay Port station, right outside the passenger building, since 28 December 2024. Two bus stations: the main terminus on Jinwan East 4th Road about 90 m north of the building, and a smaller one on Jinwan West 2nd Road. Address 1 Dongbin Road, Dongjiaotou, Nanshan · 2025-10-31
- Clearance hours & lanes
- Passengers 06:30-24:00, freight lanes round the clock. 62 outbound passenger lanes (15 staffed, 47 self-service) and 55 inbound (17 staffed, 38 self-service), built for 60,000 passengers and 58,700 vehicles a day. One caveat on the number: a city culture bureau page describes the port's hours as 06:00-24:00 while the port office's own two pages both say 06:30 — treat 06:30 as the safe figure · 2025-10-31
- What meets you on the Hong Kong side
- No railway on either side; this is the road crossing, and both sets of officers sit in the same building on the Shenzhen side, so the bus parks once. Cross-border coaches from Hong Kong airport leave the Mainland/Macao transport counters in Terminal 2 and serve Shenzhen Bay roughly 06:00-22:30; from the New Territories the franchised B2 and B3 series buses run to the port. Hong Kong closes the approach roads about 30 minutes before the port shuts, and lists the same 06:30-to-midnight for passengers. The port office publishes a monthly table of every coach company, route, timetable and fare · 2025-11-04
- Passport & smart lanes
- Passport with a valid Chinese visa or another visa-free basis. The face-scan smart lanes were piloted here, and the announcement's list of eligible documents names mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan travel documents only, with no foreign passport among them, so queue for a staffed counter — 15 outbound, 17 inbound. A 24-hour-format one-stop service centre for foreign visitors sits on the outer corridor of the arrivals hall, five counters covering payment, tourism, telecoms, transport and immigration · 2025-11-03
- 240-hour visa-free transit
- Does not apply. The November 2025 immigration notice added five Guangdong ports from 5 November 2025, bringing the province to ten and including road and rail crossings such as Hengqin, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge and West Kowloon station — but Shenzhen Bay is not among them, and no land crossing inside Shenzhen is. In Shenzhen the eligible ports are Bao'an airport and Shekou passenger port only · 2025-11-03
- Best for
- anyone arriving by road — off a Hong Kong airport coach or a B2/B3 from the New Territories — and anyone bound for Nanshan, Shekou or the Shenzhen Bay waterfront
Man Kam To Port (Wenjindu)
文锦渡口岸Open the place →- Getting there (Shenzhen side)
- Metro Line 9 terminates at Wenjin; exit B is about 350 m from the port in a straight line. Buses 2, 5, M445 and M468 stop at Wenjindu Kou'an on both sides of Yanhe South Road. Address 1188 Yanhe South Road, Huangbei Subdistrict, Luohu — the end of national highway G107 · 2025-10-31
- Clearance hours & lanes
- 07:00-22:00 daily, two hours earlier than Luohu at the late end and half an hour later in the morning. 18 outbound passenger lanes (8 staffed, 10 self-service) and 18 inbound on the same split, designed for 30,000 passengers a day but actually running a little over 4,000 — which is the whole reason to come here · 2025-10-31
- What meets you on the Hong Kong side
- Man Kam To, and no rail on either side. From Hong Kong you arrive by the Wah Tung or Yue Gang cross-boundary coach between Man Kam To and Sheung Shui Landmark North; the port office names those two operators but publishes neither fares nor a timetable, so ask the operator before you build a day around it · 2025-10-31
- Passport & smart lanes
- Passport with a valid Chinese visa or another visa-free basis; foreign passports are not on the published list of documents eligible for the face-scan smart lanes, so use one of the 8 staffed lanes in your direction. The arrival card can be filled in online since 20 November 2025 (immigration announcement · 2025-11-04) · 2025-11-03
- 240-hour visa-free transit
- Does not apply, like every land crossing here; in Shenzhen the scheme works at Bao'an airport and Shekou passenger port only, with West Kowloon station as the nearby option on the Hong Kong side · 2025-11-03
- Best for
- the traveller who values a short queue above everything and has a cross-boundary coach seat or a car; nobody who needs a train on either side
Liantang Port (Heung Yuen Wai Control Point)
莲塘口岸Open the place →- Getting there (Shenzhen side)
- Metro Line 2 terminates at Liantang Kou'an: exit A3 at Lanting International Plaza on Luosha Road has the escalator, A2 the step-free lift. The bus terminus is on level B1 of the passenger building itself, as are taxis and drop-off (39 taxi spaces); B2 is public parking, 327 spaces including 2 accessible bays · 2025-10-31
- Clearance hours & lanes
- 07:00-22:00 daily, two hours earlier than Luohu at the late end. Designed for 30,000 passengers a day and now running about 65,000, with a peak over 100,000 — so not the empty one any more, though still about a third of Luohu · 2025-10-31
- What meets you on the Hong Kong side
- Heung Yuen Wai, and you do not need a train: buses B7, B8 and 59S leave from the ground floor on the Hong Kong side straight to Fanling, Sheung Shui, Tai Po and Sha Tin. Times and fares are not published by the port, so check the operator · 2025-10-31
- Passport & smart lanes
- Passport with a valid Chinese visa or another visa-free basis. The face-scan lanes were rolled out here on 5 November 2025 and their published document list covers mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan travel documents only, so queue for a staffed lane; no lane count is published for this port. Arrival card online since 20 November 2025 (immigration announcement · 2025-11-04) · 2025-11-03
- 240-hour visa-free transit
- Does not apply, like every land crossing here; in Shenzhen it is Bao'an airport and Shekou passenger port only (West Kowloon station on the Hong Kong side) · 2025-11-03
- Best for
- anyone heading for Yantian, Dapeng, Wutong Mountain or Xianhu — the eastern half of the city; not for Futian or Nanshan, which Luohu and Futian reach faster
| Compare | Luohu Port (Lo Wu Control Point) | Futian Port (Lok Ma Chau Control Point) | Shenzhen Bay Port | Man Kam To Port (Wenjindu) | Liantang Port (Heung Yuen Wai Control Point) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Getting there (Shenzhen side) | Metro Line 1 terminates inside the transport building — Luohu station, exit A on the transport level, by escalator — and Line 9 is at Renmin Nan, exit A1 by the Shangri-La. Luohu bus station is the next building along, 51 coach routes and about 1,350 departures a day to the Pearl River Delta, Jiangmen, Chaoshan and Macao. The taxi rank is inside the transport building, off He Ping Road, which has had a taxi-only lane into it since 9 April 2026 (traffic police notice · 2026-09-23) · 2025-10-31 | Metro Line 4 runs from inside the building: out of the gates, escalator up to level 1A, then the departure hall on level 3. Line 10 is across the road on the west side, by a bus terminus with six routes; the ride-hail pick-up point is at that terminus and the taxi point is on the east side of the joint inspection building. The street address is 23 Yuheng Road, on the east edge of the Futian Bonded Area (six-department notice · 2025-07-23) · 2025-10-31 | Metro Line 13 reaches Shenzhen Bay Port station, right outside the passenger building, since 28 December 2024. Two bus stations: the main terminus on Jinwan East 4th Road about 90 m north of the building, and a smaller one on Jinwan West 2nd Road. Address 1 Dongbin Road, Dongjiaotou, Nanshan · 2025-10-31 | Metro Line 9 terminates at Wenjin; exit B is about 350 m from the port in a straight line. Buses 2, 5, M445 and M468 stop at Wenjindu Kou'an on both sides of Yanhe South Road. Address 1188 Yanhe South Road, Huangbei Subdistrict, Luohu — the end of national highway G107 · 2025-10-31 | Metro Line 2 terminates at Liantang Kou'an: exit A3 at Lanting International Plaza on Luosha Road has the escalator, A2 the step-free lift. The bus terminus is on level B1 of the passenger building itself, as are taxis and drop-off (39 taxi spaces); B2 is public parking, 327 spaces including 2 accessible bays · 2025-10-31 |
| Clearance hours & lanes | 06:30-24:00 daily, the widest window of the five together with Shenzhen Bay. 190 inspection lanes — 115 self-service (57 inbound, 58 outbound) and 75 staffed (36 inbound, 39 outbound) — and the port office states a design target of nobody queuing more than 30 minutes, on a daily average of about 170,000 crossings and a record 395,000 in one day · 2025-10-31 | 06:30-22:30 daily — an hour and a half earlier than Luohu at the late end, and open every day within those hours. 146 lanes: departures 78 (20 self-service, 58 staffed), arrivals 68 (20 self-service, 48 staffed), on a design capacity of 250,000 crossings a day · 2025-10-31 | Passengers 06:30-24:00, freight lanes round the clock. 62 outbound passenger lanes (15 staffed, 47 self-service) and 55 inbound (17 staffed, 38 self-service), built for 60,000 passengers and 58,700 vehicles a day. One caveat on the number: a city culture bureau page describes the port's hours as 06:00-24:00 while the port office's own two pages both say 06:30 — treat 06:30 as the safe figure · 2025-10-31 | 07:00-22:00 daily, two hours earlier than Luohu at the late end and half an hour later in the morning. 18 outbound passenger lanes (8 staffed, 10 self-service) and 18 inbound on the same split, designed for 30,000 passengers a day but actually running a little over 4,000 — which is the whole reason to come here · 2025-10-31 | 07:00-22:00 daily, two hours earlier than Luohu at the late end. Designed for 30,000 passengers a day and now running about 65,000, with a peak over 100,000 — so not the empty one any more, though still about a third of Luohu · 2025-10-31 |
| What meets you on the Hong Kong side | MTR East Rail to Lo Wu, then the covered double-deck bridge. The Hong Kong side sets the deadline, not the port: the last train towards Lo Wu leaves Admiralty at 23:01 and Hung Hom at 23:07, from Sheung Shui it is 23:43, and Lo Wu station itself closes at 00:40 — 'open till midnight' has never meant you can still come over at 23:30. Lo Wu station itself is open 05:45-00:40 · 2026-09-23 | MTR East Rail to Lok Ma Chau, then 240 m of covered two-deck bridge — upper deck out, lower deck in, with an 80.5 m travelator on each Shenzhen deck — straight into the building. Lok Ma Chau sits inside Hong Kong's closed border area: outside the station there is only a taxi rank, green minibus 75 and bus B1. The last train in leaves Admiralty at 21:29 and Hung Hom at 21:35 and the station closes at 23:05, so from central Hong Kong your real deadline is half past nine, not half past ten · 2026-09-23 | No railway on either side; this is the road crossing, and both sets of officers sit in the same building on the Shenzhen side, so the bus parks once. Cross-border coaches from Hong Kong airport leave the Mainland/Macao transport counters in Terminal 2 and serve Shenzhen Bay roughly 06:00-22:30; from the New Territories the franchised B2 and B3 series buses run to the port. Hong Kong closes the approach roads about 30 minutes before the port shuts, and lists the same 06:30-to-midnight for passengers. The port office publishes a monthly table of every coach company, route, timetable and fare · 2025-11-04 | Man Kam To, and no rail on either side. From Hong Kong you arrive by the Wah Tung or Yue Gang cross-boundary coach between Man Kam To and Sheung Shui Landmark North; the port office names those two operators but publishes neither fares nor a timetable, so ask the operator before you build a day around it · 2025-10-31 | Heung Yuen Wai, and you do not need a train: buses B7, B8 and 59S leave from the ground floor on the Hong Kong side straight to Fanling, Sheung Shui, Tai Po and Sha Tin. Times and fares are not published by the port, so check the operator · 2025-10-31 |
| Passport & smart lanes | Passport with a valid Chinese visa or another visa-free basis. The face-scan smart lanes launched here on 5 November 2025 list mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan travel documents and no foreign passport, so queue for one of the 75 staffed lanes; foreign passports are simply missing from the published list, which does not mean foreigners are barred. Since 20 November 2025 the foreigner arrival card can be filled in online beforehand at s.nia.gov.cn, or by scanning a code at the counter; hotline 12367 has English (immigration announcement · 2025-11-04) · 2025-11-03 | Passport with a valid Chinese visa or another visa-free basis. Futian is named among the ports where the face-scan smart lanes were rolled out, and the announcement's list of eligible documents covers mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan travel documents only — no foreign passport — so queue for a staffed lane; there are 58 of them outbound and 48 inbound. The arrival card can be filled in online since 20 November 2025 (immigration announcement · 2025-11-04) · 2025-11-03 | Passport with a valid Chinese visa or another visa-free basis. The face-scan smart lanes were piloted here, and the announcement's list of eligible documents names mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan travel documents only, with no foreign passport among them, so queue for a staffed counter — 15 outbound, 17 inbound. A 24-hour-format one-stop service centre for foreign visitors sits on the outer corridor of the arrivals hall, five counters covering payment, tourism, telecoms, transport and immigration · 2025-11-03 | Passport with a valid Chinese visa or another visa-free basis; foreign passports are not on the published list of documents eligible for the face-scan smart lanes, so use one of the 8 staffed lanes in your direction. The arrival card can be filled in online since 20 November 2025 (immigration announcement · 2025-11-04) · 2025-11-03 | Passport with a valid Chinese visa or another visa-free basis. The face-scan lanes were rolled out here on 5 November 2025 and their published document list covers mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan travel documents only, so queue for a staffed lane; no lane count is published for this port. Arrival card online since 20 November 2025 (immigration announcement · 2025-11-04) · 2025-11-03 |
| 240-hour visa-free transit | Does not apply. From 5 November 2025 the eligible-port list gives Guangdong ten ports — Baiyun, Bao'an and Jieyang Chaoshan airports, the Nansha, Shekou, Pazhou and Zhongshan passenger ports, Hengqin, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge and West Kowloon high-speed station — and no Shenzhen land crossing is on it. Cross here and you need a visa or another visa-free basis · 2025-11-03 | Does not apply. The attachment to the immigration announcement lists ten Guangdong ports from 5 November 2025 and Futian is not among them; for this region the table names Bao'an airport, Shekou passenger port and, on the Hong Kong side, West Kowloon high-speed station · 2025-11-03 | Does not apply. The November 2025 immigration notice added five Guangdong ports from 5 November 2025, bringing the province to ten and including road and rail crossings such as Hengqin, the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge and West Kowloon station — but Shenzhen Bay is not among them, and no land crossing inside Shenzhen is. In Shenzhen the eligible ports are Bao'an airport and Shekou passenger port only · 2025-11-03 | Does not apply, like every land crossing here; in Shenzhen the scheme works at Bao'an airport and Shekou passenger port only, with West Kowloon station as the nearby option on the Hong Kong side · 2025-11-03 | Does not apply, like every land crossing here; in Shenzhen it is Bao'an airport and Shekou passenger port only (West Kowloon station on the Hong Kong side) · 2025-11-03 |
| Best for | First-timers heading into old Shenzhen, Dongmen or anywhere on Line 1; anyone crossing late, because together with Shenzhen Bay it is the only one still open at 23:00 | anyone staying along Line 4 — Children's Palace, Civic Center, Shangmeilin — and anyone who wants metro-to-metro with no street walking and no level changes outside a building | anyone arriving by road — off a Hong Kong airport coach or a B2/B3 from the New Territories — and anyone bound for Nanshan, Shekou or the Shenzhen Bay waterfront | the traveller who values a short queue above everything and has a cross-boundary coach seat or a car; nobody who needs a train on either side | anyone heading for Yantian, Dapeng, Wutong Mountain or Xianhu — the eastern half of the city; not for Futian or Nanshan, which Luohu and Futian reach faster |
Futian Station (Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong High-Speed Railway)：Not a crossing at all, and not Futian Port: the high-speed station buried three levels under the middle of the CBD, about 2.9 km north of the port in a straight line and not walkable from it. Its point is the fourteen minutes to West Kowloon, one of the fastest ways between the two cities; Shenzhen North also runs direct West Kowloon trains (18 minutes at the fastest), while Shenzhen station in Luohu and Shenzhen East have none. Immigration is not done here: the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong line uses co-location at West Kowloon, where the mainland port area sits inside Hong Kong territory and clears 06:30-23:30 — if that port is shut there is no cross-border train, whatever the station looks like. And since 5 November 2025 the West Kowloon port is one of the crossings where 240-hour visa-free transit applies, which no Shenzhen land crossing is; having entered that way you may leave through any open port, including the five above. Level B1 is the transfer concourse for Metro Lines 2, 3 and 11. anyone whose destination is Hong Kong's urban core rather than the border, and anyone entering China visa-free on the 240-hour transit through West Kowloon. → See “Which of Shenzhen's Four Railway Stations?”
Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport, Terminal 3：One of only two Shenzhen ports where the 240-hour visa-free transit actually works — the other is Shekou cruise port. Luohu, Futian, Huanggang, Shenzhen Bay, Liantang and Man Kam To do not qualify, whatever a blog tells you. The reverse is true and useful: once you are admitted on the scheme you may leave through any open port, including the land crossings to Hong Kong, so flying in here and walking out at Luohu is legal. Do not navigate by station name — Line 1's 'Airport East' is not this terminal and 'Airport North' on Lines 11 and 20 is the intercity rail station; the only metro under Terminal 3 is Line 11 'Airport', whose entrance is inside the GTC ground transportation hall. Hong Kong cross-boundary coaches leave from the west platform on GTC level 2, and a 24-hour Service Centre for Overseas Visitors sits just east of the international arrivals exit, with counters for payment, tourism, SIM cards, transit cards and immigration questions. the visa-free traveller on a through ticket to a third country, who cannot use any land crossing on this page for that.
Shekou Cruise Home Port (Shekou Ferry Terminal)：The other port where the 240-hour transit works, and a boat rather than a crossing: fast ferries to Hong Kong International Airport, Hong Kong Island, Macau and Zhuhai, with passenger clearance 07:00-22:30. Read the airport route for what it is — a sealed transfer, not a way into Hong Kong: you clear mainland exit once, cross in about 30 minutes to the airport's SkyPier and never pass Hong Kong immigration at all, and the operator states it is only for passengers transiting to a third country and not for anyone needing to enter the Hong Kong urban area. The timings are unforgiving and not consistent between the operator's own pages — check-in and baggage close 45 or 30 minutes before departure depending on which page you read, so follow your booking page on the day. Routes and sailings change constantly and the operator publishes suspensions route by route, so check on the day you travel rather than trusting any schedule read in advance, including ours. Metro Line 12 to Taiziwan, exit A, 4-6 minutes on foot. someone flying out of Hong Kong airport without entering Hong Kong; and the second of the two ports where a 240-hour visa-free entry works.
One by one
Luohu Port (Lo Wu Control Point)
罗湖口岸The default answer to 'which crossing': MTR East Rail to Lo Wu, up the escalator, through immigration, and you step out onto a block that also holds Shenzhen railway station, Luohu bus station and two metro lines. It has the widest window of the five (06:30 to midnight) and 190 lanes built so that, in the port office's own words, nobody queues more than half an hour on a daily average of about 170,000 crossings. Two cautions. Work the clock backwards from the Hong Kong timetable, because the last East Rail train towards Lo Wu leaves Admiralty at 23:01, not at midnight. And ignore anyone who offers you a car in the arrivals hall: in a case the provincial transport department published in November 2025, a passenger who took one from here to Futian paid 90 yuan for a 20 yuan ride and the driver got five days' detention — the taxi rank is inside the transport building. For the default first crossing for anyone going into the city centre; and, with Shenzhen Bay, the only one of the five still open at 23:00.
Open the place →Futian Port (Lok Ma Chau Control Point)
福田口岸The metro-to-metro crossing: East Rail to Lok Ma Chau, 240 m across a covered bridge with travelators, and you step onto Shenzhen Metro Line 4 without ever going outside. If you are staying in Futian it is the obvious one, and the walking is the least of the five. Two traps. The clock: it shuts at 22:30, and the Hong Kong side stops much earlier still, with the last train in leaving Admiralty at 21:29. And the name: Futian Port and Futian Station are two different places about 2.9 km apart in a straight line, and only the second one has trains — see the footnote below. Like every land crossing in Shenzhen, it is not a 240-hour visa-free transit port. For the Futian-based traveller, and anyone with a case to wheel who would rather not change levels in the open.
Open the place →Shenzhen Bay Port
深圳湾口岸The crossing you use if you are coming by road: the bus drives the 5.5 km Shenzhen Bay Bridge, parks once, and you clear Hong Kong departure and mainland entry in the same building without getting back on board in between — it opened on 1 July 2007 as the country's first land crossing run on that co-location model. Come here for the bus, not for the sight; there is nothing to see, and the three things called Shenzhen Bay are a port, a park and a bridge. One thing to plan around on the way out: the departure tax-refund desk is in the passenger hall only, and the six-department notice says in as many words that the vehicle lanes have no refund counter, so anyone crossing seated in a vehicle cannot claim the VAT back — go through the passenger building instead. Not a 240-hour visa-free transit port. For the road arrival, especially straight off a Hong Kong airport coach; and anyone whose hotel is in Nanshan rather than Luohu or Futian.
Open the place →Man Kam To Port (Wenjindu)
文锦渡口岸The quiet crossing between Luohu and Liantang, and the numbers explain it: a little over 4,000 passengers a day against Luohu's 170,000, across 18 lanes each way. It opened in 1978 (one of only two land crossings Shenzhen had before reform and opening), and it is still mostly a goods port, the road by which Hong Kong gets its live and fresh produce, with 18 of the 30 vehicle lanes given to lorries. It is useful precisely because nobody uses it, but only if your onward transport works: no rail on either side, and the port publishes no coach timetable. Inside there is one currency-exchange point and a single Bank of China self-service point, and no mobile-operator shop at all — buy your SIM somewhere else. For the short-queue crossing for someone already on a cross-boundary coach; not a fallback for anyone arriving by rail.
Open the place →Liantang Port (Heung Yuen Wai Control Point)
莲塘口岸Shenzhen's newest land crossing (goods from August 2020, passengers from February 2023) and the main one for the eastern side of the city. It was built as the eastern half of a deliberate 'west in, west out; east in, east out' split of cross-border traffic, which is why it is the sensible crossing for Yantian, Dapeng, Wutong Mountain or Xianhu and the wrong one for the CBD. The Hong Kong side needs no train: B7, B8 and 59S run from the ground floor to Fanling, Sheung Shui, Tai Po and Sha Tin, though the port publishes no timings. One thing it does not have is a departure tax-refund desk: when Luohu's opened on 31 July 2025 the port office counted six in the city (Man Kam To, Futian, Shenzhen Bay, Bao'an airport, Shekou cruise terminal and Luohu), and Liantang is not one of them. For the traveller whose Shenzhen is Yantian, Dapeng or the eastern hills, arriving from the northern New Territories by bus.
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