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Prices last updated: loading… · MNL → Shanghai (PVG) · Sourced from Travelpayouts
MNL → PVG · 🇨🇳 Visa Required (L-Visa)
Cheap Flights Manila to
Shanghai 🇨🇳
Direct China Eastern flights, connecting options via Manila & Hong Kong, and China visa guidance for Filipinos — tracked 24/7, updated daily.
From
₱15,000
roundtrip incl. taxes
~4h 10m
direct flight (3x/week)
🛂 L-Visa
apply via CVASC Manila
5
deals found
Direct flight
~4h 10m, 3x/week
Airport
PVG (Pudong)
Currency
CNY (¥)
Time difference
None — same as PHT
Best weather
Mar–May, Sep–Nov
Best to book
8–10 weeks ahead
🔥 Best MNL → Shanghai Deal Right Now
Manila → Shanghai, China
Usually ₱15,000
₱15,200
↓ Best price found today
You save ₱4,800 (24% off)
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⚠️ Visa required for Philippine passport holders — no visa-free entry
Unlike Thailand or Singapore, the Philippines is not on China's visa-free list. Filipinos need an approved L-Visa (tourist visa) in their passport before flying — there's no visa on arrival. Bring a passport valid 6+ months with 2 blank pages, a flight itinerary, a hotel booking, and typically proof of funds. Apply through the Chinese Visa Application Service Center (CVASC) at Eton Centris Tower in Manila — budget 2-3 weeks for processing.
Visa Required
ℹ️
Real prices from real searches. Sourced from Travelpayouts — refreshed regularly. Click Check price to confirm the live fare before booking.
MNL → Shanghai flight deals today
Fares from Ninoy Aquino International (MNL) to Shanghai Pudong (PVG) — 4 nonstop airlines, ~18-19 flights weekly · Prices in PHP
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📅 MNL → Shanghai Price Calendar
See the cheapest days to fly — click any date to book at that price.
Best time to fly MNL → Shanghai
Month-by-month price guide for Manila to Shanghai flights
💡 Pro tip: September is consistently the cheapest month — often ₱15,000–₱17,000 roundtrip once summer demand fades and before Golden Week hits. Avoid Chinese New Year (mid-February), National Day Golden Week (Oct 1-7), and the Philippine Christmas–New Year window — this route only has 3 flights a week, so any surge in demand hits a much smaller pool of seats than a daily route would.
📅 Shanghai events & fare surges
MNL → Shanghai fares spike hard around these dates — book early or avoid entirely
🧧 Chinese New Year (Spring Festival)
February 14–22, 2026 — the 9-day national holiday
~+50%
est. fare impact
Spring Festival is the largest annual human migration on Earth inside China, and it also drives a wave of Chinese outbound travel. Even with four airlines and close to daily departures on MNL–Shanghai, Spring Festival demand is large enough to fill seats and push prices up well before the holiday itself — book earlier than you would for an ordinary week.
💡 Book by December if you need to fly in mid-February — all four carriers see demand spike at once, and extra frequencies rarely appear to cover it.
🎄 Philippine Christmas & New Year
December 20 – January 5
~+45%
est. fare impact
Filipino families flying out for the holidays compete for the same seats as year-end Chinese leisure travellers, and demand climbs across all four carriers at once. Even with near-daily departures, airlines rarely add meaningful extra frequency over this specific stretch, so fares still firm up well before the holiday itself.
💡 Mid-January is the reset window — fares drop back toward the ₱13,000–₱15,000 range once the holiday rush clears.
🇨🇳 National Day Golden Week
October 1–7, 2026 — China's biggest domestic travel week
~+40%
est. fare impact
Golden Week sees hundreds of millions of domestic Chinese trips and a genuine spike in Chinese outbound travel too. Shanghai itself gets extremely crowded — major sights run timed-entry slots and hotel prices spike citywide. This is also exactly why September, the week or two before Golden Week starts, is this route's cheapest window.
💡 Fly in the first half of September instead — same mild weather, none of the Golden Week crowd or price premium.
🎏 Labour Day Golden Week
May 1–5, 2026
~+30%
est. fare impact
China's second-biggest travel peak of the year, with close to 300 million domestic trips recorded in recent years. It's a smaller effect on this specific route than Golden Week or Chinese New Year, but with demand spread across four carriers, even a moderate bump shows up in fares from all of them.
💡 If you can shift by even a week either side of May 1–5, you'll typically see meaningfully lower fares.
✈️ The real driver: only 3 flights a week, year-round
MNL–Shanghai now behaves much like MNL–Bangkok or MNL–Singapore, with four airlines flying nonstop and competing hard on price. That competition is good news for fares overall, but it also means seat sales move fast — the cheapest fares from any one carrier's promo window can vanish within hours. Treat the calendar above as a guide, not a guarantee, and book as soon as a good fare appears rather than waiting for it to get cheaper.
📊 How to read this: These are directional estimates based on the four carriers flying this route. What we can say with confidence: MNL–Shanghai is one of the more price-competitive China routes out of the Philippines, but seat sales on any single carrier still move fast — book as soon as a good fare appears. Subscribe for alerts and we'll flag genuine fare drops the moment we see them.
💸 What Filipinos actually spend in Shanghai
Real daily breakdown in PHP — not the sanitised version travel blogs write for Americans
Budget Filipino Traveller
₱1,355–2,258 / day
🍜 Food (xiaolongbao, noodles, street food)¥100–150
🚇 Metro only¥15–30
🏨 Jing'an hostel dorm¥100–150
🎡 The Bund, parks, free sights¥0–50
📶 Travel eSIM (bought before flying)~₱400 one-time
5 days + flight (₱13,000) + visa (₱3,948)
~₱28,000–₱32,000 all-in
Comfortable Filipino Traveller
₱3,612–5,418 / day
🍜 Mix of street + sit-down restaurants¥250–400
🚇 Metro + occasional DiDi¥80–150
🏨 French Concession or Lujiazui hotel¥600–1,000
🎡 Shanghai Tower deck + museum¥300–600
🛍️ Shopping & pasalubong¥200–400
5 days + flight (₱15,000) + visa (₱3,948)
~₱48,000–₱58,000 all-in
Is Shanghai cheaper than Hong Kong? On the ground, yes — a xiaolongbao meal at ¥20-30 (~₱182-273) undercuts a comparable Hong Kong dim sum spot, and hostel beds run noticeably cheaper too. But factor in the whole trip and Shanghai isn't quite the budget escape Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur are for Filipinos. The visa fee and a travel eSIM to get around the Great Firewall both add real cost that a visa-free ASEAN destination simply doesn't have, even with flights themselves now genuinely competitive. Go in expecting a mid-range Asian city trip with an upfront visa cost, not a pure piso-fare bargain break.
🇵🇭 Filipino traveller intel — Shanghai edition
Things a Skyscanner page would never tell you
You need a visa before you fly — and most Filipinos researching this route don't realise that until it's late. The Philippines isn't on China's visa-free list, so this is the one Southeast/East Asia route where "book now, sort documents later" genuinely doesn't work. The Chinese Visa Application Service Center (CVASC) at Eton Centris Tower handles applications for the whole country. Submit online first, then bring physical documents in — budget 2-3 weeks total and don't book non-refundable flights before approval.
Four airlines fly this route nonstop, so you have real flexibility — but seat sales still move fast. Cebu Pacific, Philippine Airlines, China Eastern, and Juneyao Airlines together run close to 18-19 nonstop departures a week, nearly a daily schedule. That gives you far more room to shift dates around a visa appointment or work leave than a thin, once-or-twice-weekly route would. It doesn't mean promo fares last, though — when Cebu Pacific or China Eastern run a seat sale, the cheapest tier still sells out within hours.
Google, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp all stop working the moment you land — and you can't fix it after arrival. China's Great Firewall blocks Google (Maps included), Meta's apps, and Gmail outright. You cannot download a VPN once you're inside China; app stores there won't show it. Set up a VPN with an obfuscated protocol, or buy a travel eSIM that routes through Hong Kong or Singapore, before you leave Manila. A local Chinese SIM alone will not get you back on Instagram.
The Filipino community in Shanghai is small and professional — don't expect a Hong Kong-style OFW fare pattern. DFA records count roughly 4,200 registered Overseas Filipinos in Shanghai, concentrated in English teaching, hospitality, and BPO-adjacent roles rather than domestic work. That means no December mass-exodus surge like MNL–Hong Kong sees — the December bump here comes mostly from tourists chasing snow, stacked right before Chinese New Year travel.
Set up Alipay with your Philippine card before you fly, and test it small first. China is largely cashless now, and Alipay accepts foreign Visa/Mastercard — but binding a large amount on first use can trigger a fraud freeze that takes hours (sometimes days) to clear. Do a ¥10-50 test purchase at a convenience store first. Keep ¥200-500 in cash as backup; a February 2026 rule now legally requires merchants to accept cash, but plenty of small vendors still prefer mobile pay.
Airlines flying MNL → Shanghai
Four airlines fly nonstop — Cebu Pacific, Philippine Airlines, China Eastern & Juneyao — everything else connects via Hong Kong
Shanghai travel guide for Filipinos
Everything you need to know before you fly — written from a Filipino perspective · See the full Shanghai guide →
Shanghai trip budget for Filipinos
Typical costs in CNY — 1 CNY ≈ ₱9.03 as of mid-2026
6 tips for booking MNL→Shanghai flights
This route needs a visa, runs 3x a week, and doesn't have a piso-fare culture yet — here's how to book it smart anyway
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Frequently asked questions — MNL to Shanghai flights
Content reviewed 2026-07-30 · Prices update automatically every day
Yes. Unlike Thailand, Singapore, or most of Southeast Asia, the Philippines is not on China's visa-free list, so you need an approved L-Visa (tourist visa) in your passport before flying — there is no visa on arrival. Requirements typically include a passport valid 6+ months, a bank statement showing at least ₱100,000, and an employment certificate. Standard processing is 4-5 working days once your documents are accepted, so apply at least 2-3 weeks ahead.
Apply through the Chinese Visa Application Service Center (CVASC) at Eton Centris Tower in Quezon City, which handles L-Visa applications for the whole country. Submit your application online first through China's streamlined online system, then bring the required physical documents to CVASC in person for biometrics and document review before your passport and visa fee are collected.
Four airlines fly nonstop: Cebu Pacific, Philippine Airlines, China Eastern, and Juneyao Airlines, all landing at Shanghai Pudong International (PVG) in around 3 hours 45 minutes. Together they run close to 18-19 flights a week, so it's nearly a daily route rather than the once- or twice-weekly schedule you see on some other China connections. Cathay Pacific also appears in flight searches, but that's a connecting itinerary through Hong Kong and takes considerably longer.
September is consistently the cheapest month — summer demand has faded and China's National Day Golden Week (October 1-7) hasn't started yet, with fares often in the ₱9,500-₱12,500 range, especially during a Cebu Pacific seat sale. The most expensive windows are Chinese New Year (mid-February), Golden Week (early October), and the Philippine Christmas-New Year stretch (late December), when demand spikes across all four carriers at once.
Cebu Pacific typically has the lowest fares of the four nonstop carriers, with roundtrips seen as low as ₱9,500 during a seat sale and averaging closer to ₱13,000-₱15,000 outside of promos. Philippine Airlines, China Eastern, and Juneyao Airlines run slightly higher on average but offer more generous baggage and rebooking terms. Compare total cost including baggage, not just the headline fare, before choosing.
Yes, genuinely so. With four airlines competing on MNL-Shanghai, Cebu Pacific runs real piso-fare and anniversary promos on this route a few times a year, with roundtrips advertised as low as ₱9,500. It's not quite as aggressive as MNL-Bangkok's ₱1-base-fare stunts, but it's a real price war rather than a single-carrier monopoly. Subscribe to piso-fare.com alerts and we'll flag it the moment a real deal appears.
Yes. All prices are sourced from Travelpayouts based on real flight searches and refreshed regularly. Always click through to confirm the current fare on the booking page before paying — prices can change within hours, especially for hot deals and seat sales. piso-fare.com earns a small commission when you book through our links, which never affects the price you pay.
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