To verify a Chinese company, ask for its business licence and look it up on the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System at gsxt.gov.cn, using the 18-character Unified Social Credit Code printed on the licence. Confirm the registration status, legal representative, registered address and business scope against the licence and the quote. The registry is free and run by the State Administration for Market Regulation; it is published in Chinese, and machine translation handles the structured fields well.
Why This Matters
An English trading name has no legal standing in China. The legal identity is the Chinese name and the credit code, and payments, contracts and certificates all attach to that identity. A supplier's website, an Alibaba profile or a confident sales email tells you what the company says about itself; the registry tells you what has been filed with the state.
Public access to Chinese court judgments ended in 2024, and China's Regulations on Industrial and Supply Chain Security, in force since 31 March 2026, restrict information-gathering on supply chains. Document-based checks against the registry are therefore the core of what a foreign buyer can still do remotely and safely.
How It Works
- Get the licence. Ask for a scan of the business licence. It shows the registered Chinese name, the credit code, the legal representative, registered capital, business scope, registration date and address. A supplier that refuses, or sends a licence in a different name from the quote, has given you your first finding.
- Search the registry. On gsxt.gov.cn, search by the code or the Chinese name. Check status first: active, revoked, cancelled or in the abnormal-operations list.
- Read the change history. Every change of representative, name, address or capital is recorded. Frequent recent changes, or a representative who changed last month, deserve a question.
- Read the enforcement sections. Administrative penalties, the abnormal-operations list and the serious-illegal-and-dishonest list are public. An entry is not a verdict, but it is a question to raise before paying.
- Match the payee. Bank details on the proforma invoice should be in the licensed entity's name. A personal account, or a Hong Kong company with a different name, needs its own explanation and its own registry check.
Commercial aggregators such as Tianyancha, Qichacha and Aiqicha present the same data with English interfaces and add inferred relationships between companies and people. They have access limits for users without Chinese phone numbers, so use them to navigate and the official registry to confirm. The full route, including certificates, sanctions and customs data, is in verifying a Chinese supplier in 2026.
FAQ
Is gsxt.gov.cn available in English?
No. The registry is published in Chinese only. Machine translation of the page works adequately because the fields are structured and labelled consistently. The commercial aggregators offer English interfaces over the same underlying data, with some access restrictions for foreign users.
What if the supplier's English name doesn't appear?
It won't. English names are informal. Search by the Chinese name or, better, by the Unified Social Credit Code from the licence, which is unambiguous. If the supplier cannot give you a code or a Chinese registered name, treat that as a finding in itself.
Can I check a Chinese company's court history?
Not directly. China Judgments Online was replaced in January 2024 by a database open only to court personnel. The remaining public signals are the enforcement and dishonesty lists on the registry and aggregator summaries built from limited sources.
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