A tissue culture system for production of infectious hepatitis C virus is described. In particular, the invention provides recombinant monocistronic and bicistronic genomic constructs for production of virus, including constructs for production of wild-type HCV type 2a strain JFH1 and constructs for production of chimeric viruses comprising HCV proteins from strain JFH1 and a second HCV isolate. Constructs of the invention also include a reporter gene to facilitate measurement of RNA replication and viral infectivity in cultures. The cell culture system may also include various factors that improve viral replication or infectivity. In addition, a neutralization assay using HCV grown in cell culture is described.