China's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030)
An explorable, by-phase guide to the 2026-2030 blueprint, with concrete, source-verified progress through August 2026.
Four phases, one plan
The plan spans 18 parts and 62 chapters. To keep it digestible, this explainer splits it into four explorable phases, each with its intent and a Progress so far (Aug 2026) panel of concrete builds.
What the plan is, and where it is heading by 2030
China's 5-year national blueprint for 2026-2030, the 15th in the series since 1953. It sets the direction for the whole economy, government spending, and business. Approved March 12, 2026 by the National People's Congress, it frames 2026 as the 开局之年 opening year — a launch-and-build phase.
The strategic goal is to build the foundation for basically realizing socialist modernization by 2035 — GDP per capita reaching the level of "moderately developed countries" by 2035. source
Full name: 《中华人民共和国国民经济和社会发展第十五个五年规划纲要》 (15th Five-Year Plan Outline for National Economic and Social Development). Based on the Party's Proposals of October 2025, and published in full March 13-14, 2026. source source
| Category | Indicator | 2030 Target |
|---|---|---|
| Economy | GDP growth | kept in "reasonable range" (2026 target 4.5-5%) |
| Economy | Urbanization rate | 71% (2025: 67.9%) |
| Innovation | R&D spending growth | >7%/yr |
| Innovation | Digital-economy core share of GDP | 12.5% (2025: 10.5%) |
| Innovation | High-value patents per 10,000 people | >22 |
| Livelihood | Avg education, working-age | 11.7 years |
| Livelihood | Life expectancy | 80 years |
| Livelihood | Surveyed unemployment | <5.5% |
| Green | CO₂ per unit GDP | −17% binding |
| Green | Non-fossil energy share | 25% binding |
| Green | PM2.5 | <27 µg/m³ binding |
| Security | Grain capacity | ~1.45 trillion jin |
| Security | Energy capacity | 5.8 bn tonnes coal-equivalent |
Indicators per the plan's official indicator table source
H1 2026 GDP reached ¥69.57 trillion, up 4.7% y/y — Q1 +5.0%, Q2 +4.3%. Services are now the largest sector: 59.5% of GDP, contributing 66.1% of growth. source · NBS, Jul 15 2026
The plan's own 供强需弱 strong-supply, weak-demand drag is visible: total fixed-asset investment fell −5.7% and real-estate development investment −18.0% in H1 2026. The strong tech and energy build sits alongside this weak demand and property drag. source · NBS, Jul 15 2026
Modern industry, new quality productive forces, digital China
This phase keeps manufacturing as the backbone, upgrades traditional industry, and builds the strategic emerging and future industries that Beijing calls 新质生产力 new quality productive forces — self-reliant tech, plus digital China and a stronger domestic market.
The plan names future industries to build: quantum biomanufacturing hydrogen & nuclear fusion brain-computer interface embodied AI 6G — alongside new energy vehicles, robots, biopharma, high-end equipment, aerospace, and the 低空经济 low-altitude economy. It also calls for fixing 内卷 involution competition. source
High-tech manufacturing value-add rose +13.3% in H1 2026 and equipment manufacturing +9.3%, against all-industry +5.4%. Output of 3D printers (+48.5%), lithium batteries (+39.3%) and industrial robots (+28.0%) led the way. source · NBS, Jul 2026
China sold about 23,000 humanoid robots in H1 2026, with 2026 output expected +94% y/y; Unitree and Zhiyuan hold roughly 80% of shipments. The Unitree G1 was cut to ¥85,000, and Zhiyuan launched 灵渠OS Lingqu OS, a ¥2 billion, 5-year "Android for robots" play. Honest note: fewer than 5% of sales are actually deployed on factory lines — the field is at 量产前夜, pre-mass-production, with real commercialization 2-3 years out. source · 21财经, Jul 30 2026
DeepSeek-V4 (released 2026-06-20) became the first Chinese model to run natively on domestic AI chips — the Huawei Ascend 950PR — via a full CUDA-to-homegrown stack migration, roughly 3x inference efficiency, a shift away from Nvidia dependence. Tech-media sourcing; flagged as secondary. source · Tencent Cloud, Jun 2026
The Zuchongzhi-3 祖冲之三号 superconducting quantum computer again broke China's "quantum advantage" record in February 2026. source · USTC, Feb 2026
Low-altitude economy: a Shenzhen-Zhuhai cross-city eVTOL commuter route is targeted to open in 2026; the market was about ¥6700亿 in 2024 and targets ¥3-5 trillion by 2030. source · Faxiangongchang, 2026
Satellite internet: the Qianfan 千帆 constellation targeted 324 satellites networked by July 2026, with about 200 in orbit as of June. source · OFweek, Jun 2026
Computing power under 东数西算 East-Data-West-Computing: the 8 national hub nodes totaled 215.5 EFLOPS as of Q1 2026, with AI computing above 80.8% and a 20-ms latency circle achieved. China Mobile's 2026 computing-network capex is about ¥378亿 (+62.4%); China Unicom plans about ¥1000亿 for its computing network over the plan. source · ifeng, 2026
Population, common prosperity, the Greater Bay Area, green
This phase covers the people side (birth-friendly society, aging, education, health, common prosperity, real-estate), the place side (rural revitalization, regional balance, the Greater Bay Area), and the planet side (carbon peak, environment, green lifestyles).
Plan intent: a birth-friendly society with quality education and healthy China; active response to population aging; full employment and better income distribution; high-quality real-estate development; agri modernization with grain capacity toward ~1.45 trillion jin by 2030; coordinated regional development including the 粤港澳大湾区 Greater Bay Area; and a green transition toward carbon peak. source
Elderly care: from Jan 1 2026 a national care-service consumption subsidy up to 800 yuan/month for moderately-and-above disabled elderly went nationwide — home-care vouchers offset 50%, institutional care 40%. Extended from pilot to country-wide. source · Guangming, Feb 2 2026
Childcare: a national birth subsidy of 3,600 yuan/child/year for children under 3 is active in 2026. source · People's Daily App, 2026
Rural and grain: 2026 summer grain output reached 301.49 billion jin — the first time ever above 300 billion jin (+0.7%), with a per-mu yield of 378.8 kg, an all-time high, helped by a 1000-county yield-enhancement campaign. source · Anhui News, Jul 10 2026
Shenzhen is the Greater Bay Area anchor: 832 major projects worth about ¥3.2 trillion for 2026, with ¥107.03 billion done in January-April (34.6% of the annual plan). source · sz.gov.cn, 2026
GBA trade: after a May 2026 customs-reform package of 20 measures, the GBA's mainland 9 cities' trade hit ¥3.4 trillion in Jan-Apr 2026, +18.4% y/y, a quarter of national trade growth. source · 南方+, May 21 2026 source · Qianhai plan, Jan 2026
The APEC 2026 Economic Leaders' Meeting in November is in Shenzhen, part of about 300 meetings nationwide. source · Xinhua, Jan 15 2026
Green and environment: the Ecological & Environmental Code 生态环境法典 takes effect Aug 15 2026 with a standalone green-low-carbon part, and the national carbon market has formally added steel, cement and aluminum smelting beyond just power. Baseline goals: PM2.5 below 27 µg/m³ by 2030 (from 28 at the end of the 14th plan), CO₂/GDP −17%, forest cover 25.8%. source · 21财经, Aug 3 2026 source · MEE, Mar 2025
The 深中通道 Zhongshan-Shenzhen link has been open since June 30 2024 (pre-plan, still the anchor GBA link); the Shenzhen-Zhuhai link is only in pre-feasibility study. source · sz.gov.cn, 2026
Security, opening up, Hong Kong/Macau, and implementation
This phase covers national and economic security, defense modernization, autonomous opening up and the Belt & Road, one-country-two-systems and cross-strait, and the mechanism for carrying the plan out.
Plan intent: a national security system with economic security and public safety; defense modernization toward the army's centenary goal (2027); higher-quality trade and investment under autonomous opening; Hong Kong and Macau prosperity and peaceful cross-strait reunification; and a full-cycle implementation mechanism under party leadership. source
Trade record: H1 2026 goods trade hit ¥25.47 trillion, +16.9% y/y — the first half-year ever above ¥25 trillion, keeping China the world's No.1 goods trader. source · gov.cn, Jul 14 2026 source · People's Daily, Jul 14 2026
Foreign investment policy: MOFCOM (January 2026) is prioritizing FDI-promotion reform, the 投资中国 Invest-in-China brand, and a free-trade-zone upgrade strategy; NDRC (February 2026) is shortening the foreign-investment negative list and easing ownership caps in telecom, internet, education and culture while deepening RCEP. source · CCTV, Jan 26 2026 source · NDRC, Feb 13 2026
China hosts APEC 2026 (leaders' meeting in Shenzhen, November), and the China-ASEAN FTA 3.0 upgraded protocol is moving toward entry into force in 2026. source · Xinhua, Jan 2026 source · FTA 3.0 protocol
Energy security: the first Greater Bay Area Hualong One reactor (Guangdong Taipingling Unit 2) went fully commercial Aug 3 2026, and 2026's first new nuclear unit (Jiangsu Xuwei) began construction Jan 16 2026, on the path toward a ~110 GW nuclear target by 2030 (from ~66 GW). Renewables are roughly 60% of the power fleet, adding 58.93 GW in Q1 2026 alone. source · CCTV, Aug 3 2026 source · NEA, Apr 27 2026
Infrastructure: the 西十高铁 Xi'an-Shiyan line, billed as the first 350 km/h HSR of the plan year, anchors a national network of ~160,000 km of rail and ~46,000 km of HSR (world No.1). Chengdu alone has 30 major projects worth over ¥8200亿, and a national 两重 mega-project batch worth over ¥4000亿 includes the Guangzhou new airport, the Zhanjiang-Haikou cross-sea ferry, Zhejiang UHV, and Sichuan Daduhe hydropower. source · 未来网, Jul 2026 source · NDRC batch, 2025
Sources
All links verified live (HTTP 200) in August 2026. Core figures trace to Chinese official and primary media: NBS, MOFCOM, MEE, GACC, Xinhua, NDRC, CCTV, and local government sites. A few secondary aggregator links are copies; a few government sites may return 403 to automated requests but serve content in a normal browser.
Plan full text: gov.cn
Plan official PDF: NDRC
People's Daily plan coverage: people.com.cn
H1 2026 GDP: NBS
Retail / investment: NBS
Renewables Q1 2026: NEA
Hualong One GBA reactor: CCTV
Humanoid robots: 21财经
DeepSeek-V4 on Ascend: Tencent Cloud
Zuchongzhi-3: USTC
Low-altitude eVTOL: Faxiangongchang
Qianfan satellites: OFweek
Computing hubs: ifeng
Trade H1 2026: gov.cn (en) · People's Daily
FDI policy: CCTV
Negative list / RCEP: NDRC
APEC 2026 Shenzhen: Xinhua
China-ASEAN FTA 3.0: 81.cn
Shenzhen 2026 projects: sz.gov.cn
GBA customs reform: 南方+
Qianhai action plan: locpg.gov.cn
Summer grain record: Anhui News
Elderly care subsidy: Guangming
Childcare subsidy: People's Daily App
Ecological Code: 21财经
Carbon market expansion: MEE
Xi'an-Shiyan HSR: 未来网
两重 mega-projects: NSTI/NDRC