1. What to verify
A Chinese supplier presents a business licence, a certificate, a factory audit report.
Four questions.
Does the company exist?
Is what it claims about itself true?
Is the certificate genuine?
Is the certificate relevant to what you are buying?
2. The business licence
What it contains
Registered name, unified social credit code, legal representative, registered capital, establishment date, business term, registered address, scope of business.
How to verify
The National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System, administered by the State Administration for Market Regulation, allows the credit code or the company name to be looked up.
The lookup returns the company’s registration status, its registered capital, its scope of business and any administrative penalties recorded.
That is the authoritative check, and it is free.
What to look for
Status: 存续 (in existence) or 在业 (operating) is fine. 注销 (deregistered), 吊销 (licence revoked) or 迁出 (moved out) is not.
Scope of business: does it cover the product?
Registered capital: is it consistent with the scale claimed?
Establishment date: a company established six months ago claiming twenty years of experience.
Administrative penalties: a company with a record of enforcement action.
3. The foreign trade operator registration
A company needs registration to export in its own name.
Without it, the company exports through an agent, which changes who is the exporter of record and who appears on the documents.
Confirm which applies. The exporter of record on the certificate of origin should be the party you contracted with, or the arrangement should be explained.
4. The certificates
Product certificates
ISO 9001, ISO 13485, CE, FDA registration, and product-specific certificates.
Each has a verification route.
ISO certificates can be verified with the issuing certification body.
CE certificates: the notified body can confirm the certificate, and the EU’s NANDO database lists notified bodies. A CE certificate issued by a body not on the list is not a CE certificate.
FDA registration: the FDA’s establishment registration database confirms registration, though registration is not approval.
Test reports
Verify with the laboratory that issued the report.
Check that the report covers the specific product and model, not a similar one.
Check the report date.
5. The factory audit
Where the order value justifies it, a third-party inspection of the factory.
The audit confirms:
That the factory exists and operates.
That the production capacity matches the claimed volume.
That the processes match the product.
That quality systems are in place.
A factory audit is more informative than any certificate, because certificates describe systems and audits describe reality.
6. The common deceptions
The trading company posing as a manufacturer
The business licence scope says 贸易 (trade) rather than 生产 (production).
Not necessarily a deception, and the price may still be good. But the supplier is not the factory, and the certificate of origin and the conformity certificate may be issued to a different entity.
The borrowed certificate
A certificate belonging to a different company or a different product, presented as the supplier’s.
Check that the certificate names the supplier.
The expired certificate
Check the validity date.
The certificate for a different model
Common with electronics and machinery.
7. The sequence
Verify the licence first. If the company’s status is wrong, nothing else matters.
Then the foreign trade operator registration.
Then the certificates relevant to the product.
Then the factory audit, where justified.
8. Closing view
Verification is free, quick, and done far less often than it should be.
The single most useful step is the credit information lookup, which takes five minutes and confirms the company’s existence, status and scope of business.
*This article is based on China’s National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System and standard supplier verification practice. Importers should verify credentials independently and consider third-party inspection for significant orders.*