How to Verify a Chinese Supplier

A deposit to the wrong beneficiary fails the moment the bank posts it to a name the license does not show. Verify a Chinese supplier, and check if a Chinese supplier is legit, by matching the license, the registry, and the bank beneficiary before that deposit moves. Put the check in the sequence for sourcing products from China before you approve a sample, and use the sourcing guides for the records that come after it.

To check if a Chinese supplier is legit, match the Chinese legal name and the unified social credit code on the business license to the national enterprise credit information publicity system, then match that name to the contract seller, the invoice issuer, and the bank beneficiary. SAMR Order No. 112, in force since 1 February 2026, gives each organization one lifelong code, allows that code to belong to only one organization, and requires the registration authority to print the code on the business license. GB 32100-2015 clause 4.1 sets the code at 18 digits or capital letters and excludes I, O, Z, S, and V. A matching registry record shows the entity was registered. It does not show that the person in your inbox works for that entity, or that the registered address is the workshop that will make the goods.

Copy the registered name and the unified code

Ask for a readable copy of the current business license, on paper or as the electronic license. State Council Order No. 746, Article 22, gives the original and the duplicate equal legal effect, and gives the electronic license the same legal effect as the paper license. The issue date on that license is the establishment date (Article 21).

SAMR Order No. 112, Article 10, requires the registration authority to assign the unified social credit code as the identity mark and to print it on the business license, one license with one code. Article 9 of the same order states that an organization receives one code for its life, and that one code is assigned to only one organization. An individual business that converts into an enterprise, or a sole proprietorship that converts into a company or a partnership, keeps the same code.

Article 8 of the registration regulation lists the general registration items: name, entity type, business scope, domicile or principal place of business, registered capital or contribution amount, and the name of the legal representative, the executive partner, or the responsible person. Article 10 allows only one registered name. Article 11 allows only one domicile or principal place of business. Copy those items from the license into your file and compare them with the registration information in the publicity system. Article 6 of the 2024 enterprise information publicity regulation requires the market regulation authority to publicize registration and filing information, chattel-mortgage registration, equity-pledge registration, administrative penalties, and other information the law requires to be public.

The authority’s registration check is a formal review. Article 19 says the authority confirms an application that is complete and in the required form, registers it on the spot when it can, and otherwise registers it within 3 working days, with one extension of 3 working days if the case is complicated. That review does not inspect the workshop.

Reject a code that breaks the character rule

Rule of thumb. If the copied code is under 18 characters, or any character is I, O, Z, S, or V, stop and ask for a clearer license before you search. Clause 4.1 of GB 32100-2015 builds the code from 18 digits or capital letters and does not use those five letters, so the string cannot be a unified code.

The same clause splits the 18 characters into five parts:

Amendment 1, approved on 15 April 2016 and effective on 18 April 2016, labels department code 9 as 工商, the industry-and-commerce registrar. The national standards platform still lists GB 32100-2015 as current, and it shows a revision project still in draft. Use the 2015 text plus Amendment 1 until that revision is published. Do not treat a department digit as a quality score.

Read the publicity record yourself

The 2024 publicity regulation, Article 5, puts the State Administration for Market Regulation in charge of building the national enterprise credit information publicity system. Article 6 gives that authority 20 working days from the day the information is generated to publicize the registration, mortgage, equity-pledge, and penalty items. Article 8 requires the enterprise to file the prior-year annual report through that system from 1 January through 30 June, and to publicize it. A company established in the current year starts with the next year’s report.

Article 18 lists an enterprise on the abnormal-operations list when it misses that annual-report deadline, or when it misses a publicity deadline the authority has already ordered. The same article states a further condition for revocation: the enterprise was listed for missing annual reports for two consecutive years, it has not corrected that, and the authority cannot reach it at the registered domicile or place of business. False publicity, where no other law already sets the penalty, brings an order to correct and a fine written as 1万元以上5万元以下, and in a serious case 5万元以上20万元以下, entry on the serious-violation list, and license revocation is available to the authority. The legal representative or responsible person of an enterprise on that serious-violation list cannot hold either role at another enterprise for 3 years.

A direct request to www.gsxt.gov.cn on 17 October 2026 returned HTTP 521, so this page does not describe the buttons on that screen. Open the system yourself, search the 18-character code, and save a dated copy of the record you relied on. Compare the Chinese name, the code, the legal representative or responsible person, the address, the entity status, the establishment date, and the business scope with the license. Then look for the Article 6 items, the annual report, and any abnormal-operations or serious-violation listing.

Article 3 of the registration regulation requires a market entity to register before it operates under that name, except where another law or regulation says registration is not required. If your own search returns no record for the code, you do not have the registered entity the seller named.

Count unmatched names before you pay

Rule of thumb. If unmatched names exceed 0, hold the deposit. Count the contract seller, the invoice issuer, and the bank beneficiary. Unmatched names N equals how many of those three Chinese names differ from the license, after you drop a second entity only once you have looked that entity up under its own code.

Worked example: the contract seller matches the license, the invoice issuer matches the license, and the bank beneficiary is a different Chinese name you have not looked up. N = 1. The deposit stays where it is.

A name change has a clock. Those days do not clear a new bank name for payment. Article 24 of the registration regulation gives the entity 30 days from the resolution, decision, or statutory change to file the change. Article 6 of the publicity regulation then gives the authority 20 working days to publicize the new registration information. Until the system shows the new name, you are looking at a seller PDF, not the public record.

Use the commercial invoice and packing list cross-check on the invoice name once N is 0. The hidden cost of paying earlier is a deposit posted to a name you have not tied to a registry record, a bulk lot started with no approved sample of the agreed material, and a certificate that names a different model so the destination file does not cover the SKU.

Separate the workshop from the customs declarant

A factory, a trading company, and a customs declarant are different roles. Article 8 records the domicile or principal place of business. It does not record which machines stand there. On a video call or a visit, start at incoming material and continue through the process, the in-process check, packing, and finished goods. A showroom shows that someone can hand you a sample.

The General Administration of Customs service guide for consignor filing quotes Customs Law Article 11: a consignor or consignee of import and export goods, and a customs broker, files with customs before handling customs formalities. The same guide quotes Order No. 253, Article 4: the applicant needs market-entity status, and a consignor also needs a foreign-trade operator filing unless another rule applies. The guide’s acceptance list limits consignors to companies and other enterprise legal persons, sole proprietorships, partnerships, farmer cooperatives, individual industrial and commercial households, branches of foreign companies, and other market entities named in law. A branch files only after the parent consignor has filed, and only for the branch types the guide lists.

The guide states that the filing fee is zero, that the time limit is 3 working days, and that the filing is published on the China Customs enterprise import-export credit information platform. A window filing uses the consignor form stamped with the unit chop. This check did not open that credit platform. The guide is the source for what gets published. A filing tells you the entity is recorded as a declarant. The factory that makes the goods can be a different entity, which you still look up under its own code.

The party on the customs filing is the party whose shipment you cost later. The filing itself is not the duty, freight, or brokerage math in a landed-cost calculation.

This procedure uses a mainland unified code and the national publicity system. A contract with a company that has no mainland market-entity registration needs that company’s own registrar. This page does not cover that registrar.

Treat a certificate and a sample as two different tests

Read the issuer, the report or certificate number, the applicant, the manufacturer name, the model, the standard and edition, and the issue and expiry dates. Confirm the number with the issuer, using contact details you took from the issuer rather than from the PDF the seller sent. A report for a different model, a different material, or a different power supply does not cover your SKU. The document check stops at the issuer’s record. Rules in the destination country are a separate decision.

A paid sample tests whether this seller can make one unit to the specification you wrote down: material, components, labeling, and the date they actually ship. Approve that unit in writing before bulk production, and state which of those items have to stay the same. The sample does not measure the bulk lot. Before that lot ships, run a pre-shipment inspection in China against the same points, and keep the workshop notes on the quality control inspection list you asked the factory to walk through on camera.

Use the standard’s check-character example

The check character is position 18. GB 32100-2015 computes it from the first 17 characters. With Ci as the character value from Appendix A and Wi as the weight in Table 4:

C18 = 31 - MOD(sum of Ci times Wi, 31)

Appendix B is the standard’s worked example for the arithmetic. Its first 17 characters are 91350100M000100Y4. The standard’s own products sum to 1640. MOD(1640, 31) = 28, because 31 times 52 is 1612 and 1640 minus 1612 is 28. Then C18 = 31 - 28 = 3, and Appendix A maps the value 3 to the character 3. The example code is 91350100M000100Y43.

Two results use a special character, and both are in the standard. When the remainder is 1, C18 is 30 and the check character is Y. When the remainder is 0, C18 is 31 and the check character is 0. Do not search this example as if it were your seller, and do not paste a near-miss into a payment file.

What to keep in the supplier file

Keep the license copy, the code you searched, the dated publicity record, the three names you used for N, the customs filing status if this seller will declare the goods, the certificate check, and what the video or visit showed from incoming material through packing. Repeat the code search and the name count when the beneficiary, the factory address, the product category, or the size of the order changes.

File the note with the other China sourcing checks. The sourcing guides are the section this page belongs to.

Method and sources

Checked on 17 October 2026. The code rules are GB 32100-2015 clause 4.1, Table 4, Appendix A, Appendix B, and Amendment 1, from the standard PDF, with the current-status page on the national standards platform. The lifelong code and the license marking are SAMR Order No. 112, Articles 9 and 10, effective 1 February 2026. Registration items, the one-name rule, the formal review, and the 30-day change window are State Council Order No. 746, Articles 3, 8, 10, 11, 19, 21, 22, and 24, effective 1 March 2022. Publicity items, the annual-report window, the 20-working-day clock, and the abnormal-operations and false-publicity consequences are the 2024 revision of the interim publicity regulation, Articles 5, 6, 8, and 18, as republished by the Ministry of Commerce (amendment decision effective 1 May 2024). Customs filing conditions, the zero fee, the 3-working-day limit, and the publication statement are the General Administration of Customs consignor-filing guide, including its quotations of Customs Law Article 11 and Order No. 253, Article 4. The library search returned no primary text of these instruments. No new search-results page was purchased.