Services · Licences & special services

How to check if a Chinese company is real and registered

Updated 4 October 2026

A Chinese company's English name has no legal standing: in the register it exists only under Chinese characters and an 18-character code. How to find it in government databases, read its business licence and spot a scam before paying in advance.

A Chinese company's English name has no legal standing at all. The rules on enterprise name registration, updated by China's State Council (the national government) in 2020, require the name to be written in Chinese characters. Whatever appears in Latin letters on the contract, the invoice or the website is just a translation, and anyone can make one up. In the state register, the company exists only under its Chinese name and an 18-character code.

That gap is where much of the fraud in China trade lives. The buyer sees a familiar name, a website full of factory photos and a licence in PDF, while the money lands in the account of a different firm, a middleman or a private individual. A counterparty check in China answers three questions before payment: does the company exist, is it the same company named in the contract and the invoice, and does it carry debts, fines or court enforcement against it.

The state publishes the core data on Chinese companies free of charge. The difficulty lies elsewhere: everything is in Chinese, the records are spread across several government websites, and the official registers have look-alike copies. Below: which registers to check, how to read a business licence, which warning signs expose a fraudster, and what goes into a report prepared by Murblz specialists.

How to check a Chinese company registration number

The master key to any Chinese company is the Unified Social Credit Code (统一社会信用代码, USCC). It is an 18-character string of digits and capital Latin letters that replaced several older numbers at once, including the tax registration number. The format is set by national standard GB 32100-2015, in force since 1 October 2015.

The code is assigned at registration and printed on the business licence. It finds the company in the register far more reliably than the name: a Chinese name is easy to confuse with a similar one, a code is not. So the first thing to request from a supplier is the code and a scan of the licence, not a link to a website.

A commercial company almost always starts with 91. A code starting with 92 means an individual business (个体工商户, getihu - a family business without legal-entity status). If a factory with three workshops on its website turns out to be registered as an individual business, that deserves questions. One more detail that catches forgeries: the code never contains the letters I, O, Z, S or V, which the standard excludes to avoid confusion with digits.

A licence showing a 15-digit registration number (注册号) instead of the 18-character code is an outdated document. Under a notice from the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC, China's economic planning agency), company licences without the unified code stopped being used on 1 January 2018. The company itself may still exist, but the document shown to a buyer in 2026 should be current.

The licence carries a QR code for verification in the market regulators' system. Scanning it is useful, but a fake QR code is far easier to produce than a fake register. Check the address of the page that opens: the official register runs only on the gsxt.gov.cn domain.

Where is the official Chinese company register

Mainland China has one official company register: the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System (国家企业信用信息公示系统) at gsxt.gov.cn. It is run by the State Administration for Market Regulation (国家市场监督管理总局, SAMR), the agency that registers companies and polices competition and product quality. Searching is free, but the interface is Chinese-only and the site makes you pass a captcha before it shows results.

Court and customs records sit on other government websites. The full picture only emerges from several sources together.

One important caveat. Search results show sites carrying the same Chinese names on unrelated domains next to the official ones. Government addresses end in gov.cn, and in gov.hk for Hong Kong. Anything else is at best a commercial mirror and at worst a data trap.

There are also Chinese commercial aggregators that combine the register, court records and trademarks into one profile. They are handy for a first look, but they are a secondary source: in a dispute or in correspondence with a bank, only an extract from the government system carries weight.

What should a Chinese business licence show

The business licence (营业执照, yingye zhizhao) is a Chinese company's core document, the equivalent of a certificate of incorporation and a register extract on one page. Since 1 October 2016 it has merged five former certificates, including the tax registration certificate, so there is no need to ask for the separate tax certificates and registration cards that older guides still mention.

The licence is checked against the register line by line. Any mismatch is a reason to stop.

• Name in Chinese characters - identical to the one on the seal and in the bank details, down to the last character.
• Legal representative (法定代表人, fading daibiaoren) - the person who acts for the company by law without a power of attorney. If someone else signs the contract, a power of attorney from the company is needed.
• Registered capital (注册资本) - the amount the shareholders have promised to contribute. It is not money in the bank.
• Date of establishment and term of operation - a company set up a month before a large order calls for extra caution.
• Business scope (经营范围) - if it lists no manufacturing (生产, 制造), only sales and wholesale (销售, 批发), you are most likely dealing with a trading company rather than a factory.
• Address - it should match the address of the factory you are invited to visit or the place the goods ship from.

The seal deserves its own paragraph. In China the round red company seal (公章, gongzhang) weighs more than a signature. The UK government's business risk guidance for China warns plainly that whoever holds the seal can bind the company in important transactions even without authority. The seal should carry the same Chinese name as the register; a seal with English text only is a warning sign.

How to check if a Chinese company is legitimate and reliable

The quickest trouble indicator is the annual report. Under the Interim Regulations on Enterprise Information Publicity (企业信息公示暂行条例), as amended by the State Council on 10 March 2024, every company files a report on the previous year between 1 January and 30 June. Miss it, and the company goes onto the list of enterprises with abnormal operations (经营异常名录, jingying yichang minglu), a mark visible to anyone.

From there the penalties escalate. If a company misses its reports two years running, fails to fix it and cannot be reached at its registered address, the authorities revoke its business licence. False data in its filings can bring a fine of up to $30,000 and, in serious cases, a place on the list of seriously illegal and dishonest enterprises (严重违法失信名单), which bars its legal representative from heading other companies for three years. The takeaway for a buyer is simple: an abnormal-operations mark is not a technicality but a sign of a company that has stopped looking after itself or exists only on paper.

The register also shows what the company must disclose within 20 working days of the event: shareholder contributions to capital, transfers of shares, permits obtained, pledges of intellectual property rights and administrative penalties. Financial figures in the annual report (revenue, profit, taxes, headcount) are something the company is legally allowed to keep private. Open revenue that is in line with the order size is a good sign. Hidden revenue is normal, but the scale of the business then has to be confirmed in other ways.

Capital on paper and capital in cash

Registered capital of $1.5 million or $7.5 million long guaranteed nothing: shareholders could promise to pay in decades later. The PRC Company Law as revised in 2023, in force since 1 July 2024, requires shareholders of limited liability companies to pay in their capital within five years of incorporation. Companies set up before 30 June 2024 must cut their remaining contribution period to five years by 30 June 2027, which means paying in by mid-2032 at the latest.

For due diligence this means one thing: look past the capital on the licence to the paid-in capital (实缴) shown in the register. Capital of $1.5 million with nothing paid in is common for a young company, but a weak argument when negotiating a large advance payment.

Courts, debts and customs

The Supreme People's Court portal zxgk.court.gov.cn shows whether there are enforcement cases against the company and whether it is on the list of dishonest judgment debtors (失信被执行人), meaning those who do not comply with court decisions. Such a debtor is barred by the court from high spending, and its counterparties risk getting goods without payment or paying without getting goods. A listing here is one of the strongest reasons not to pay in advance.

The judgments database wenshu.court.gov.cn shows the substance of disputes: whom the company sued or was sued by, over what, and how it ended. It has limits. Not every judgment is published, and from 2024 the Supreme People's Court made its new nationwide judgments database internal, for courts only. The absence of cases in the open database therefore does not prove there were no disputes.

The customs platform credit.customs.gov.cn answers a question few people ask: is the company registered with customs as a foreign-trade operator? If a factory offers to export but is not registered with customs, someone else will be the shipper, and the contract should reflect that.

Can you find out who really owns a Chinese company

Partly. The register shows direct shareholders and their stakes, both individuals and corporate shareholders. If a shareholder is another Chinese company, the chain can be traced upwards through the same register. If the top of the chain is a firm from Hong Kong, the British Virgin Islands or another jurisdiction, the check continues under that jurisdiction's rules.

China does have a beneficial ownership register, but it is closed. The Measures on Beneficial Owner Information (受益所有人信息管理办法), introduced by the People's Bank of China and SAMR from 1 November 2024, require companies to report individuals who own 25% or more, hold 25% or more of profit or voting rights, or otherwise control the company. Companies set up earlier had to file by 1 November 2025. The data is available to state authorities, banks and other institutions that check customers under anti-money-laundering rules. A private buyer cannot obtain it.

Small companies with capital of up to $1.5 million, where all shareholders are individuals and there is no hidden control, may skip the filing altogether by giving a written undertaking. That is why Murblz specialists separate, in every report, what the register confirms from what remains the company's own statement.

Warning signs of a Chinese supplier scam

The most painful losses in China trade are not defects but money sent to the wrong place: a quality claim can be pursued with the supplier, while a payment to a front company is much harder to recover. The UK government's business risk guidance for China advises verifying that a counterparty is legitimate and using secure payment methods, especially for deals that start online. These are the signals worth checking before any transfer.

Does a Chinese supplier need an export licence

Many guides still advise asking a supplier for an export licence or a foreign-trade operator registration card. That advice is out of date. On 30 December 2022 the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (China's legislature) removed mandatory registration of foreign-trade operators from the Foreign Trade Law, and commerce authorities stopped processing it the same day. A Chinese company now has the right to export by default.

What remains is customs registration for clearing goods, plus separate permits for goods whose export China restricts. So the right question for a supplier is not whether they can show an export licence, but who will be named as exporter on the declaration and whether the goods need any permits.

How is checking a Hong Kong company different from mainland China

Talks about supplies from China often end up at a Hong Kong company: payment goes through it, the invoice is issued by it, the contract is signed in its name. Legally, it is a different jurisdiction with its own register, its own disclosure rules and its own document language. A check on a mainland firm says nothing about a Hong Kong one.

If the money goes to a Hong Kong firm while a factory in Guangdong ships the goods, both companies and the link between them need checking. For Hong Kong counterparties we offer a separate service: counterparty asset search in Hong Kong. For a general overview of the jurisdiction, see Hong Kong.

Can you check a Chinese company for free

A basic check, yes, and it is worth doing even before a small order. The state registers are free; all it takes is a browser, a Chinese translation tool and an hour. The steps are as follows.

1. Ask the supplier for the full Chinese name, the 18-character code and a scan of the business licence.
2. Find the company on gsxt.gov.cn by its code and compare the name, legal representative, address, date of establishment and business scope with the licence.
3. Look through the annual reports for recent years and any abnormal-operations marks.
4. Search the name and code on zxgk.court.gov.cn for enforcement cases and a listing as a dishonest judgment debtor.
5. If the supplier promises to export, find it on the customs platform credit.customs.gov.cn.
6. Compare the payee name in the bank details with the name in the register, character by character.

That is where the free part ends and the work a browser translator cannot do begins. You need to understand how the companies in the chain are connected, who else stands behind the legal representative, what a particular register mark actually means, what the court cases were about and whether the picture matches what the supplier says. A mistake at this step usually costs more than the check itself.

What a registry check will not show

A clean register extract proves that the company exists and is not listed as a violator. It does not prove that the factory will make goods of the right quality on time. Capacity, equipment and real output are checked on site, through a factory audit or a pre-shipment inspection, which is a separate task.

There are other limits worth knowing in advance:

• Beneficial owners are closed. The ultimate ownership register is open to authorities and banks, not to buyers.
• Court records are incomplete. Not every judgment is published in the open database, so an empty result does not equal a clean history.
• Data lags. Companies disclose changes within 20 working days and file an annual report once a year by 30 June. A fresh debt or dispute may not have reached the register yet.
• Financials are optional. A company may choose not to publish revenue and profit.
• A Latin-script name guarantees nothing. Two different companies can share the same English name, and each is free to translate its name as it likes.

A word on the law. The PRC Counter-Espionage Law as revised on 26 April 2023, in force since 1 July 2023, significantly broadened the definition of espionage, and in spring that year the authorities raided the offices of foreign firms engaged in counterparty due diligence. That is why Murblz specialists work only with open government sources and documents provided by the counterparty itself. Covert information gathering on Chinese companies inside China is not a service worth buying from anyone.

Who this check is not for

A counterparty check makes sense when an advance payment, a long-term contract or an exclusive distribution deal is at stake. There are situations where it will not solve the problem or will not pay off:

• A small one-off purchase through a marketplace that holds the money until delivery: the risk is already covered by the platform, and the check may cost more than the deal itself.
• You need to verify quality or factory capacity. The register says nothing about that; a visit to the production site is needed.
• The money is already gone and has to be recovered. The check will show who is on the other side of the contract and whether the company has debts, but recovery takes a claim, arbitration or court proceedings in mainland China or Hong Kong. At that stage legal support is needed, and Murblz specialists provide it together with locally licensed partners.
• The deal runs into sanctions. A clean entry in a Chinese register does not override US, EU or UK sanctions lists: if the counterparty or its owners appear on them, correspondent banks may stop the payment.

What is in a counterparty check report for China

Murblz specialists collect information on the company from government sources and compile it into a structured report with conclusions. The report states plainly what is confirmed by documents and registers, and what remains the company's own claim or could not be verified.

• Registration and status: full Chinese name, unified code, date of establishment, address, business scope, whether the company is active.
• People and capital: legal representative, officers, shareholders and their stakes, subscribed and paid-in capital.
• Company history: annual reports, changes of owners and management.
• Violations and disputes: abnormal-operations marks, administrative penalties, enforcement cases, the dishonest judgment debtor list, available court judgments.
• Cross-check with deal documents: whether the name, the signatory and the payee in the contract, invoice and bank details match the register, if these are provided.
• Translation: where needed, we translate the check materials from Chinese into English or Russian.

The Chinese name or the 18-character code is enough to start. If there is only an English name, a website and an address, we begin by establishing which company in the register they correspond to. Official fees for extracts, if needed, are charged at cost. The price of a basic check is in the table below; the timeline is set once we have seen the company's data.

A check is often the first step towards a structure of your own in the region. Murblz specialists help with company registration in China, accounts with Chinese banks, a company in Hong Kong and a Hong Kong business account, covered in more detail in our article on opening a business account in Hong Kong in 2026. Annual reporting for a Hong Kong company is handled by our Hong Kong audit and accounts service, and translation and legalisation of documents by translations. Other special services are collected under licences and special services.

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