Livinginchina: I don't recommend to remove your WeChat account at all. but it's the WeChat Pay account you need to remove if you want to update your passport number.

Michael: If you're going to update your passport information in WeChat, make sure you first take out any money that's left in your WeChat account, or you'll lose it. You'll also use all transaction history, which can be inconvenient if you're using WeChat to keep track of certain payments. You'll have to delete your WeChat pay account and recreate it. This otherwise won't affect your WeChat chat history and such.

JanJal: Good point. Many apps require a range of permissions before they will even open, such as many of the bank apps here.

However, it appears Tencent, with many of their technologies, matches not only on your passport number but also on your name. As Western names appear in a different way in about every system available, name matching will almost certainly result in a non-match. It's also perfectly possible that the geographical information used to get us a green code (or a red code) is matched in a different way than the info that tells Tencent and Ali whether we have had our vaccinations yet.

Long story short, I was able to update my WeChat passport number by the method above, but did not get matching vaccination information in my health code. The Alipay health code updated just fine for me, but Alipay already had my new passport number.

I just had my second vaccination today and already seeing an updated health code in Alipay. The WeChat system appears to be broken as the built-in verification system is linked to the name that's used on your Chinese bank card, and that's rarely written the same way as it is on foreign passports. I'd be curious to know if the WeChat health code works properly for any expat. I get a green code, but no indication of having been vaccinated.

AlPage48; To update my WeChat to my new passport number I had to disable all automatic payments (such as Didi) I allowed before one by one and remove my WeChat pay account entirely. Make sure to transfer your remaining balance before that time if you're doing this.

After that I redid the entire verification process, which requires a bank card and required me to use my name as written on my bank account, which is different from how it shows on my passport.

I now have an updated passport number but of course still no vaccination status in WeChat.