When to visit
Beijing?

Discover the best time of year, based on historical climate, temperature, and precipitation.

Beijing
Beijing Municipality · China

The best weather in Beijing is from April, May, September. — consistent weather climate

Climate score
October
83

Excellent climate

🌥Mild

Temperature
8–19°C
Cold nights — bring layers
Feels like
5–16°C
Dry
Precipitation
31mm
Moderate rain · 4 days
Sunshine
7.9h
Mostly clear
Humidity (%)
59%
Dry
Annual Climate Analysis
Temperature, Rain & Feels Like
Rain
Actual Temp
Feels Like
-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
International eSIM

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Flights to Beijing

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Monthly Overview
Score293155959363316089833729
ClimatePolarColdColdMildPleasantHot & dryHot & rainyRainyPleasantMildColdPolar
Temperature-7–2°C-5–6°C1–15°C8–22°C14–28°C20–33°C23–32°C21–30°C16–27°C8–19°C0–10°C-6–3°C
Feels like-12–-3°C-10–1°C-3–11°C5–18°C12–26°C20–32°C26–35°C24–33°C16–27°C5–16°C-4–6°C-10–-2°C
Precipitation2mm
1 days
7mm
2 days
9mm
2 days
20mm
3 days
29mm
3 days
57mm
5 days
233mm
14 days
160mm
10 days
58mm
5 days
31mm
4 days
20mm
3 days
3mm
1 days
Sunshine8.2h
☀︎ 84%
8.7h
☀︎ 82%
9.8h
☀︎ 82%
9.7h
☀︎ 73%
10.1h
☀︎ 70%
10.3h
☀︎ 69%
8.8h
☀︎ 60%
9.2h
☀︎ 67%
9.1h
☀︎ 73%
7.9h
☀︎ 71%
7.3h
☀︎ 73%
7.9h
☀︎ 84%
WindN · 16 km/hN · 17 km/hNW · 19 km/hSW · 22 km/hSW · 22 km/hS · 19 km/hSE · 15 km/hSW · 14 km/hNW · 15 km/hNW · 16 km/hN · 16 km/hNW · 16 km/h
Humidity (%)39%43%42%39%42%49%71%75%65%59%57%43%
Day length9.7h10.7h12.0h13.3h14.4h15.0h14.7h13.7h12.5h11.2h10.0h9.4h
Events & Festivals
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Chinese New Year (Spring Festival)
National Day Golden Week
Beijing Marathon
Mid-Autumn Festival
Events & Festivals
  • Chinese New Year (Spring Festival)holidaySignature event
    January, February· 500k+ visitors

    Beijing's biggest holiday sees temple fairs, lion dances, and fireworks fill the city as families gather and travel en m…

  • National Day Golden Weekholiday
    October· 500k+ visitors

    China's National Day on October 1st kicks off a week-long holiday when Tiananmen Square hosts flag-raising ceremonies an…

  • Beijing Marathonsports
    November· 50k+ visitors

    Tens of thousands of runners race through the city each November, passing landmarks like Tiananmen Square and the Bird's…

  • Mid-Autumn Festivalfestival
    September· 5k+ visitors

    Beijingers gather with family to eat mooncakes and admire the full moon during this traditional harvest festival, with p…

The story of the seasons in Beijing

Travelers flock to Beijing in late autumn just as the weather turns sharply cold, leaving the year's most glorious, temperate days in April and May wide open.

Beijing does not deal in half measures. As the seat of Chinese authority for most of the last millennium, its geography was carved out by imperial decree and reinforced by modern geopolitical ambition. Today, over twenty-one million people live among its concentric ring roads, navigating a landscape where sixteenth-century red walls and lacquered pavilions sit right against colossal state headquarters and high-speed rail arteries. You come here to feel the sheer gravity of Chinese history and statecraft—to stand in stone plazas designed to dwarf the individual and look out across defensive ramparts cutting across the jagged northern hills. But experiencing that magnitude depends entirely on the sky above you. In an extreme continental climate that swings from bone-cracking Siberian gales to suffocating summer cloudbursts, timing your visit is the difference between an imperial triumph and an endurance test.

The Undisputed Sweet Spot: Clear Skies and Courtyard Life

If you want Beijing at its most forgiving, come in April or May. The biting winds of northern winter finally retreat toward the steppe, replaced by soft, dry air and weeks of sustained blue sky. The city’s ubiquitous willows and fruit trees burst into leaf, softening the harsh concrete and gray-brick facades of old lanes. Afternoon temperatures warm comfortably into shirtsleeve territory, yet the suffocating humidity of the summer monsoon is still months away.

This is the season made for marathon walking. You can spend seven uninterrupted hours traversing the massive stone flagstones of the Forbidden City or climbing the steep watchtowers of the Great Wall without seeking refuge from freezing drafts or melting under heavy sunshine. Public life moves outdoors: retirees gather in the shaded groves around the Temple of Heaven to practice calligraphy with water brushes on pavement, and kites rise over open squares.

Curiously, official tourism calendars treat early spring as a quieter lull. While crowds build steadily through May, the massive domestic crush that defines the second half of the year has not yet arrived. The days are luminous, long, and dry—the absolute best time to explore the capital before the heavy heat sets in.

Summer Deluges and Radiant Heat

June brings an aggressive spike in temperature, and by July, Beijing turns into an immense, baking steam room. The prevailing winds swing around from the south, drawing in maritime moisture that collides with northern heat to produce the wet season. July and August deliver the vast majority of the year's rainfall in violent, sky-clearing storms. Downpours arrive with sudden ferocity, turning vast paved avenues into shallow rivers within minutes and grounding airport traffic.

Sightseeing during midsummer requires an entirely different rhythm. Standing on the treeless expanse of Tiananmen Square at noon feels like stepping onto a griddle, the heat radiating through the soles of your shoes. The Great Wall offers little relief; climbing exposed stone steps in thirty-degree heat with thick humidity leaves even fit hikers soaked through within twenty minutes.

Yet summer has its own theatrical energy. When late-afternoon thunderstorms roll off the Western Hills, they wash the urban haze completely clear, leaving behind dramatic, fiery sunsets. Locals cope by retreating to the willow-fringed waters of the Summer Palace, renting paddleboats, or congregating along open-air alleyways after sunset with cold beer and skewers once the pavement cools.

Golden Autumn Leaves and Golden Week Crowds

September ushers in Beijing's legendary autumn, an ephemeral period prized in Chinese poetry for its crisp, crystalline clarity. The summer rains taper off abruptly, humidity vanishes, and the sky turns an intense, deep northern blue. In September, families gather outdoors for the Mid-Autumn Festival, eating mooncakes under an early autumn full moon while lanterns illuminate city parks and historic temple courtyards. It is a luminous, dignified time to be in the capital.

That tranquility ruptures with theatrical intensity in early October during National Day Golden Week. The first week of the month brings one of the largest domestic travel surges on the planet. Enormous crowds converge on Tiananmen Square for dawn flag-raising ceremonies, while the Forbidden City and the Great Wall hit their strictest capacity limits. Lines snake for hundreds of meters, subway stations operate crowd-control barriers, and the feeling of imperial solitude is nonexistent.

If you visit in late October, however, after the holiday crowds disperse, you will find the city in peak visual form. Ginkgo trees across the capital turn vivid gold, and a brisk, bracing chill begins to sharpen the evening air.

The Baffling Rush of November

November presents the great paradox of Beijing's travel calendar. By our measures, it is the busiest month of the entire year, drawing an enormous influx of visitors even as the weather plummets from crisp autumn into early winter. Deciduous trees drop their leaves almost overnight, raw winds scour the avenues, and the daytime air carries a sharp, dry chill that penetrates standard layers.

Part of this surge is fueled by major civic events. Tens of thousands gather for the Beijing Marathon, racing through downtown streets from Tiananmen Square toward the Bird's Nest stadium under pale, cool skies. But for ordinary touring, November is demanding. The sunlight turns thin and slanted, daylight hours contract, and standing atop Jingshan Park at dusk requires a heavy coat, gloves, and wind protection.

If you arrive in November, embrace the cold like the residents do: retreat into steaming copper hotpot parlors, wander the narrow gray alleys where coal smoke has been replaced by electric heaters, and enjoy the grand public monuments under stark, dramatic lighting.

Siberian Cold and the Spring Festival Reset

From December through March, Beijing belongs to the Siberian anticyclone. It is bitterly cold, unrelentingly dry, and windy. Real snowfall is relatively rare, meaning the city takes on a monochrome palette of gray brick, dry soil, and deep red courtyard gates. Without thermal undergarments and a serious windbreaker, lingering outside for more than an hour is genuinely uncomfortable.

The massive exception to the winter routine arrives with Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, in January or February. For a brief window, the migrant workforce leaves for home provinces, regular commercial traffic vanishes, and the normally frenetic capital empties out. Downtown feels uncharacteristically quiet, but historic public spaces roar to life with temple fairs.

At the Temple of Heaven, ancient pine groves fill with the scent of roasted snacks, folk performances, and families celebrating under red lanterns. March begins the slow thaw, bringing longer daylight and dusty winds as the northern earth unlocks, paving the way for the brilliant spring to follow.

What to do

Things to do in Beijing

Top sights and attractions to build your days around once you know when to go.

Places from Wikidata and Wikipedia.

Tours & tickets in Beijing
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Frequently asked questions

What is the best time to visit Beijing?

The best time to visit Beijing is April, May, September, October, with temperatures between 8 °C and 28 °C. The best month is April. April is low season.

What is the weather like in Beijing?

Beijing has a climate with an overall score of 5.8/10. Annual temperatures range from -7 °C to 33 °C.

What is the hottest month in Beijing?

The hottest month in Beijing is June, with average highs of 33 °C and lows of 20 °C.

What is the rainiest month in Beijing?

The rainiest month in Beijing is July, with an average of 233 mm of precipitation.