How to buy Laos-China Railway tickets, including buying tickets online, by mobile phone app, ticket offices, and travel agents.
The Laos-China Railway is a modern and efficient semi-high-speed railway system, but buying tickets isn’t as smooth as the train ride.
The official website at www.lcrc.ltd doesn’t sell tickets, and there are rules and time restrictions for buying tickets.
Here is how to buy tickets for the Laos China Railway.
Buy tickets for the Laos-China Railway
Buy tickets online
Mobile phone app
Ticket offices in Laos
Travel agents in Laos
Buy tickets online
The Laos-China Railway website doesn’t offer tickets online, but you can buy tickets via the online booking site Baolau.
Baolau are a booking site that offer transport tickets across Southeast Asia. Readers have asked me about Baolau as they are not a big brand name yet. Baolau started in Vietnam so I have been using them for years.
I have since taken a ride on the Laos-China Railway to test out the booking process through Baolau, and the process was easy.
Train tickets are only sold up to 7 days in advance (same day plus next 6 days), so you need to mark your calendar for when to book. Tickets do sell out, so book as soon as you know your date. (This was previously 3 days in advance before July 2025).
The booking page shows the trains available for that day and the cheapest seat available.
Click on a train time, and then you will be shown ticket options on that service.
Prices are shown in USD, and there is a commission and service fee added (Nomadic Notes is an affiliate of Baolao).
After making the booking, an official PDF version of the ticket is sent by email. The ticket has a QR code which you scan when entering the station. Tickets are checked to ensure that the name and passport number matches.
The ticket shows the prices in Lao Kip. This ticket from Vientiane to Vang Vieng was 171,000 LAK. The rate from an online currency converter shows $7.70 USD while the booking price was $7.96 USD. This is a reasonable conversion.
[PDF ticket includes QR code and train and seat details.]
You can also collect a printed train ticket at the station if you prefer a paper ticket. Once you do this you can’t use the PDF ticket.
[My paper train ticket at Vientiane Railway Station.]
Book Loas-China Railway tickets online.
Mobile phone app
Tickets can be bought via a smartphone app if you have a phone number from Laos, China, or Thailand.
The app is available on Android and iOS.
Ticket offices in Laos
[Ticket office at Luang Prabang Station.]
Tickets are available at the train stations and at official ticket offices in Vientiane and Luang Prabang.
Vientiane Ticket Office: Vientiane Center Mall.
Luang Prabang Ticket Office: Phothisalath Rd, next to Le Pavillon de Jade.
[Ticket at Luang Prabang ticket office.]
In Vientiane, I bought tickets at the ticket office at the Vientiane Center shopping mall. This office wasn’t accepting cash or credit cards when I went. I had read online that they accept Wechat, so I set up my Wechat to make payments. When I arrived at the office I found out they only accept a local payment app called OnePay. I ended up asking someone in the queue to pay for me with their app, and I gave them cash. The ticket offices at the train stations accept cash.
[OnePay and UnionPay at Luang Prabang ticket office.]
The city ticket offices only sell tickets departing from that destination, so that is another inconvenience.
The ticket offices at the train stations have a board showing how many tickets are available on each train. The information scrolls quickly between English, Lao, and Chinese, so I could never read it properly, but there were classes showing 0 tickets.
[Ticket availability shown at Vang Vieng ticket office.]
Travel agents in Laos
Travel agents and hotels in Laos offer tickets for the railway. They are buying tickets in person and add a commission. I have seen agents at the ticket office with a pile of passport photocopies and a list of itineraries.
[Travel agent in Vang Vieng selling bus and train tickets.]
This was a useful service before you were able to book online. They might sell the ticket as part of a package, such as offering a taxi ride to the station.
This train travel guide for Laos railways is part of the Southeast Asia railways guide.
How on earth can LCR still be so ridiculously difficult to use?
It’s mindboggling that they built so many bridges and tunnels in 5 years, but can’t throw together a booking website.
Hi James thank you for posting this article. It clearly tells me what I need to do to obtain train tickets for my trip from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng on New Years Day 2025. I have read so many mixed reports on Laos Facebook page and Trip Advisor.
Thanks, Sam! Yes I was seeing conflicting info, so it was best to see for myself.
Thanks, great up-to-date comprehensive information. Will book thru Baolau. Have also used them in Vietnam. Good booking experience and responsive.
If you want to buy train tickets from China to Laos, you can use Chinese railway official site 12306 or mobile app 12306. There is an English version. Or you can use Trip.com. You can buy the tickets 15 days before your travel date. The problem that I got is impossible to get the tickets for the train from Kunming to Vientiane. Once it is open to sell, less than one second, all the tickets are sold out! So we bought the one from Xishuangbanna to Luang Prabang without any problem. Once you have the ticket, you need to get the physical paper ticket from the train station.