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Foreign companies wishing to do business in China do not necessarily need to establish any kind of organisation in China. If they do want to set up a ‘China arm’, it can be one of the following types of entity:
Note that rep. offices are becoming an increasingly rare choice for foreign companies wishing to operate in China as the Chinese government is gradually reducing the legally permitted capabilities of ROs. JVs and WFOEs are the more common choices as they allow a much broader range of business operations to take place.
The process of checking the public registration record of a JV, WFOE or RO is much the same as that for checking a domestically owned Chinese company. All of these records can be checked via the website for the AIC (Administration of Industry and Commerce – 工商行政管理局) for the province the entity is registered in. Each province in China (‘province’ including major cities which have their own AICs) has an AIC, and they are required by Chinese law to make their company registration records publicly available online.
Unfortunately, the quality of these public registration record websites varies considerably between different AICs. There is currently no consistent, standardised system. Instead, you will have to determine how the particular AIC for the relevant province makes its records available. Some have intelligent search functions that accept only part of the entity’s registered name. Others require the full name to be entered exactly for any results to be displayed. Further, each AIC updates its public records on its own schedule, which in some cases can mean that the records get out of date before they are updated with the latest information.
The easiest way to find the AIC website for the province where your entity is registered is to do a websearch in Chinese for the name of the province and the term 工商行政管理局. AIC websites will include the letters ‘AIC’ in their address. For example, the AIC website for Gansu province looks like this in search results:
Once you’ve identified the AIC website for the province your entity is registered in, you can search for its registered name. This is likely to be its Chinese name, although some JVs, WFOEs and ROs are registered with an official English name. Depending on the search functionality of the AIC website and the accuracy of your search, the AIC website will display the public records it has on file for the entity you’re interested in. This record will display, at a minimum, the following information about the entity:
You can use this record to check that your JV, WFOE or RO in China has been registered correctly, and to see what registration information regarding it is being displayed to the general public. Note that all AIC records are displayed in Chinese and not in English, as are AIC website interfaces in general. Searching for a registered entity usually requires using its Chinese name, as it’s somewhat unusual for a company to be registered with an official English name.
China Checkup provides a hassle-free way to check the public registration records of any registered entity in China. We handle retrieval of the public registration record, and provide a full translation and explanation of the information displayed. Read more about our Chinese company reports for more information.
This glossary identifies the different Chinese company registration status terms that appear on official Mainland China company records.
If you are trying to find out if a Chinese company's registration has been revoked, cancelled or rescinded we hope the terms in this glossary will be useful to you.
Keep reading to find out about the various Chinese terms used to describe a company's registration status and get our English translations.
One of the most common ways to pay a Chinese supplier is to make a China T/T Payment, but it is not a method that comes without risk.
We regularly see cases where Chinese suppliers request payments to individual accounts, third parties, offshore accounts and offshore entities, rather than to their own Mainland Chinese corporate bank accounts.
Before sending a China T/T payment, pause and take a moment to make these 4 simple checks - they will help you ensure your payment is really going to the correct Mainland China entity.
In recent years freight trains from China have been capturing newspaper headlines by arriving in more and more countries.
Perhaps there is no more striking example of this then when the first China to Spain cargo train returned to Yiwu having covered a world record 16,156-mile round trip in 2015.
Read this article to learn about China's push for international rail cargo and find our which countries have already received freight trains from China.
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Matt Slater
Author
Hi there, I'm Matt, the founder of China Checkup. Originally from the UK, I am now based in Brisbane, Australia.
Frustrated by the scarcity of concise, high-quality and timely information about Chinese companies, I setup China Checkup whilst living in Shanghai in 2013.
My team are proud that China Checkup's company verification reports have now helped thousands of clients from all corners of the world to do business in China more safely.