Starlink in China: Ban, Price and Legal Satellite Internet

Starlink cannot be used lawfully anywhere in mainland China. SpaceX holds no licence from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) — the sole authority able to authorise a satellite internet service on Chinese soil — and an unlicensed user terminal is classified as prohibited telecommunications equipment the moment it reaches the border. That has been true since Starlink opened commercial service in 2021, and nothing in the September 2026 registers changes it.

Editorial note: this explainer carries no personal byline, and that is deliberate. It is written and maintained by the Starlink News regulatory desk, and rather than ask you to trust a name and a job title, we publish the verification trail. Every regulatory claim below is tied to the primary register, statute or filing it comes from, together with the date we last checked it — see What we checked, and when and Sources and how to verify. Where we could not verify something to that standard, we say so in plain terms instead of dressing an anecdote up as evidence. Corrections and additions are welcome through the site contact page.

The short version, in five hard facts:

• SpaceX has no MIIT telecom licence of any class in mainland China, and no pending application appears in MIIT’s public records.
• Starlink’s own availability map shows no service date for the mainland, and the order flow rejects mainland addresses.
• Unlicensed satellite transmitting equipment is a prohibited import under General Administration of Customs (GACC) schedules; terminals are detained at the border with no compensation.
• The administrative fine ceiling for unlicensed telecom operation is RMB 30,000 under the published English translation of the Telecommunications Regulations (State Council Order No. 291), on top of confiscation under China’s radio regulations.
• Hong Kong and Macau license telecoms separately — and neither has issued Starlink an authorisation either.

What has changed recently is enforcement, not policy. Beijing has moved from silent refusal to active penalties, beginning with foreign-flagged vessels caught running Starlink inside Chinese territorial waters — the first publicly reported fine of its kind, covered by the South China Morning Post, gCaptain and The Maritime Executive.

What We Checked, and When

This is the part most explainers leave out. Below is our own verification log for this update, with dates and search terms, so you can reproduce every step in roughly ten minutes with a browser and a translation extension. Nothing in this article rests on a claim we have not personally re-run.

• 11 September 2026 — MIIT licence register. Searched the public telecom business licence system at tsm.miit.gov.cn for SpaceX, Starlink, 星链 and 太空探索技术. Result: no basic telecommunications licence, no value-added service permit, no satellite network user registration.
• 11 September 2026 — MIIT announcements. Searched policy, approval and administrative-penalty notices at miit.gov.cn for the same terms. Result: no grant, no pending application notice, no consultation on foreign LEO market entry.
• 12 September 2026 — Starlink coverage map. Checked starlink.com/map. Mainland China carries no service date and no “pending regulatory approval” shading — the marker SpaceX uses for markets where it has filed.
• 12 September 2026 — order flow. Attempted a Starlink order against two mainland service addresses (one in Shanghai, one in Chengdu). Neither returned a serviceable coverage result, and checkout could not proceed to payment.
• 13 September 2026 — Hong Kong. Searched the published licensee lists at ofca.gov.hk for SpaceX, Starlink and plausible local affiliates. No entry.
• 13 September 2026 — Macau. Checked licensing information published by CTT at ctt.gov.mo. No authorisation.
• 13 September 2026 — customs. Reviewed the prohibited and restricted import schedules at customs.gov.cn for the satellite transmitting equipment category. Unchanged from our December 2025 check.

What we could not verify. We were not able to corroborate a single traveler confiscation account to the standard we apply — a named person, a dated incident and a specific port of entry — so we do not publish one. Forum and social posts describing airport seizures are numerous and consistent, but unverifiable, and we treat them as background rather than evidence. The strongest documented enforcement action to date remains the 2025 maritime penalty reported by the shipping trade press cited above. We are also not PRC-qualified lawyers and did not obtain a bespoke legal opinion for this piece; where the exact wording of a penalty matters, we point you at the statute rather than paraphrase it into false precision.

Starlink Availability in China: The Definitive Answer

No. Three independent checks point the same way, and any one of them settles the question.

Check 1 — Licensing. Satellite internet in China sits under the basic telecommunications category, which is closed to foreign-controlled operators. MIIT runs the public licence system described above, and SpaceX appears in none of it. No foreign low-Earth-orbit (LEO) operator is licensed as a satellite ISP anywhere in those registers.

Check 2 — Commercial availability. Starlink’s availability map has never carried a China entry since it launched, and the order page rejects mainland service addresses at checkout. For the territories where service is live or filed, our tracker of Starlink availability by country maintains the full rollout picture, market by market.

Check 3 — Hardware flow. Even a terminal bought in Manila, Bangkok or Dubai runs into the import wall. GACC’s schedules treat unlicensed satellite transmitting equipment as a prohibited item. Dishes shipped to Chinese addresses are stopped at the parcel hub; terminals in checked baggage are detained at the airport.

One subtlety worth spelling out, because it trips people up: a Starlink Roam or Global Roam subscription bought abroad does not create a legal right to transmit inside China. Roam governs your billing relationship with SpaceX. The offence under Chinese law is operating unlicensed radio equipment on Chinese territory, and it does not care where the invoice was issued.

Why Starlink Is Illegal: China’s Telecom Monopoly and the Great Firewall

The ban is not an oversight awaiting paperwork. It follows from how the Chinese network is built and governed.

A closed carrier market

Fixed and mobile networks are operated by three state-owned enterprises — China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom — under State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) control, with China Broadnet as a fourth, smaller entrant. Under China’s WTO accession commitments, published in the schedules available from the World Trade Organization, foreign equity in value-added telecom services is capped at 49%, and basic telecommunications is more restricted still. A foreign satellite internet operator therefore has no route to a standalone licence: spectrum and landing rights are issued to a Chinese-controlled entity, and the foreign party is a minority technology supplier at best.

The firewall problem

China’s content-filtering architecture works at the point where domestic networks meet international transit. Every licensed operator terminates traffic through gateways that apply DNS filtering, SNI inspection and lawful-interception hooks, backed by real-name registration rules that tie an account to a national ID or passport.

Starlink breaks that model by design. Its satellites relay traffic over laser inter-satellite links and can drop it at a ground gateway thousands of kilometres away, on foreign soil. Take an illustrative case — a hypothetical terminal on a balcony in Chengdu, chosen here purely as an example rather than as a documented incident. It would reach the open internet without touching a Chinese gateway, without a real-name record, and without any interception capability for Chinese authorities. From Beijing’s standpoint that is not a connectivity product; it is an unmonitored cross-border data path, which the Cybersecurity Law (2017), the Data Security Law (2021) and the Personal Information Protection Law (2021) all push against by mandating domestic storage and state access for network operators. Consolidated texts of all three are published at gov.cn.

The security overlay

Chinese military and academic journals have described large Western LEO constellations as dual-use assets with reconnaissance and battlefield-communications value, and state media has framed Starlink as a national security concern rather than a commercial rival. That framing matters for anyone forecasting a policy change: the objection is structural, not a pricing dispute, so it does not soften when a market opportunity appears.

What Happens If You Bring Starlink Equipment to China

Three separate legal instruments can bite, and they stack.

• Customs. GACC prohibition schedules cover unlicensed satellite transmitting terminals. The outcome is detention at the checkpoint, a written detention notice, and no compensation. Some travelers are offered re-export at their own expense; others are not.
• Telecommunications. The Telecommunications Regulations of the PRC (State Council Order No. 291, promulgated 2000 and since amended) prohibit operating a telecommunications service or terminal without authorisation. The penalties chapter carries an administrative fine ceiling of RMB 30,000 for unlicensed operation in the widely circulated English translation; the authoritative Chinese text sits with the State Council.
• Radio management. The Regulations on Radio Administration of the PRC, substantially revised in 2016, bar the use of transmitting equipment on unassigned frequencies and provide expressly for confiscation of the equipment. That applies whether or not you ever complete a session — possession of a powered, pointed terminal is enough.

The order of events matters less than the outcome: in every reported case, the hardware does not come home with you. For a first, non-commercial offence the penalty is administrative rather than criminal. Commercial use, repeat use and use at sea have all drawn heavier treatment.

Detection is not theoretical

A Starlink user terminal is a transmitter, not a receiver. SpaceX’s own filings with the US Federal Communications Commission describe consumer terminals uplinking in the Ku-band, in the region of 14.0–14.5 GHz, in a narrow beam pointed at a predictable arc of sky. Provincial radio administration bureaus run monitoring stations and mobile direction-finding units precisely for this class of signal, and an active dish on a rooftop or balcony is among the more conspicuous emitters in any urban RF environment.

For a sense of the institutional appetite for this kind of work, look at satellite television. The Regulations on the Administration of Ground Receiving Facilities for Satellite Television Broadcasting (State Council Order No. 129) have been in force since 1993 and require a licence to install or use a receiving dish, with recurring nationwide clean-up campaigns against unlicensed installations in the three decades since. Those dishes are passive receivers that emit nothing and are still far harder to locate than a transmitting terminal.

The maritime precedent

The most instructive recent case did not involve a tourist. In 2025, Chinese authorities penalised a foreign-flagged vessel for operating Starlink inside Chinese territorial waters — the first such penalty reported publicly, and the only enforcement action against Starlink specifically that we can document to a named source. The shipping trade press cited above has since described boarding inspections and terminals being sealed or powered down before vessels enter Chinese ports, with crews reverting to VSAT services routed through Chinese partners. The signal to individual travelers is blunt: the state can identify an active terminal and is willing to act on it.

Hotel rooms and apartments offer no cover

A terminal needs sky view, which means a window ledge, balcony or roof — all visible to building management and neighbours, both of which operate under reporting expectations. Serviced apartments and hotels also run real-name guest registration, so an unexplained antenna is traceable to a named occupant within minutes. In practice, there is no discreet way to run a dish in a Chinese city.

Starlink Price vs Satellite Internet Alternatives in China

Price is usually the first question about Starlink and the last thing people check before a trip. In China the Starlink price is academic, because the product is unpurchasable at any figure. The comparison still earns its place, though, because it settles a real decision: whether to route a regional trip around the mainland, or simply buy local connectivity and get on with the week.

In markets where Starlink is authorised, SpaceX’s published pricing sits roughly as follows at the time of writing. Current figures by market are on starlink.com/roam, and our guide to Starlink price and plan flexibility breaks down how weekly, monthly and pause options behave in practice.

• Hardware. Standard kit and Starlink Mini list in the US$299–599 range depending on region, with periodic discounts in competitive markets.
• Roam (regional). About US$50 per month for a capped data tier, rising to roughly US$165 per month for unlimited or global scope.
• Residential / fixed. Typically US$80–120 per month, with business and maritime tiers well above that.

Set that against the connectivity a visitor can actually buy in China. A local prepaid tourist SIM from China Unicom or China Mobile runs RMB 100–200 for a month of generous data. A travel eSIM with offshore breakout in Hong Kong, Singapore or Japan costs US$5–30 for a week or two. International roaming day-passes from a home operator commonly sit at US$5–12 per day, which is why a 30-day bundle usually wins on a longer trip. At the enterprise end, a China Satcom Ka-band VSAT contract or a licensed international private leased circuit (IPLC) is a commercial agreement measured in thousands of RMB per month, plus installation and equipment, negotiated site by site.

The arithmetic is unambiguous. The connectivity problem a traveler actually has in China costs tens of dollars to solve legally, against several hundred dollars of hardware that gets confiscated on arrival — and that is before the fine.

Diplomatic and Corporate Exceptions: Who Can Legally Access Satellite Links

The exemptions that exist are narrow, and none of them is a Starlink exemption.

Diplomatic missions. Embassies and consulates may operate their own communications under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and bilateral arrangements with the host state. In China that takes the form of VSAT installations notified to and tolerated by the authorities, typically with agreed frequencies at a fixed site. This is a government-to-government accommodation, not a consumer authorisation, and no mission has been documented running Starlink on Chinese soil.

Multinational corporations. There is a genuine licensing path for enterprise satellite internet: a VSAT network licence obtained through MIIT, held by a joint venture in which the Chinese partner holds majority control, with capacity leased from a Chinese satellite operator such as China Satcom. Energy survey work, mining sites, remote construction, and aviation and maritime operators use it. Applications take months, name every site and frequency, and route traffic through domestic gateways — which also means the link inherits domestic filtering.

Disaster response. Elsewhere in the world, emergency authorisations have been the quickest route to a legal Starlink deployment; regulators in several countries have waived licensing for days or weeks after earthquakes and hurricanes, as our coverage of Starlink in disaster relief: hurricane and conflict zone connectivity documents. China has not used that lever once. Its emergency communications response leans on domestic assets: Tiantong-1 satellite handsets, emergency communications vehicles, and high-altitude drone base stations flown by China Mobile in recent quake responses reported by Xinhua.

State-Approved Satellite Internet Alternatives in China

China is not rejecting satellite internet — it is building its own. Anyone who needs connectivity beyond terrestrial coverage inside China has a licensed menu, though none of it is a walk-in purchase for a visitor.

Guowang (China SatNet)

China Satellite Network Group, established in 2021 under SASAC, holds the ITU filings for the Guowang constellation of roughly 13,000 satellites. First operational batches reached orbit across the 2024–2025 window on Long March vehicles from Wenchang, with launch cadence building through 2026 according to China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) releases and Xinhua launch coverage. Public targets point at around 100 Mbps per user; latency figures and consumer pricing have not been published.

Qianfan (Thousand Sails)

Shanghai-backed Spacesail began orbiting its G60 constellation in August 2024, with a planned fleet in the thousands and an explicit export strategy aimed at Latin America, Africa and Central Asia. Treat it as the commercially framed twin of Guowang; its published deals so far are wholesale agreements with foreign carriers rather than retail tariffs.

Licensed GEO and handset services

China Satcom’s Ka-band high-throughput capacity, sold through China Telecom and partners, serves maritime, aviation and remote enterprise sites on commercial contracts. Tiantong-1 provides direct-to-handset voice and narrowband data — the technology behind satellite calling on several Chinese-market smartphones, typically sold as an add-on bundle from China Telecom at a modest monthly fee plus per-minute charges, and requiring a compatible handset and real-name registration. Inmarsat and Iridium terminals operate for specific professional use cases through authorised Chinese gateway arrangements.

One caveat travelers underestimate: a licensed Chinese satellite link is still a Chinese link. It terminates on a domestic gateway and carries the same filtering and logging as a fibre line in Shanghai. Satellite internet inside China solves geography, not content access — and you pay enterprise money for the privilege.

Hong Kong and Macau: Separate Regulatory Status

The Special Administrative Regions run their own telecommunications law, and the answer there is the same — for different reasons.

Hong Kong. Licensing sits with the Office of the Communications Authority (OFCA) under the Telecommunications Ordinance (Cap. 106). Satellite uplink and downlink operation and the provision of public services both require licences, and OFCA publishes its licensee lists at ofca.gov.hk. Our 13 September 2026 search of those lists returned no Starlink entry, under SpaceX or any local affiliate. Unlicensed operation exposes the user to seizure and prosecution under the Ordinance.

Macau. Telecommunications authorisations run through CTT, the Post and Telecommunications Bureau, whose licensing information is published at ctt.gov.mo. No Starlink authorisation has been issued, and Macau’s small footprint and dense high-rise environment offer close to zero discreet installation options.

Two practical points. First, neither SAR applies the mainland’s filtering, so Google, WhatsApp, Instagram and Western news sites load on ordinary Hong Kong and Macau connections — the connectivity gap that drives interest in Starlink elsewhere is largely absent, and a HK$100-odd local data SIM covers a short stay. Second, physical proximity cuts against you: carrying a terminal into Hong Kong to cross at Lo Wu or Huanggang means presenting it to mainland customs within hours, with the mainland rules applying in full.

For regional context, Taiwan also lacks Starlink service, though the obstacle there is ownership rather than filtering — local rules require majority domestic control of satellite ventures, terms SpaceX has declined.

Traveler Strategies: Staying Connected Without Starlink

Visitors have workable options, and the good ones exploit a structural detail: where your traffic breaks out determines what you can reach.

• International roaming on your home plan. Roaming data from a foreign operator rides Chinese radio access but tunnels back to the home network’s gateway before hitting the internet. In practice, travelers on roaming reach services that are blocked on domestic APNs. Check your operator’s China rates and any fair-use throttle before departure; a 30-day pass at US$50–70 usually beats a US$10-a-day pass and thrashes per-megabyte billing.
• Regional eSIMs with offshore breakout. Travel eSIMs that terminate in Hong Kong, Singapore or Japan reproduce the roaming effect without a plastic SIM swap, typically for US$5–30 depending on data and duration. Install and activate the profile before you land — the activation page itself may be unreachable once you are on a domestic connection.
• Local prepaid SIM from China Unicom or China Mobile. Cheap at RMB 100–200 a month, strong coverage, available at airport counters with passport registration under real-name rules. Expect full domestic filtering. A China Unicom (Hong Kong) SIM used while roaming on the mainland behaves differently from a mainland-issued one.
• Hotel and venue Wi-Fi. Access requires real-name authentication, usually a room number plus passport details or an SMS code to a registered number. Treat it as a filtered domestic link.
• Enterprise circuits. Licensed IPLC and MPLS lines sold by Chinese carriers to registered foreign companies are the lawful corporate answer for unfiltered access. They take weeks to provision, cost four figures a month and up, and are not available to individuals.
• Consumer VPNs. Operating a cross-border VPN without authorisation is prohibited, and blocking intensifies around political anniversaries and national congresses. Enforcement against foreign visitors has been light, but reliability is not guaranteed and protocols that worked last quarter can fail without warning.

Two habits save the trip. Download offline maps, translation packs and your boarding documents before arrival, since the app stores themselves can be awkward to reach. And set up a Chinese payment wallet with a foreign card linked in advance — connectivity is of limited use if you cannot pay for a taxi. If your itinerary continues beyond China and you want a terminal on the road, check the current Starlink availability status for each country on the route, and confirm which regional plans pause cleanly — and stop billing — while you are inside a prohibited market.

Global Starlink Availability: How China Compares

Across roughly 130 markets, the deciding question is always the same: will the operator land traffic on domestic gateways under local lawful-interception rules? Where the answer is yes, approval follows. Where a state insists on it and SpaceX cannot or will not comply, the service stays out.

• India — conditional approval. Market entry ran through local partnership, including the 2025 Airtel distribution agreement, alongside GMPCS licensing, IN-SPACe authorisation and security conditions covering domestic gateways and interception. Our coverage of Starlink in India: regulatory hurdles, partnerships and market potential traces that pathway in detail — the closest thing to a template for a sceptical, security-conscious large market.
• European Union — full authorisation. Service operates under national regulator compliance, with BNetzA in Germany, ARCEP in France and Ofcom across the UK handling spectrum and licensing. Our piece on Starlink in the European Union: regulatory landscape and national rollouts examines the authorisation model and the sovereignty debate now shaping IRIS².
• Russia — total ban. Use is prohibited, with penalties that escalate beyond administrative fines into criminal exposure for unauthorised communications equipment.
• Iran — ban with active countermeasures. Prohibition is backed by jamming and prosecution of users, despite smuggled terminals circulating.

China sits at the strict end of that spectrum with one distinction: it is the only country in the group building a state LEO constellation at Starlink’s scale as the substitute. That makes a future licence less likely rather than more. Guowang is not a stopgap while Beijing negotiates — it is the policy.

Bottom Line: Leave the Dish at Home

For a traveler, the calculation is short. A Starlink terminal carried into mainland China, Hong Kong or Macau delivers no legal service, risks confiscation of US$300–600 of hardware with no compensation, and exposes you to an administrative fine of up to RMB 30,000 — against a problem that a roaming pass or an offshore-breakout eSIM solves for a few tens of dollars. For businesses, the lawful path is a MIIT-authorised VSAT arrangement through a Chinese-majority partner, or capacity from China Satcom and, in time, Guowang. As of our September 2026 register checks, no commercial, diplomatic or emergency Starlink exemption of any kind has been granted in mainland China, and no pending SpaceX application appears in MIIT’s public records.

Sources and How to Verify

Do not take any regulatory claim on trust, least of all one that decides what goes in a suitcase. Every check behind this article is public:

• MIIT telecom licence system — tsm.miit.gov.cn — and MIIT announcements at miit.gov.cn (Chinese).
• GACC prohibited and restricted import schedules — customs.gov.cn.
• Telecommunications Regulations (State Council Order No. 291); Regulations on Radio Administration of the PRC (2016 revision); Regulations on the Administration of Ground Receiving Facilities for Satellite Television Broadcasting (State Council Order No. 129, 1993); and the Cybersecurity, Data Security and Personal Information Protection Laws — all at gov.cn.
• Hong Kong licensee lists — OFCA; Macau authorisations — CTT.
• Maritime enforcement reporting — South China Morning Post, gCaptain, The Maritime Executive.
• Guowang and Qianfan launch records — Xinhua and CASC releases; ITU filings via itu.int.
• Starlink coverage, plans and pricing — starlink.com/map and starlink.com/roam; terminal frequency parameters via FCC filings.
• Foreign equity limits in telecoms — China’s WTO accession schedules via wto.org.

How This Page Is Maintained

Written and maintained by the Starlink News regulatory desk. We re-run the register checks listed above every quarter and date-stamp the result in the verification log near the top of this page, so you can see how stale the answer is before you act on it.

Changelog. September 2025 — updated after the Guowang batch launches. December 2025 — updated after the revised Telecommunications Regulations draft and a fresh GACC schedule check. September 2026 — updated following the first reported maritime Starlink penalty, re-searches of the MIIT, OFCA and CTT registers on 11–13 September, the addition of the Starlink price comparison and the satellite internet alternatives table, the removal of a personal byline in favour of a published verification log, and the reclassification of the Chengdu passage as illustrative.

Correction history. A June 2024 reference to a pending Starlink application was removed after confirmation that no application had been filed, and replaced with no licence granted.

Accuracy and scope. Penalty figures come from public translations of the Telecommunications Regulations 2000 and are reported ceilings, not legal advice; the authoritative text is the Chinese original at gov.cn. Prices are list figures that vary by market and change without notice. Regulatory status can change: verify against MIIT, GACC and OFCA before travel, and take advice from a PRC-qualified lawyer for anything with commercial exposure. If you believe any figure or register result here is wrong, tell us through the site contact page and we will re-check it and log the outcome.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I legally use Starlink in China if I am only visiting?

No. The prohibition attaches to operating an unlicensed satellite terminal on Chinese territory, not to the nationality or residency of the operator. A tourist, a business visitor and a resident face the same exposure: confiscation of the hardware and an administrative fine, with a ceiling of RMB 30,000 in the published English translation of the Telecommunications Regulations (State Council Order No. 291). A Starlink Roam or Global Roam subscription bought abroad carries no weight inside China, because it is a billing arrangement with SpaceX rather than a transmitting authorisation.

Why is Starlink banned when other satellite services operate in China?

Because of where the traffic lands. Inmarsat, Iridium, China Satcom VSAT and Tiantong-1 all route through Chinese gateways run by licensed domestic carriers, so traffic stays inside the national filtering and lawful-interception framework. Starlink terminals can reach gateways outside China over inter-satellite laser links, carrying a user around the firewall entirely. MIIT has granted SpaceX no licence, and our September 2026 search of the MIIT public licence system at tsm.miit.gov.cn returned no SpaceX or Starlink entry.

Will Chinese customs confiscate my Starlink dish at the airport?

Assume yes. GACC prohibited-import schedules at customs.gov.cn cover unlicensed satellite transmitting equipment, and a phased-array panel with a router and power supply is unmistakable on an X-ray belt. Reported outcomes are detention at the checkpoint, a written detention notice, no compensation for the seized hardware and, in some cases, an option to re-export at your own cost. Leaving the terminal outside the mainland is the sane play.

Is Starlink available in Hong Kong or Macau?

No. Hong Kong licenses telecommunications separately through the Office of the Communications Authority under the Telecommunications Ordinance (Cap. 106), and no Starlink or SpaceX entity appeared on OFCA published licensee lists when we searched them in September 2026. Macau CTT, the Post and Telecommunications Bureau, has issued no authorisation either. Both territories have open, unfiltered fixed and mobile internet, so the practical case for a terminal is weak.

What satellite internet can I use legally in China?

Only satellite internet sold by licensed Chinese operators: the China SatNet Guowang LEO constellation, China Satcom Ka-band GEO VSAT for maritime, aviation and enterprise sites, Tiantong-1 direct-to-handset voice and narrowband data through China Telecom, and Inmarsat or Iridium terminals authorised through Chinese gateway partners. None is a self-serve consumer product a visitor can activate on arrival; each needs a contract with a licensed operator and real-name registration.

What is the Starlink price, and what do the legal alternatives cost?

Where Starlink is legal, hardware lists at roughly US$299 to US$599, Roam plans run about US$50 to US$165 a month and fixed Residential service sits near US$80 to US$120 a month. In mainland China the Starlink price is academic, because nothing is purchasable at any price. The legal substitutes split in two: a local prepaid SIM costs about RMB 100 to RMB 200 for a month of data and a travel eSIM with offshore breakout US$5 to US$30, while enterprise satellite internet such as a China Satcom Ka-band VSAT contract or a licensed IPLC circuit runs into thousands of RMB a month plus installation.

Are there exceptions for diplomats or foreign businesses?

Narrow ones, and none of them is a Starlink exception. Diplomatic missions may operate their own communications under the Vienna Convention and bilateral arrangements, which in practice means VSAT systems agreed with the host state at fixed sites and agreed frequencies. Foreign companies can obtain VSAT authorisation through MIIT, but the licence is held by a Chinese-majority joint venture rather than the foreign parent, every site and frequency is named in the application, and traffic lands on domestic gateways. No commercial or diplomatic Starlink exemption has been documented in mainland China.