If you’re looking to download a free Chinese rental contract template to use when signing a lease for an apartment in China, you’ve come to the right place. I’d like to share with you not only a good China rental contract template that you can download for 2024, but also a premium Chinese-English bilingual rental contract that you can use as well.
The fact is that as you go around looking for an apartment to rent in China, the last thing you want to do is to trust a rental contract supplied by the landlord.
While they may not be intentionally malicious, they will most certainly be geared to benefit the landlord over you, the renter.
If you’re using an agency to help you find an apartment in China, they will most likely be able to supply you with a standard rental contract (an example of which you can download below).
The problem here is that unless you can read Chinese (and you should try learning to read Chinese!), you’re stuck having to trust that the agency contract protects you as much as you need. That’s a pretty big leap of faith.
Do NOT sign any contract that you haven’t been able to read and understand.
So what options do you have?
Let’s take a look at a free Chinese rental contract template as well as a premium bilingual contract.
One simple way to protect yourself in China is to supply your own rental contract agreement.
Landlords won’t sign anything that is in English, so you’ll need to supply a rental contract in Chinese, using Chinese characters. That’s where this Chinese rental contract template comes in handy.
This Chinese rental agreement is a simple, one-page contract that covers the basics of what you’ll need when you sign with your landlord.
There are blanks for all the spaces that need to be filled in, but I suggest that you still work with a translator (or use a good translation app for Chinese) to make sure that you’re covering all your bases.
To receive a free copy of the Chinese lease agreement straight to your inbox, add your name and email below.
The agreement will be immediately given to you in Word format so you can make edits and print at your convenience.
Keep in mind that no matter what contract you use, you should always ask these 5 questions before signing an apartment lease in China.
Of course, the problem with the agreement above is that it’s all in Chinese, which means that unless you read and write Chinese, you won’t really understand much of it.
What if there was a Chinese rental agreement you could download that was already translated into English and could be used to easily negotiate with your landlord?
That’s where this premium Chinese lease agreement comes in handy. It’s been used by hundreds of expats in China over the past few years and has been refined to cover pretty much any issue that you might encounter while renting an apartment in China.
Using a bilingual Chinese-English lease agreement will help both you and your landlord feel comfortable with what you’re signing and clear on what the expectations are.
In this way, you can (hopefully) avoid problems down the road.
Hopefully you can find either this Chinese rental contract template or the premium bilingual contract useful as you prepare to sign for your next apartment in China.
It may seem daunting but in my experience, landlords in China are pretty reasonable.
The purpose of a contract is to protect you just in case you get one of those bad apple landlords or you run into one of those weird problems (water heater broke, you had to leave for a family emergency, who pays for the neighborhood maintenance fee, etc.).
Having an agreement in writing makes working out these problems so much easier.
Best of luck in your new China apartment!
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Josh is the founder of TravelChinaCheaper.com who has been living in China with his family since 2006. Over that period of time he has traveled by plane, train, car, motorcycle and even camel to explore almost every corner of the country.
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