China established the custody and repatriation administrative detention-and-removal system, used in cities to detain people lacking required residence/temporary permits and send them back to their place of registered residence—an approach later widely criticized.
Wuhan’s Public Security Bureau posted local rules requiring “temporary residence certificates” for non-local workers, reflecting emerging administrative controls for growing internal migration before nationwide standardization.
A State Council notice created an early, limited pathway for rural residents and their dependents to obtain registration in towns and small cities—an important step as market reforms increased rural-to-urban labor mobility.
A State Council notice initiated an experimental hukou reform in small cities and towns, directing that rural hukou holders meeting residence and income conditions could be granted local hukou—formalizing a settlement pathway outside large cities.
A State Council notice expanded earlier experiments by requiring that all small cities and towns allow eligible rural residents with stable residence and income to convert to local hukou, further institutionalizing town-level settlement.
After the widely publicized death of Sun Zhigang while detained in Guangzhou under custody-and-repatriation, the system was abolished—marking a major shift in how cities handled migrants lacking local documentation.
China released its first national strategic urbanization plan for 2014–2020, linking “people-centered” urbanization to expanded access to public services and to hukou-related settlement goals (including absorbing large numbers of migrants into urban residency).
The State Council released a major opinion on deepening hukou reform, promoting orderly transfer of long-term residents with stable employment/life into urban registration and expanding coverage of basic urban public services to long-term residents.
The State Council issued the Provisional Regulations on Residence Permits, standardizing residence permits nationwide and tying eligibility to living away from registered hukou location for six months plus stable employment/residence/study—creating a national administrative bridge between migration and access to services.
China’s national residence permit framework formally took effect, aiming at broader coverage of basic urban public services for the “resident population” and creating a pathway supportive of eventual household registration in the place of residence.
The State Council General Office issued a plan (Guobanfa〔2016〕72) to promote urban hukou settlement for about 100 million non-hukou residents with capacity for stable work and life in cities, coordinating hukou reform with fiscal, land, and social security measures.
A guideline jointly issued by the CPC Central Committee General Office and State Council General Office called for canceling hukou access restrictions in cities under 3 million urban population, relaxing them in 3–5 million cities, and streamlining points-based systems in megacities—framing hukou reform as enabling freer labor and talent flow.
A State Council General Office pilot-reform framework on factor-market allocation was reported by NDRC as including hukou-related experimentation: piloting registration “based on habitual residence” and supporting population management services using national ID as an identifier.
The State Council approved a national implementation plan for “new-type urbanization” during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021–2025), emphasizing people-centered urbanization and continued efforts to grant permanent urban residency to the agricultural migrant population.
China’s Ministry of Public Security announced measures to fully lift hukou restrictions in cities with under 3 million permanent urban residents, significantly relax policies for 3–5 million cities, and optimize points-based settlement in megacities—signaling renewed central push to ease settlement barriers outside the largest metros.
A State Council circular released a five-year action plan to deepen people-centered new-type urbanization, prioritizing faster granting of permanent urban residency to rural-to-urban migrants, broader basic public service coverage for permanent residents, and continued hukou relaxation (except in some megacities).
China’s State Council released a plan to advance “people-centered” urbanization over the next five years, emphasizing removal of barriers preventing migrants from obtaining permanent residency and expanding access to public services to support settlement and consumption.
Central guidelines on improving public well-being called for fully removing hukou-based restrictions on enrolling in social insurance at the place of employment—supporting portability/coverage for a highly mobile internal migrant workforce.
Hukou System, Urbanization, and Internal Migration Policies (1980s–present)
