Chinese Cities Roll Out Wellness Residence Policies as Elderly Population Hits 320 Million

By the end of 2025, China's population aged 60 and above had reached 320 million. As the elderly population expands, some cities have begun treating retirees as a new source of housing demand, with multiple localities recently issuing a wave of wellness residence and elder-care support policies.

On July 23, 2026, Qingdao in Shandong province issued a city-level systematic support policy for elder-care real estate, comprising 11 measures and proposing the development of the "China Wellness Bay." The policy stipulates that health service centers on newly transferred land may be counted toward floor-area ratio without being priced, allows land premium payments to be made in installments with a maximum term of one year, and permits developers to apply for pre-sale once construction reaches the ground-level milestone. On financial support, developers may use tools such as service-consumption and elderly-care relending facilities, with relending terms of up to three years and annual interest rates as low as 1.25%. Insurance funds may enter the elder-care real estate sector through equity, debt, industrial funds, and REITs.

In the same month, Yantai in Shandong proposed growing its elder-care industry to exceed RMB 50 billion by the end of 2028, with a focus on wellness tourism and leveraging its local climate to develop summer retreat and recuperation models. Hainan, also in the same period, proposed promoting refined and differentiated development of the wellness industry, laying out five areas: traditional Chinese medicine wellness, forest wellness, climate wellness, hot spring wellness, and sports wellness. Jilin province issued a pilot plan for high-quality wellness residence development in May 2026, targeting 30,000 new wellness residence beds by 2028, average annual growth of more than 10% in wellness residence trips (stays exceeding 10 days), and a total of 3.8 million trips. Yunnan proposed building 3,000 residence villages over the next three years, offering wellness and medical-care products.

Local data show that "migratory bird" retirement has emerged in some cities. Jingdezhen, with an urban population of under 900,000, hosts more than 60,000 out-of-town "Jing drifters." Panzhihua in Sichuan province has in recent years promoted its wellness resources in cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Changchun. Many localities have proposed revitalizing idle assets and converting existing properties into wellness residence spaces.

On the securitization front, in July 2024 the National Development and Reform Commission issued a notice on the normalized issuance of real estate investment trusts (REITs) in infrastructure, which for the first time included elderly-care facilities within the infrastructure category. Qingdao's July 2026 elder-care real estate policy explicitly supports insurance funds investing in the sector through equity, debt, industrial funds, and REITs. In overseas markets, US elder-care REITs have developed a mature model, with representative companies including Welltower and Ventas. These institutions hold assets such as retirement communities, assisted-living facilities, and dementia-care centers, with professional operators providing services, generating stable cash flows from occupancy fees and service income. Markets with high aging rates, such as Japan and Singapore, have also explored securitization pathways for elder-care assets.