A business license(營業(yè)執(zhí)照, Ying Ye Zhi Zhao) is a document proving the legal establishment of a Chinese company.

This post was first published in CJO GLOBAL, which is committed to providing consulting services in China-related cross-border trade risk management and debt collection. We will explain how debt collection works in China below.

In China, legally incorporated companies are issued business licenses by the Chinese company registration authority, the Administration for Market Regulation.

Although the business license of a Chinese company is only one page, you can find the most important information about a Chinese company on it.

The business license contains basic information that a Chinese company should disclose to the public, including nine items of information as follows:

1. Unified Social Credit Code, its registration number;
2. Entity Name, its Chinese legal name; and by the way, Chinese companies do not have legal English names;
3. Company Type, its form of business organization;
4. Legal Representative, the person who is authorized to enter into transactions on behalf of the company and who shall be liable for the company’s violations under certain circumstances;
5. Business Scope, within which its actual business shall fall;
6. Registered Capital, the amount that its shareholders undertake to contribute to the company;
7. Date of Incorporation, the date of its establishment;
8. Term of Operation, the period of its existence, and you can determine whether the company is currently in existence based on the period;
9. Address, the registered place of business of the company. In practice, except for factories, many Chinese companies actually do business at different addresses.

Sample of Business License is as follows:

So, how do you check a certificate of registration?

You can search the information about this company in China’s National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System.

This is a website of the State Administration for Market Regulation of China, available at: http://www.gsxt.gov.cn/index.html

For more information on how to use this website, please see our article “How Do I Know if a Chinese Company Is Legitimate and Verify It?”.

If the company information you find on this website matches the information on the Certificate of Registration, the Certificate of Registration is authentic.

For our services in Company Verification and Due Diligence, please click HERE.

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Contributors: CJO Staff Contributors Team

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