MICHELIN Keys launched on October 9, 2025 with 2,457 hotels on the first list, and Chinese hotels were counted for the first time. The list isn't hard to read. The hard part is what to do next – once a hotel has three Keys, do you book it at the public rate, or can you book it on better terms? This guide explains what the Keys judge, then how we use them as the first filter when ranking hotels.
Start here: MICHELIN Key hotels in our perks list, 872 in total, including 89 with three Keys.
MICHELIN Keys and restaurant stars are two different things
MICHELIN has listed hotels before. It used a set of "house" icons that marked physical comfort: the more houses, the more luxurious, which isn't much different from a star rating. The Keys ask a different question: is this hotel worth making a trip for in its own right?
Keys and restaurant stars don't convert into each other. Three Keys doesn't mean the restaurant downstairs has a star, and a three-star restaurant doesn't earn the hotel an extra Key. The judges are the same anonymous MICHELIN inspectors, and they pay for their own stays.
What kind of hotel the Keys look for
- The quality of the architecture and interior design
- The quality and consistency of service, meaning whether it can be sustained over time, not a one-off pleasant surprise
- Overall personality and character
- Whether the experience is in line with the price. MICHELIN stresses that this criterion looks at what the hotel delivers, not how much it charges
- Its contribution to the surrounding neighborhood and environment
The last criterion is where the Keys depart furthest from traditional ratings. A hotel that genuinely builds local culture, craft and ingredients into what it offers has an edge under this standard over a pricier hotel with more expensive hardware that looks the same in any city. The first Greater China hotels to score high were a resort in the Jiuzhaigou valley and an old landmark on Victoria Harbour, not newly built showpieces packed with amenities.
For anyone booking a room, the practical value of this standard is that hotels filtered by the Keys have substance. You get more than a comfortable bed. That is also why the list works well as a candidate pool.
Three levels: how far you'd go for it
| Level | Official definition | What it means in practice |
| One Key | A very special stay | Clearly better than other options at a similar price |
| Two Keys | An exceptional stay | Worth a detour |
| Three Keys | An extraordinary stay | Worth planning a trip around |
The dividing line isn't room size or the number of facilities. It's how far you'd go for the hotel.
How scarce they are worldwide
The first list had 2,457 hotels. The list keeps moving, and openings, ownership changes and drop-offs all change the numbers. Here is where things stood when we went to press (August 2026), along with how many can be booked through our advisor channel:
| Level | Hotels worldwide | In our perks list |
| Three Keys | 142 | 89 |
| Two Keys | 571 | 270 |
| One Key | 1,738 | 456 |
| Total | 2,451 | 815 |
There are a little over a hundred three-star MICHELIN restaurants worldwide and 142 three-Key hotels, so the two are about equally scarce. Of those 142, 89 can be booked through a certified advisor channel, more than 60%. The closer you get to the top of the list, the greater the overlap, and that's no coincidence: the kind of hotel the Keys favor is also the kind advisor perks programs have long collected.
Turning the Keys into a booking
This is how we use them ourselves, in three steps.
Step one: use the Keys to build a shortlist, not to reach a verdict. Once you've chosen a destination, see which hotels in that city made the list and how many Keys each has, and narrow dozens of options down to three to five. The Keys don't judge the absolute price, only whether the experience is in line with it, so they can't tell you whether a hotel is "worth it." They can only tell you that these few are unlikely to disappoint.
Step two: check your shortlist against our perks list and see which hotels are among the 3,863 hotels with perks available. On the page, tick "MICHELIN Keys only" to filter, or jump straight to the three-Key tier or see the 359 hotels at two Keys and above. If a hotel is on it, that night offers better value than the public channels.
Step three: click the hotel name to check rates. With rates in line with booking direct, and the same room type and cancellation terms, booking through a certified advisor usually also gets you daily breakfast for two, a hotel credit, a welcome amenity, and, subject to availability, an upgrade and late checkout. These aren't discount coupons. They're standard benefits the hotel gives its partner channels, and you can't get them through public channels.
Don't reverse the order. If you start from the perks list and then pick a hotel, it's easy to end up at one you didn't really want just to get the perks. Use the Keys to build the shortlist first, then choose the best perks only among the hotels you already want to stay at. That is the place perks should have.
Greater China: two three-Key hotels, thirteen two-Key hotels
Greater China debuted with 64 hotels: 42 in mainland China, 9 in Hong Kong, 9 in Macau and 4 in Taiwan. By level, that's 2 three-Key hotels, 13 two-Key hotels and 49 one-Key hotels.
The two three-Key hotels:
- Jiuzhaigou, Sichuan · Rissai Valley, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve. Tucked into a valley below the snow line of the Min Mountains, about a 20 to 30 minute drive from Jiuzhaigou National Park, with architecture and interiors drawn from the neighboring Tibetan villages. It is the only Reserve property in China, the highest tier of the Ritz-Carlton brand
- Hong Kong, China · Rosewood Hong Kong. 413 rooms on the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront, designed by Tony Chi, with a 25-meter infinity pool facing the harbor. It is the only three-Key hotel in all of Hong Kong
Both are in our perks list, so you can check advisor rates for Rissai Valley and Rosewood Hong Kong directly.
Of the 13 two-Key hotels, nine can be booked through the advisor channel. Click through from the right-hand column to check rates:
| City | Hotel | Advisor perks |
| Beijing | Bulgari Hotel Beijing | Available, check rates |
| Beijing | Mandarin Oriental Qianmen, Beijing | Available, check rates |
| Beijing | Rosewood Beijing | Available, check rates |
| Shanghai | Bulgari Hotel Shanghai | Available, check rates |
| Shanghai | Capella Shanghai, Jian Ye Li | Available, check rates |
| Shanghai | The Peninsula Shanghai | Available, check rates |
| Hangzhou | Four Seasons Hotel Hangzhou at West Lake | Available, check rates |
| Hong Kong | The Upper House | Available, check rates |
| Hong Kong | The Peninsula Hong Kong | Available, check rates |
| Macau | Morpheus | – |
| Macau | Grand Lisboa Palace Resort Macau | – |
| Macau | Palazzo Versace Macau | – |
| Macau | Karl Lagerfeld Macau | – |
All four Macau hotels sit outside the perks channel. Casino-linked hotels rarely join programs like this, and their room rates follow the gaming operators' own membership systems. Two Keys does fit the judges' taste, though: Grand Lisboa Palace turned entire buildings by two fashion houses, Versace and Karl Lagerfeld, into guest rooms, which hits the "personality and character" criterion squarely. Mandarin Oriental Qianmen in Beijing and Capella Shanghai Jian Ye Li took a different route. One preserves the fabric of a hutong courtyard house, and the other sits in the largest surviving shikumen lane complex in Xuhui. Both can be booked through the advisor channel.
The Amans in Hangzhou (Amanfayun), Shanghai (Amanyangyun) and Lijiang (Amandayan) are often described on Chinese social media as two-Key hotels, but none of them is among these 13. Amanyangyun holds one Key. Rumors like this were especially common right after the Keys launched, so when you see a specific Key count, it's best to check it against the official list.
Japan, France and the US
Japan was one of the first markets to be rated, and its first list in 2024 gave three Keys to six hotels: Hakone Gora Kadan, HOTEL THE MITSUI KYOTO, Amanemu in Shima, Bulgari Hotel Tokyo, Four Seasons Hotel Tokyo at Otemachi and The Palace Hotel Tokyo. A hot-spring inn converted from a former imperial villa and a skyscraper hotel run by an Italian jeweler share the top level. France has 22 three-Key hotels, including Ritz Paris and Le Meurice. In the US, Aman New York also has three Keys.
Greater China's two three-Key hotels in its first year are an order of magnitude fewer than France's 22. Part of the reason is that the inspectors have been in the Chinese market for a short time and their coverage is limited. The other part is that the standard really does favor hotels with history, local roots and an independent character, and new buildings make up too large a share of China's high-end hotel stock. So as a yardstick for choosing hotels, the Keys work best right now in Japan and Europe, where there's a wider choice and the overlap with our perks list is highest.
Where the Keys can't help
They don't judge the absolute price. A three-Key hotel can be outrageously expensive, and the list won't tell you whether it's worth it. The first-year sample in China also skews clearly toward tier-one cities and established resort areas, and many good hotels in smaller cities never came into the inspectors' view. The list is updated once a year in October, and last year's Key count isn't guaranteed to hold this year.
That's why we treat the Keys as a candidate pool, not a conclusion: first pick out the few hotels worth staying at on a trip, then see whether our advisor channel can get you better terms at those hotels.
If you'd like us to arrange a stay, please fill in the inquiry form. Rates change at any time, and the quote you receive at the time of inquiry applies.