China-North Korea trains to resume after six-year halt: travel agents

Passenger train services between China and North Korea will resume on March 12, 2026, after a six-year hiatus.

Passenger train services between China and North Korea will resume on Thursday (March 12, 2026), six years after their suspension due to the Covid-19 pandemic, travel operators have told AFP.

Train journeys between the two countries were halted in 2020 as they imposed strict border closures to prevent the coronavirus from spreading.

While China has since fully reopened its borders, North Korea has proceeded more slowly, though direct flights and train services with Russia resumed last year.

But travel agents for an official ticketing booth in Beijing told AFP on Tuesday (March 10, 2026) that anyone with a valid visa was now able to buy train tickets to the diplomatically isolated nation.

This would include Chinese people working and studying in North Korea, as well as North Koreans working, studying and visiting family abroad.

Another such ticketing booth in the Chinese border city of Dandong told AFP that sales would resume on Wednesday (March 10, 2026) but tourists were not yet eligible to buy tickets.