If you have been on TikTok, YouTube or Instagram in the past year, you have already met Chongqing. The monorail running through a residential building. The 22-storey-high flyover. Hongyadong lighting up like a scene from *Spirited Away*. Overseas travellers keep calling it one thing: **cyberpunk**.

The numbers back the hype. In the first half of 2026, passenger trips through Chongqing Jiangbei Airport rose 39.5% year on year — the fastest growth among China's top ten airports — and foreign arrivals at the city's ports climbed 86%. Inbound flight bookings to Chongqing grew about 30%, the steepest rise on the national top-ten list.

But Chongqing is not only a film set. It is a municipality of more than 32 million people, one of China's four directly-administered cities, and the commercial centre of western China. That is why more foreigners are now asking a second question — not "should I visit?" but "**can I work here?**"

Work permit process. Chongqing is implementing a "one-stop" comprehensive service, offering work permits, residence permits, and social security registration through a single window. The published service standards are: 20 working days, one on-site processing session, and 6 sets of documents.

 In terms of taxation. Enterprises located in western China that engage in industries included in the current catalog of encouraged industries may benefit from a preferential corporate income tax rate of 15%, rather than the standard rate of 25%.