How to Check a Chinese Company’s Registration Number

In China, a registration number can be used to search online for a lot of information about a Chinese company, such as an address, registered capital, and business scope. In addition, it is also proof of whether the company is legally registered in China. In this article, I am going to introduce how to find this crucial information.

From a Business License

There are two versions of business licenses in China. On March 1, 2014, the government revised the style of business license, but some companies have not yet renewed their business license. The registration number can be found on both licenses, but there are some differences in how it is described.

The old version of the business license

The Chinese characters before registration number on the old version of the business license are “注册号“, with a total of 15 digits, as is shown in the following picture.

Although this is a company’s registration number, it is difficult to find out a company’s information online since the company numbering system has changed in China.

Only the registration number of the new business license can be used effectively in the Chinese government database, although we can do it since we have our own increasingly-extensively database of all Chinese companies. If you want to know more detailed information about a company by its registration number, you need to ask your supplier for a new registration number, or Unified Social Credit Code (统一社会信用代码).

The new version of the business license

The Chinese characters before registration number on the new version of the business license are “统一社会信用代码“, with a total of 18 digits, as shown in the following picture.

If you have a new version of the business license of a company, you can go to the website of the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System: http://www.gsxt.gov.cn, if you want to know the detailed process, you can read this article in our blog.

Get Registration Number from a Registration & Filing Form for Foreign Business (对外贸易经营者备案登记表)

Like the Business License, there are also two versions of the Registration & Filing Form for Foreign Business.

The Chinese characters before the registration number on the old version are “工商登记注册号“, with a total of 15 digits.

The Chinese characters before the registration number on the new version are “统一社会信用代码“, with a total of 18 digits.

Although we can acquire a company’s registration number on its Registration & Filing Form for Foreign Business, this form is private information, so it is impossible to get it by yourself. The only method for you to get it is to ask your Chinese supplier to send it to you.

Search Online with a Chinese Company name

Ask your Chinese supplier for the complete and correct company name in the Chinese language, then navigate to the website of National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System: http://www.gsxt.gov.cn, enter the company name in the search box, and you can find the registration information of this company on the following page, as is shown in the picture.

If it is challenging for you to ask your supplier for its Chinese company name, but this company’s website has an ICP registration number, which can be found on its website, then you can find its official Chinese name in its ICP Certificate and search for other information about this company with the Chinese name.

You can go to the ICP Registration Query: https://www.beianx.cn/ to search for the name of this company, as is shown in the picture. And then you can continue with the previous steps to look for its registration number. You can read more details about what an ICP certificate is and how to use it to search Chinese companies’ information in this article: How to Check A China Company’s Website ICP Certificate.

Chinese characters “主办单位名称” are the official Chinese name of this company.

Check Registration Number on Official Company Stamps

In general, you can find a company’s name on its stamps, as is shown in the following picture.

Then, you can use this name to search for its registration number by using the aforementioned method.

Sometimes, you can even find this company’s registration on its chops directly, as is shown in the picture.

So, when you receive some documents from your supplier, you must pay attention to the stamps on them, maybe you can get to know this company better by using the information on chops.

Conclusion

A lot of methods can be used to search for the registration number of a company. After entering the registration number in the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System, almost all the information of this company like business scope, establishing date will be shown on the page. Then you need to check whether the information in this system is consistent with the information your supplier sends to you to judge if it is an honest company.