The Chinese government has expanded its overseas travel restrictions to include family members of senior AI and chip executives at private companies. Relatives must now obtain government pre-approval before traveling abroad, a policy shift that extends control beyond the employees themselves to their spouses and children.
These measures follow a series of escalations that began in early 2026. By March 2026, employees at DeepSeek were required to surrender their passports, while co-founders of Manus AI faced exit bans during a period of acquisition scrutiny. By May 2026, the government formalized pre-approval requirements for top AI professionals across the private sector.
On September 15, 2026, new nationwide regulations took effect, establishing legal penalties for violations related to industrial and technological security. These rules provided a formal legal framework for the existing exit-ban policies. The latest expansion to family members occurred two weeks after these regulations were implemented.
Historically, travel restrictions in China primarily targeted government officials and state-owned enterprise executives. The current policy marks a significant shift by applying these controls to engineers and researchers within private startups, signaling a broader effort to retain strategic expertise within the country.
