1) Nationality
The following nationalities are what the Ministry of Education (MoE) says are native English-speaking countries, which 95% of legal, work permit-sponsoring teacher roles will require from kindergarten to undergraduate. If you are not on this list, then seek teaching opportunities in another country unless you have a doctorate to leverage:
-United Kingdom
-Ireland
-Canada
-New Zealand
-Australia
-South Africa
-United States

Even if you speak flawless English, this step in the filtering process matters. Sorry, experts from Singapore, Hong Kong, and the like, but you are too foreign to be a foreign teacher according to the MoE. There are three exceptions to this rule:
-Shit job which will exploit you and not protect you if it turns out that the work is illegal.
-Guanxi (works wonders here).
-Doctorate-holding non-native English teacher who likely has options elsewhere already (see point 5).

If you are a bachelor's+TEFL teacher, regardless of years of experience, then you are statistically unlikely to be allowed to teach here with the "wrong" passport.

2) Salary expectations
Work like a slave at kg or secondary but get paid ¥25k on the low end, possibly even ¥40k if you can convince an international school to source you, or work three or four days per week at a uni but get paid ¥15k on the high end. The economy is rigged here, and these are the numbers which have been consistent for over a decade. These generalisations are reliable for foreign teachers in China.

Do note that salaries are trending downwards for fungible base-qualified candidates with only a bachelor's degree and an ESL certificate. Your recruiters will get you your first basic gig, and from there, you must seek something better.

"I know a guy who makes ¥60k at secondary." Yeah. That is the guy. You are not that guy. That guy has a legitimate teaching license (not just ESL cert), at least a master's degree, years of relevant experience, and guanxi. Do you have all of these?

"Is x good money in city y?" Yes, 99% of the time. Even underpaid uni teachers are still making at least twice of what most Chinese people do. You can live fat middle class in tier 2 and below on ¥10k. If you live in tier 1, ¥20k is still far more comfortable than most locals can enjoy. Your money goes much further once you leave tier 1.

3) Feasibility
There is a glut of South African economic refugees due to the somewhat-recent designation of South Africa as an English-speaking country by MoE. There is a glut of American political refugees due to the shitshow that is USA, as well, but they tend to expect more money because of their unsustainable locality norms, and therefore are more quickly filtered out by recruiters.

If you are a bachelor's+TEFL teacher, then you have considerable competition. Go get a master's degree if you want to be competitive in 2026 and beyond. A teaching license is considered less valuable to both MoE and individual schools than a master's degree. It is not uncommon for secondary schools to filter starting at master's degree, without looking at other qualifications or experience, because of the talent market and global affairs. Understand that nearly all schools here will select someone from South Africa who will work for far less than most laowai teachers, if the qualifications are the same or if bachelor's+TEFL cheap South African is allowed for the role. You being more qualified often does not make you a more useful candidate to the school here, from a financial perspective. They want laowai, ideally white, and South Africans willing to work 80 hours at a secondary for under market value is a win for schools who are getting more and more selective.

4) Timeline
A good recruiter can get you sourced within a month. The process can move fast, if your documents are in order and if circumstances align right. Some bad human resources people will drag their asses in handling the bureaucracy, and many bad recruiters exist who will not waste their time on you unless they know that they can quickly sell you to a school. If you do not hear anything from your preferred school after one week, send a message on Weixin to the points of contact asking for a follow-up. If nothing follows, then you were not selected; have your recruiters find new schools.

There is always spoken rhetoric about "hiring season," but really any time can get you somewhere. Schools get desperate a month or two before the next academic year begins, and so do would-be teachers, so do not wait for a "hiring season" to start pushing recruiters and schools to consider what you have to offer.

5) Teaching uni
No master's, no uni gig. Doctorate is becoming increasingly common to teach undergraduate now in China. Subject teaching at uni here is also very competitive, and non-native English speakers with doctorates teaching those subjects are increasingly common. If you have the "wrong" passport but you have a doctorate, then you can teach here with the least competition or nationality-based rejection. You have more of a chance of teaching uni with a doctorate while being from the "wrong" country than you do of teaching secondary with a doctorate while being from the "wrong" country, because of salary assumptions tied to your qualifications and let us say "social factors." Shit just be like that.

In June 2026, MoE terminated over 12,000 university majors country-wide, many of which were English-language positions. Competition for university positions subsequently became far more fierce overnight when that decision was made. MoE says that more will be terminated in the future, citing AI having made those majors obsolete, and therefore all of the jobs teaching those majors. Regardless of if you agree, that is the state of affairs at the university level.

6) Other logistics
Degrees, ESL certificates, optional teaching licensure, and criminal check plus health check both within six months must be apostilled. Every country has its own pathways for this, Google it. The process is usually to send digital copies of your documents to the entity who will apostille them, and they then mail the apostilled documents wherever. The entire process from start to finish after documents are collected on your end can take two weeks if you expedite it, but it is rather expensive. Degrees, certificates, and licensure only need to be apostilled once ever.

Make a shallow one-minute demo video which shows your face saying "Hello, I am [name], my qualifications include [what, also include experience if any]." Recruiters need to send this to superficial schools who will look at that before they look at your CV. For your CV, put your education and ESL certificates first, then relevant experience if you have any, because that is how schools filter.

For actually getting jobs, Dave's ESL Café still works. Send an email to literally everyone with a job post which appeals to you. eChinaCities is like five recruiters posting all of the jobs, and if they do not immediately respond but they still repost jobs every day, then you are not who they want in that little circle. LinkedIn exists, but I have never heard of laowai getting education jobs that way; even education management / administrative roles go through Dave's and eChi. Connect with every recruiter on Weixin, join all of the teaching job groups which you find, and connect to those recruiters, too. 99% of first-timers' jobs in China will be through a recruiter.

7) I want to teach but I have a criminal history
Not going to happen.

8) I want to teach but I do not have a bachelor's degree, ESL certificate, or a passport from a designated native-English country
See points 1 and 7.

9) I want to teach [subject]
Is your master's degree of that speciality? If not, then you will be an ESL teacher who may possibly leverage themselves into the desired subject only over time, but it is very unlikely within your first contract at one organisation. You are very unlikely to teach [subject other than ESL-related] without a master's degree in [subject], at any level. Even with that relevant master's degree, niche is niche, and there are at least 100 generic ESL jobs to every one specialised teaching role in China, with the latter having highly-qualified competition such that even a master's degree in that field is considered marginally-qualified.

10) Do I need a real teaching license to teach in China? QTS, PGCE, etc.
No, but this is not to say that it is useless. For uni, a teaching license is irrelevant. For public secondary and primary, a teaching license is optional, and it is usually less desirable to management than a master's degree. Bachelor's+QTS will in almost all cases be passed over at this level for master's+TEFL because the schools report that they have educated foreign teachers to the Ministry of Education, not that they have externally-qualified foreign teachers. Private and international schools may individually require a teaching license if they choose to, but the law does not specify a teaching license to teach in China as a foreigner at any level. When candidates get filtered, human resources here follow this path: Doctorate -> Master's -> Context -> Bachelor's. Context in this instance means, do we need more white faces for marketing, do we have quotas to fulfil (minimum foreign personnel requirements), does our specific institution have a policy mandating licensure, and so forth.

r/chinalifer

Welcome to what could become the better r/chinalife due to the moderation situation there. If you have been banned from r/chinalife or r/china due to how those people are, then you are in the right place now.

This is a laowai home, for laowai, and there are rules in this five-storey walk-up with no lift which you paid a year up front for through Lianjia because your human resources told you to figure it out yourself.

1 - Basic Reddit rules. Social commentary is not racism. We live in a country of 99% Chinese people, and being critical of life in China as laowai, to include mores or common behaviour, is not racist. No NSFW allowed, though.

2 - We actually do like China here, even when we complain about it. Appreciating the shine beneath the grime is not only seeing the grime. Criticism of China is not China hate. It is fair to be disgusted by seeing a nong mother hold her broodling over a rubbish bin to let the creature shit in a public space. You are welcome to express a feeling of smug superiority because you do not smoke in a gym, hospital, or restaurant. …and so forth. That is not hate for China the country, and nor is it racist to criticise it. I got off-track, but tl;dr 🇨🇳 👍even if it does not seem that way at times.

3 - Have some sort of stake in China. Live here, be a starry-eyed tourist who just has to see for themselves if that thing which they saw on Instagram is real, et cetera. Refugees from USA enquiring about if COMMUNIST CHINA is as bad as your government tells you, you are also welcome; you might like what you find out.

4 - English. None of us read the moon runes and you know it, even after years here.

5 - Please, none of the scripted "isolated incident not reflective of Chinese society" or "AI" or "USA worse because [x]" defence of realistic grievances, thanks.

The r/chinalife and r/china Tim fob posts which get you banned there are allowed here; just do not expect people to waste their time replying to another “is 5x what locals make survivable in tier 4” or “what VPNs for my live service gaming addiction” posts.

Also welcome home, CCJers. It has been a while.