Staying in Shanghai for a week or more: how to arrange accommodation

Three nights and a week or more are two different products. Three nights need a bed, a bathroom and a corner for your bag; by the seventh day you are washing clothes, cooking something yourself, sitting down to work, and no longer paying by the night.

We recommend no specific property and quote no rates, deposits or minimum stays: that information goes stale, we have no verified figures, and the booking page and the host’s answer count on the day.

A week is a threshold: why the questions change

Laundry. No issue for three nights; unavoidable beyond a week. Hotel laundry is priced per item; an apartment has a machine, but ask whether it is in the unit or shared on the floor.

Cooking. Eating out for every meal is expensive and tiring. The kitchen earns its place at breakfast, at a late snack, and for the meal you would rather not go out for.

A desk and a chair. Working from the bed is bearable for three nights; over a longer stay it is daily.

Storage. A week of luggage needs drawers, a hanging rail and somewhere to leave a case open.

Cleaning. Short stays assume daily cleaning; longer stays are often weekly, or booked per visit. Ask before booking.

How it is priced. Three nights are priced per night; a week or more usually has another schedule — a weekly rate, a long-stay rate, one price for the period. A week at the nightly rate and a weekly quote rarely match.

A longer stay is not more nights in the same hotel but a different product.

The five routes, and what each is for

A hotel on a long-stay rate. Certainty is its strength: a staffed desk, regular cleaning, registration done for you, utilities and internet handled. Space is its weakness: a room is for sleeping and washing, laundry goes out, cooking is out of the question. It suits anyone on business or out all day.

A serviced apartment. Company-run and let by the week or month, with a desk or housekeeper, cleaning, a kitchen and a washing machine — for a longer stay, the least troublesome form. It is dearer, there are fewer of them, and peak periods take whole blocks. “Serviced” also covers different things.

A short-term let in an ordinary apartment. A real home, usually cheaper than a comparable serviced apartment, and uncertain: no desk, handover by message, registration depending on the host, a flat that may not match the photographs, and a murky legal position, since many compounds do not allow short lets. It suits people with heavy luggage or children.

A guesthouse or homestay. You buy a host and a sense of neighbourhood; price and quality vary widely, and a longer stay magnifies the weak points — shared space, sound insulation, and whether the host can register a foreign guest. It suits anyone who communicates easily and does not mind less privacy.

Staying with friends. Usually the cheapest, and the one that most needs saying out loud in advance: how long, kitchen use, how the key is handed over. Even there, the duty to register a foreign guest still applies, and you and your friend solve it together.

Registration: the one step that cannot be vague

Accommodation in China must register foreign guests with the local police at check-in. A hotel does it for you; in a private let the duty falls on the guest and the host.

That gives a practical test: if the host or operator does not know a foreign guest has to be registered, or says it does not matter, treat it as a warning sign — they do not know the procedure, and nobody is covering for you.

Ask before you pay: can you complete the accommodation registration for a foreign guest; what do you need from me, usually the original passport; who does it, when and where. The procedure and any deadline can change: confirm them with the host, the property or the local public security office at the time; we quote no number of hours or days.

Keep the paperwork: a registration slip or receipt should be kept until you leave. For how the duty works, see whether Shanghai hotels accept foreign guests; on choosing between a hotel, an apartment and a guesthouse, see hotel, serviced apartment or guesthouse.

What “serviced” covers, and what has to be agreed

“Serviced” is not a standard but a range, so confirm each item: cleaning — daily, weekly or per visit, and whether extra cleaning is charged; linen — how often it is changed, who washes it, whether it is billed; utilities — included in the rent or metered, as longer stays often are, with heating and cooling the visible costs; internet — is there a dedicated line, good enough to work on. Cleaning fees and extra linen are often added on top.

There is also a gap between photograph and unit. A wide-angle lens makes a small room look large, the show flat and the unit you get may differ, and what does not appear in the pictures — a washing machine, a desk, daylight — is often absent. Ask for photographs or video of this unit as it is now.

Settle the mechanics first. Deposit: how much, what it is withheld for, when it is returned — a hard-to-recover deposit is the classic long-stay dispute: put it in the contract. Minimum stay: by the week or month, whether you can extend, and at what rate. Laundry: a machine in the unit or shared. Kitchen: is there a hob, and how complete are the utensils. Contract: who signs with whom, the dates, what early termination costs, whether you get a proper receipt — receipt and registration are two things. Handover: how the key is collected, at what time, and what happens if you arrive late. Keep the answers in writing.

What to check before committing, and the neighbourhood question

The address and what is around it. Get a street-level address, then trace it on a map: which way the nearest metro lies, how long the walk is.

Floor and lift. Old buildings often have no lift, and a high floor without one is a daily problem with luggage for a week or more.

Noise. A main road, a bar street, a restaurant below or building work next door all get magnified over a longer stay. Ask which way the windows face, and what is downstairs.

Work and internet. If you will work in the room, ask about the desk, the chair, the lighting and how stable the connection is; video calls need more upstream speed than browsing.

Receipt and registration. Will the host give a proper receipt, and will they and can they complete foreign-guest registration? If either answer is vague, change property.

The neighbourhood question changes. A short trip measures distance to the sights; a week or more is lived off the supermarket downstairs, the nearest laundry, a pharmacy and the metro connection. A river view is worth almost nothing here; what you use every morning counts. For the area, see where to stay in Shanghai.

What goes wrong, and who should choose what

The flat shown is not the flat you get. The commonest failure. Ask for photographs of that unit and confirm on arrival, before paying the balance.

A deposit that is hard to recover. Common with no contract, only a chat history, and cash. Pay traceably, and write the deduction conditions down.

A host who disappears. Replies slow, calls unanswered, the broken appliance nobody’s problem. Keep a second contact.

An apartment in an office building. Some short lets sit on office floors, empty at night and at weekends, with building registration to get in. Ask whether the address is a home or an office.

A stay made uncomfortable by no registration. A foreign guest whose registration was never completed may be asked about it later, in a check or on departure. It is not something to leave until you arrive.

Who should choose what. Business travellers and anyone out all day: a hotel long-stay rate or a serviced apartment. Families, heavy luggage, people who want to cook, longer stays: a serviced apartment or a short-term let, provided registration is solved. A particular neighbourhood, character over standard: a guesthouse. A tight budget and a reliable friend: staying with friends, but registration still has to be done.

For a first long stay. Do not book the whole period at once. Take a few days somewhere certain — a hotel or serviced apartment — then see the flat you want in person, confirm registration can be done, the deposit terms are clear and the flat matches the photographs, and only then commit to the rest. The extra nights’ rent buys the right to change your mind.