OFFICIAL WORKFLOW / 01
Use the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System before interpreting risk.
The registration search answers a narrow but necessary question: which Chinese legal entity is behind the documents you received? Do not use an English storefront name as if it were the registered identity.
To find a company in China, start with its exact Chinese legal name or 18-character code. An English website or sales name can help you ask for those details, but does not replace them.
Collect the exact search keys
Ask for a current business licence and copy the full Chinese registered name and Unified Social Credit Code exactly as shown. Keep the English trading name, marketplace account and salesperson name as separate aliases.
Under China’s current unified-code rules, the code is a nationwide unique identity code assigned to an organisation and displayed on its business licence. The official coding standard is GB 32100-2015.
Search the official GSXT registry
Open the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System and search the exact Chinese name or Unified Social Credit Code. Use the code when available because it is the stronger identity key.
The registry’s official help page says name searches can be fuzzy and can return up to 100 records. Do not select a similar-looking result without matching the code or other identity fields.
Match the live record to the deal documents
Record the query date and compare the legal name, Unified Social Credit Code, entity status, registered address, legal representative and business scope with the licence and contract. Then compare the contracting seller and bank beneficiary.
China’s market-entity registration regulation identifies fields such as name, entity type, business scope, address, registered capital and legal representative as general registration matters. Changes must be registered, so a dated live result matters more than an undated screenshot sent by a supplier.
Read more about the field that needs explaining.
Read what a supplier’s registered business scope can, and cannot, signal about a factory role →
Read why a registered address and claimed factory site must be checked separately →
- Identity: English and Chinese names · legal representative and contract signatory · domain lookup limits.
- Licence: the printed fields · photo limits · status terms · registered capital.
- Record history: company changes.
- Factory role: trader or manufacturer · import-export wording.
- Production site: factory-profile evidence.
Separate identity confirmation from supplier approval
If the official record and deal documents align, continue to product-specific compliance, manufacturing-role and payment controls. If a material field differs, hold the decision until the supplier explains the difference through a known and independently verified channel.
A registered wholesaler can be a legitimate supplier, and a company with manufacturing wording can still outsource your order. Registry language is a clue about the entity. It proves nothing about the site, equipment, capacity or quality system behind your product.
If you found this supplier through a platform listing, also review what Alibaba’s own signals do and do not verify. Those signals are badges, reviews and Trade Assurance. The registry match and the platform layer answer different questions.
Continue with the China supplier due diligence sequence →
Use the free factory-or-trader reading for a narrow first-pass signal →
Then verify the production site, processes, certificate scope and fit for your order →
Before payment, match that registered identity to the seller, invoice and bank beneficiary →
Who is China’s registrar of companies, and where is the business registry?
Companies register with local market regulation authorities at or above county level. The local office is usually called an Administration for Market Regulation (AMR) in English. The national State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) sets rules and supervises. It is not a central registrar like Companies House in the UK.
For an archive request, start with the registration authority named on the business licence. Articles 59–61 of the registration rules provide for archive queries. The records you may see and the documents you must supply depend on who is applying and the applicable rules. Ask the authority what it can provide. This does not promise an overseas buyer access to a complete file.
Use GSXT for public disclosures. The National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System (国家企业信用信息公示系统, GSXT) publishes registration information. Public disclosures and an archive request are separate routes. The steps above use GSXT. If the portal will not open, read the dated observations and access limits.
A China company search or China business registry check uses this same public system. Search with the exact Chinese name or 18-character code.
A certificate sent by the supplier still needs to be matched against the live record. A red company seal does not settle the identity. Read the limits of checking a company chop: there is no public chop register for this comparison.
What is the GSXT website address, and is there an English version?
The address is www.gsxt.gov.cn. It is frequently mistyped: gsxt.gov.con and www.gsxt.gov.en are both common enough to show up as search queries, and the correct domain ends in .gov.cn. The full Chinese name is 国家企业信用信息公示系统; in English it is usually rendered National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System. Some provinces expose their own sub-domains (for example sc.gsxt.gov.cn), but the national front door is the one above.
Our scan did not establish an English search route. On 8 August 2026, three of eight target front pages loaded without an English-version marker. GSXT returned 521, so its page could not be assessed. This does not establish whether an English search is available. Ask for the Chinese legal name and code; arrange help reading the record if needed.
Look for these two field labels.
- 统一社会信用代码: the 18-character Unified Social Credit Code. Check its structure here first. A copying error can prevent a match; a valid format does not verify the company.
- 登记状态: the registration status line: 存续 / 在业 (live), 歇业 (dormant), 吊销 (licence revoked), 注销 (deregistered). What each one means for your order: 吊销 is the one that looks alive from outside.
The site will not open, or the search will not run. What now?
0 of 12 overseas script requests returned HTTP 200. Saved results from 13 August 2026: eleven requests returned 403 and one returned 521. Only two target nodes also tested the control host. This did not test a complete browser search; see the dated node results.
A script result does not tell you whether a buyer can search. On 14 August 2026, saved requests from two mainland networks returned 521 with reported JavaScript challenge content. The control hosts returned 200. We did not test a complete browser search in that run. Read the dated challenge observations.
Three consequences worth knowing before you spend an afternoon on it:
- Ask which source a service uses. These tests do not establish how every data service works. Ask for the source, query date, access method and missing-data limits before relying on a report.
- A failure is not evidence about your supplier. If the page will not load, that is a fact about the portal and your route to it. It says nothing about the company. Record what you tried and when, and do not read it as a red flag.
- Your browser and network may differ. The overseas node tests used scripts. They do not establish how often ordinary buyers can reach the portal or finish a search.
The dataset records six 521 target responses and twelve 200 control responses from two mainland test locations. A later five-profile client test also returned 521 for GSXT. None of those five profiles executed JavaScript.
Cite the dataset via DOI 10.5281/zenodo.21959355 or its Harvard Dataverse mirror. Read the findings in the saved registry challenge observations.
You still have three options without reaching the portal. Validate the 18-character code offline in your browser to catch transcription errors. Read the registered scope text the supplier already sent you. Or have the record read from the China side, with the source and query date stated.
These measurements did not bypass the challenge or establish which search method will succeed. A requested human check must state its actual source, query date and any access limit.
On 5 August 2026, the saved mainland GSXT test lists three CLI repeats and one extra request with browser headers, all returning 521. The control returned 200. The 8 August run also recorded 521. This code alone does not identify the cause. The availability study separates the request counts, control results and limits.
On 8 August 2026 we tested eight official Chinese verification sources from inside mainland China. We requested each front page three times. Five of eight did not serve a page. None of the three loaded pages showed an English-version marker. These are dated access observations, not a finding about your supplier.
The overseas evidence is limited to scripted requests. The 13 August round had 12 target nodes, with only two also requesting the control host. It did not test a real browser search. Our earlier proxy test also failed against an Australian government host; we withdrew the claim that it proved Chinese government sites were unreachable from abroad.
What a failed connection does not tell you: it is not evidence that the record is missing, that the company is unregistered, or that the supplier is hiding something. It only tells you that you could not reach the source from where you are.
Try these steps in order.
- Ask the supplier for the 18-character Unified Social Credit Code in writing, then compare it with the licence and contract. Our free code checker checks the structure and check digit in your browser. It does not confirm the registered identity.
- Ask a counterpart inside China to run the search and send you the output together with the date they ran it.
- Have the check run China-side and returned with its sources, the query date and the limits of what it covers. That is what this desk does.
The official service may also require interactive verification even when it does load. This guide does not bypass CAPTCHA, proxy the portal, automate data harvesting or mirror the registry.
Treat “no result” as an unresolved identity
No-result does not, by itself, prove that a supplier is fraudulent. It can reflect a copied-name error, use of an English alias, a changed entity name, an inaccessible session or invalid search conditions.
Re-copy the Chinese name and code from the licence, remove added spaces or punctuation, try the exact code, and preserve the failed query date. If the identity still cannot be matched, hold the transaction and request corrected official identity evidence. Guessing which similar company is yours is how deposits get lost.
If access or matching remains unresolved, prepare a dated China-side human check →
AFTER THE MATCH / 02
What is still open after the search succeeds
A name match is a starting point. The table shows selected commercial-provider results for the same 45 company codes in saved files dated 21–22 August 2026. These counts show which queries returned data. Completeness and supplier safety require separate checks. The NHTSA manufacturer study describes the source frame.
| Selected query category | Companies |
|---|---|
| Company type query | 45 of 45 |
| Shareholders / annual reports (each) | 44 of 45 |
| Change history | 41 of 45 |
| Import/export credit record | 41 of 45 |
| Qualification certificates | 36 of 45 |
| Branch-record hits | 8 of 45 |
| Administrative penalty hits | 9 of 45 |
A returned category gives you records to inspect. It does not make them complete, current or free to obtain. A branch-record hit does not verify a production address. Read the address and establish site control separately.
Correction, 8 September 2026: the earlier table wrongly labelled eight branch hits as production-site links and reported no sanctions. The retained administrative-penalty query has nine hits. The abnormal-operations and serious-illegality queries each returned zero hits; neither is an all-clear. Read the underlying record before deciding what a hit means.
The snapshot query returned image links for 44 codes. It supplied no structured record fields. These saved results do not measure today’s access, record accuracy or the cost of a buyer’s check.
MATCH TABLE / 03
What to compare before proceeding
| Field | Compare against | Proceed, hold or escalate |
|---|---|---|
| Chinese legal name | Business licence, contract, invoice and official record | Proceed only when the seller identity is consistent or a documented relationship explains the difference |
| Unified Social Credit Code | Business licence and official record | Hold when codes differ, are missing from a supplied licence, or resolve to another entity |
| Registration status | Current official record | Escalate inactive, revoked, cancelled or otherwise material status wording before contracting |
| Address and legal representative | Licence, contract and current record | Ask for a dated explanation when material details have changed |
| Business scope | Quoted role and product | Use only as a first-pass role signal; obtain order-specific manufacturing evidence separately |
| Contract seller and payee | Contract, invoice and bank beneficiary | Hold an unexplained third-party or personal beneficiary |
METHOD / 04
How this guide was prepared
Currawong’s China-side verification desk reviewed the live official sources below on 30 July 2026. We mapped each source to the narrow claim it can support. How to search, how the unified code works, which fields are registration matters, and why the live record should be dated.
| Official host | What buyers use it for | HTTP response |
|---|---|---|
www.gsxt.gov.cn | Company registry (GSXT) | 521 |
www.creditchina.gov.cn | Penalties, dishonesty lists | 412 |
sbj.cnipa.gov.cn | Trademark office | 403 |
credit.customs.gov.cn | Customs enterprise credit | 412 |
cx.cnca.cn | CCC certification queries | 521 |
wenshu.court.gov.cn | Court judgments | 200 |
zxgk.court.gov.cn | Court enforcement records | 200 (browser UA only) |
openstd.samr.gov.cn | National standards (GB) | 200 |
Control: www.gov.cn | Government host | 200 |
Control: www.baidu.com | Commercial host | 200 |
This guide sends you to the registry, so it owes you the state of the door. On the test date GSXT did not serve its front page (521) from a consumer connection inside mainland China, while both control hosts answered normally. Refusal is still an answer, but either way the page did not load.
We did not inspect any reader’s supplier, factory, product or transaction. This page is general research guidance. It is neither legal advice nor a product-compliance opinion, a factory audit or a guarantee of transaction safety. Official portal availability and displayed records can change.
PRIMARY SOURCES / 05
Official sources used for this guide
The sources below were reviewed on 30 July 2026. The archive-query rules, Articles 59–61, were checked on 8 September 2026. A specific entity still needs a dated record check; this page update does not refresh every source.
- National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity SystemOfficial nationwide market-entity credit search by Chinese name, Unified Social Credit Code or registration number.
- GSXT: Official system helpSearch inputs, fuzzy-search result limits, no-result behaviour and source-responsibility boundaries.
- SAMR: Measures for unified social credit code managementCurrent nationwide uniqueness, one-organisation/one-code and business-licence display rules, effective 1 February 2026.
- SAMR National Standards: GB 32100-2015Current coding rule for the unified social credit identifier.
- State Council: Regulation on market entity registrationRegistration fields, business-licence effect, changes, cancellation and public disclosure framework.
COMMON QUESTIONS / 06
Keep these four boundaries clear
- Can I search with an English supplier name?
- Ask for the Chinese legal name and Unified Social Credit Code instead of relying on a translated brand. An English sales name may differ from the registered identity. A failed search leaves that identity unresolved.
- Does a matching registration prove the supplier is reliable?
- No. It confirms the matched registered identity at the query time. Reliability, capacity, product compliance, delivery and payment safety need separate evidence.
- Does business scope prove the company owns a factory?
- No. Scope wording is a first-pass clue. Site control, process capability and order-specific production still require separate evidence or an audit.
- What if the bank beneficiary is another company?
- Hold payment until the relationship is disclosed, documented and confirmed through an independently verified contact channel. A mismatch is a question to resolve. On its own it is no proof of fraud. Verify the bank account details before payment →