I ran into this while looking for a way for a family member to check their hearing. When I was in the US, my iPhone with AirPods Pro 3 had a hearing test built in. My family member's iPhone is in mainland China, and the feature isn't there.

The short answer

As of September 24, 2026, Apple's AirPods Pro feature availability page lists the Hearing Test for 181 countries and regions. Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan are on the list, and so are Japan, South Korea and Singapore. Mainland China is not. The word "China" doesn't appear anywhere on the page.

The Hearing Aid and Hearing Protection features on the same page don't list mainland China either.

What you need where it is available

According to Apple Support, all of these have to be true:

  • You're using AirPods Pro 2 or AirPods Pro 3 with the latest firmware. AirPods 4 and noise-cancelling headphones from other brands won't work.
  • Your iPhone or iPad is running the latest software, and at least iOS 18 or iPadOS 18.
  • You're 18 or older.

The test takes about five minutes. You need a quiet place and a good seal in your ears. A cold, a sinus infection or an ear infection in the last 24 hours, or time somewhere loud like a concert, can affect the result.

Why it isn't available in mainland China

Apple hasn't said. Only two things are clear.

First, a footnote on Apple's page says the Hearing Aid feature has received FDA authorization. So in the US, at least one of these hearing features went through review as a medical product.

Second, in mainland China, medical devices have to go through a process under the Regulations on the Supervision and Administration of Medical Devices before they can be sold: Class I products are filed, and Class II and Class III products are registered. If these hearing features are treated as medical devices in China, that process comes first.

Whether Apple has applied in China, and how far it has got, isn't public. So if your devices meet the requirements above and you still can't find the Hearing Test, it isn't a setting you missed. The feature hasn't been released in mainland China.

What you can do in mainland China

Get a pure-tone hearing test at a hospital

Pure-tone audiometry in a hospital's ENT department is the most common clinical hearing test. It's done in a soundproof room with calibrated equipment, and a doctor can act on the result directly. The catch is waiting for an appointment, and on a weekday you may have to take time off work.

Test at home and watch for changes

This is why I made my own app, Hearing Test (听力自测). It's a separate app, not Apple's feature. It uses your own headphones to test eight frequencies from 250 to 8000 Hz and draws an audiogram, all on your phone, in about five minutes.

It hasn't been acoustically calibrated, so treat the decibel values as a rough guide. What's worth looking at is the shape of the curve, meaning which frequencies are relatively weaker, and how it changes from one test to the next. It isn't a medical device and can't diagnose anything. If the curve moves in the wrong direction, or you notice a sudden drop in hearing, ear pain or dizziness, see a doctor.

Turn the volume down

The WHO and the ITU have a safe listening standard: for adults, 40 hours a week at 80 dB is the safe limit. Every 3 dB louder halves the safe time, so at 90 dB it's about 4 hours.

The number of regions in this article comes from Apple's page as checked on September 24, 2026. Apple can change it at any time, so go by Apple's page.