{"id":52,"date":"2026-10-21T01:25:40","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T01:25:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/easy-buy-china.com\/blog\/?p=52"},"modified":"2026-10-21T01:25:40","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T01:25:40","slug":"how-to-verify-a-chinese-supplier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/easy-buy-china.com\/blog\/how-to-verify-a-chinese-supplier\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Verify a Chinese Supplier: Licence, Registry and Factory Checks (2026 Guide)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<style id=\"ebc-layout\">\n\/* ===== Easy Buy China blog: article layout refinements ===== *\/\n\n\/* Widen the whole reading column - title, meta and body - from the theme's\n   645px default. The theme derives every constrained block's width from this\n   variable, so overriding it once at page level keeps them all aligned. *\/\nbody.single {\n  --wp--style--global--content-size: 820px !important;\n}\n\/* The post-content block is full-bleed (alignfull) with its own padding and a\n   max-width, which pins the body copy to the left edge while the title centres\n   in the 820px column. Neutralise the wrapper and centre its children so the\n   title and the body share the same left edge. *\/\nbody.single .wp-block-post-content {\n  max-width: none !important;\n  margin-left: 0 !important;\n  margin-right: 0 !important;\n  padding-left: 0 !important;\n  padding-right: 0 !important;\n  font-size: 1.0625rem;\n  line-height: 1.75;\n}\nbody.single .wp-block-post-content > * {\n  max-width: 820px !important;\n  margin-left: auto !important;\n  margin-right: auto !important;\n}\n\n\/* Article title: calmer scale than the xx-large default *\/\nh1.wp-block-post-title {\n  font-size: clamp(1.6rem, 2.8vw, 2.25rem);\n  line-height: 1.22;\n  letter-spacing: -0.01em;\n  margin: 0 0 0.7rem;\n}\n\n\/* Body copy rhythm *\/\n.wp-block-post-content p { margin: 0 0 1.15rem; }\n.wp-block-post-content > p:first-of-type { font-size: 1.125rem; line-height: 1.7; }\n\n\/* Headings: one consistent scale, with breathing room *\/\n.wp-block-post-content h2,\n.wp-block-post-content h2.has-large-font-size,\n.wp-block-post-content h2.has-x-large-font-size,\n.wp-block-post-content h2.has-xx-large-font-size {\n  font-size: clamp(1.35rem, 2.1vw, 1.6rem) !important;\n  line-height: 1.3;\n  margin: 2.4rem 0 0.9rem;\n  scroll-margin-top: 90px;\n}\n.wp-block-post-content h3,\n.wp-block-post-content h3.has-large-font-size,\n.wp-block-post-content h3.has-x-large-font-size {\n  font-size: 1.15rem !important;\n  line-height: 1.4;\n  margin: 1.9rem 0 0.6rem;\n  scroll-margin-top: 90px;\n}\n\n\/* Lists *\/\n.wp-block-post-content ul,\n.wp-block-post-content ol { padding-left: 1.35rem; margin: 0 0 1.3rem; }\n.wp-block-post-content li { margin-bottom: 0.5rem; }\n\n\/* Links *\/\n.wp-block-post-content a { text-underline-offset: 2px; }\n\n\/* Tables (the guides are table-heavy) *\/\n.wp-block-post-content table {\n  width: 100%;\n  border-collapse: collapse;\n  margin: 1.6rem 0 2rem;\n  font-size: 0.92rem;\n  line-height: 1.5;\n}\n.wp-block-post-content th,\n.wp-block-post-content td {\n  border: 1px solid #e5e7eb;\n  padding: 8px 10px;\n  text-align: left;\n  vertical-align: top;\n}\n.wp-block-post-content thead th { background: #f3f4f6; font-weight: 600; }\n.wp-block-post-content tbody tr:nth-child(even) td { background: #fafafa; }\n\n\/* Hero image at the top of an article *\/\nbody.single .ebc-hero { margin: 1.2rem auto 2rem !important; }\nbody.single .ebc-hero img {\n  width: 100%;\n  height: auto;\n  display: block;\n  border-radius: 6px;\n}\nbody.single .ebc-hero figcaption {\n  font-size: 0.85rem;\n  line-height: 1.5;\n  color: #6b7280;\n  margin-top: 0.55rem;\n  text-align: center;\n}\n\n\/* In-article images (figures placed inside the body copy) *\/\n.wp-block-post-content figure.wp-block-image { margin: 1.8rem auto 2.2rem !important; }\n.wp-block-post-content figure.wp-block-image img {\n  width: 100%;\n  height: auto;\n  display: block;\n  border-radius: 6px;\n}\n.wp-block-post-content figure.wp-block-image figcaption {\n  font-size: 0.85rem;\n  line-height: 1.5;\n  color: #6b7280;\n  margin-top: 0.6rem;\n  text-align: center;\n}\n\n\/* Divider *\/\n.wp-block-post-content hr { margin: 2.5rem 0; border: 0; border-top: 1px solid #e5e7eb; }\n\n\/* The theme appends an \"all posts\" list to single posts, which repeats the\n   current article's title. Keep it as navigation, but at list scale. *\/\nbody.single .wp-block-query .wp-block-post-title,\nbody.single .wp-block-query .wp-block-post-title.has-large-font-size,\nbody.single .wp-block-query .wp-block-post-title.has-x-large-font-size {\n  font-size: 1.05rem !important;\n  line-height: 1.4;\n  font-weight: 600;\n}\n\n\/* Wide tables: scroll inside their own container rather than widening the page.\n   Each table in the body copy is wrapped in .ebc-table-scroll by the publisher. *\/\n.ebc-table-scroll { overflow-x: auto; -webkit-overflow-scrolling: touch; }\n.ebc-table-scroll table { margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0; }\n\n\/* Mobile: let the wrapper scroll instead of squeezing the table into the column *\/\n@media (max-width: 700px) {\n  h1.wp-block-post-title { font-size: clamp(1.55rem, 6vw, 2rem); }\n  .wp-block-post-content { font-size: 1.03rem; }\n  .ebc-table-scroll { margin: 1.4rem 0 1.8rem; }\n  .ebc-table-scroll table { width: auto; min-width: 100%; white-space: nowrap; }\n  .wp-block-post-content th,\n  .wp-block-post-content td { padding: 7px 9px; }\n}\n\n<\/style>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Verifying a Chinese supplier means running three separate checks, not one: whether the legal entity exists and is in good standing, whether the company you are paying is the same company that will make your goods, and whether it can actually produce what it claims. A business licence PDF answers only the first question, and a supplier&#8217;s English trading name is not a legal identity at all \u2014 under PRC company law there is no official English corporate name.<\/strong> The authoritative record is the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System (GSXT, \u56fd\u5bb6\u4f01\u4e1a\u4fe1\u7528\u4fe1\u606f\u516c\u793a\u7cfb\u7edf), which is free to search and maintained by China&#8217;s market regulator. The single check that prevents the most money from leaving is the one almost nobody runs: matching the bank account name to the registered Chinese entity, character for character.<\/p>\n<p>That is the short version. The rest of this guide covers what each check actually proves, what it does not, the public databases worth your time, how to tell a factory from a trading company that calls itself one, what a video verification should look like, and the compliance screening that regulated markets now expect before your goods ship.<\/p>\n<h2>Why a business licence check is not enough<\/h2>\n<p>Most guides stop at &#8220;ask for the business licence and check it online.&#8221; That step is necessary and it is nowhere near sufficient.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Licences are easy to fake and easy to borrow.<\/strong> A convincing PDF proves that someone can typeset a document. A real factory&#8217;s licence details get copied into fake documents regularly, which is why the check has to run against the live registry rather than against the paper.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The English name is marketing, not identity.<\/strong> Suppliers quote, invoice and negotiate under English trading names that exist nowhere in the registry. If your purchase order names a company that does not legally exist, you have no counterparty to enforce against.<\/li>\n<li><strong>A registered company can still be dead.<\/strong> Cancelled (\u6ce8\u9500) and revoked (\u540a\u9500) entities keep their documents, their email addresses and their willingness to take a deposit.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Existing is not the same as capable.<\/strong> A licensed trading company with a consulting business scope can issue an invoice and still have no factory, no production line and no ability to hit your specification.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The purpose of verification is not to collect documents. It is to make three questions answerable before money moves.<\/p>\n<h2>What each check proves \u2014 and what it does not<\/h2>\n<table><thead><tr><th>Check<\/th><th>Proves<\/th><th>Does not prove<\/th><\/tr><\/thead><tbody><tr><td>Business licence + registry lookup<\/td><td>The entity exists, its legal name and USCC, who the legal representative is, what it is registered to do<\/td><td>That it manufactures, that it is financially healthy, that it will perform<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Court and enforcement records<\/td><td>Whether there is a public history of disputes, unpaid judgments or restrictions<\/td><td>That an unlisted company is safe \u2014 most disputes never reach a public record<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Customs credit platform<\/td><td>Whether the company is registered to export and what its customs credit rating is<\/td><td>Product quality, capacity, or delivery reliability<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Certification verification (ISO, product marks)<\/td><td>Whether the certificate is real and still valid<\/td><td>That the management system is actually followed<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Bank account name match<\/td><td>That you are paying the entity you think you contracted<\/td><td>That the entity will deliver<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Live video walkthrough \/ third-party audit<\/td><td>That a production facility exists and runs what it claims, at some scale<\/td><td>That your specific order will be made to specification<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Sample order<\/td><td>Whether the product matches the specification in your hands<\/td><td>Whether mass production will match the sample \u2014 that is what inspection is for<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>\n<p>Two of those checks \u2014 certification verification and the bank account name match \u2014 are where the cheapest savings are, because both are near-zero cost and both catch problems that are expensive to unwind.<\/p>\n<h2>Check 1: The registry (GSXT) \u2014 the only authoritative record<\/h2>\n<p>GSXT is operated by China&#8217;s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) and covers all 31 provincial-level jurisdictions. Basic company information is free and needs no account. The interface is in Chinese, and the deeper files \u2014 paid-in capital breakdowns, for instance \u2014 generally require a real-name login that expects a Chinese mobile number, so plan for basic search plus the documents the supplier sends you.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Get the Chinese name and the USCC first.<\/strong> Ask for the business licence scan and for the company&#8217;s full legal name in Simplified Chinese plus its 18-character Unified Social Credit Code (USCC, \u7edf\u4e00\u793e\u4f1a\u4fe1\u7528\u4ee3\u7801), sent as <em>text<\/em> in an email or message. The USCC is unambiguous where Chinese names are easy to mistype, and it is the same identifier across registration, tax and customs systems \u2014 so it anchors every other check you run.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Search by USCC, not by name.<\/strong> Common business names return multiple candidates, and picking the wrong one wastes the whole exercise.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Then compare field by field.<\/strong> The registry record and the licence must agree exactly, and the details must also match your contract and your invoice:<\/p>\n<table><thead><tr><th>Registry field<\/th><th>What to confirm<\/th><th>The question that matters<\/th><\/tr><\/thead><tbody><tr><td>Legal name (\u540d\u79f0)<\/td><td>Characters identical to the licence, contract and invoice<\/td><td>Is my counterparty a legal person at all?<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>USCC<\/td><td>18 characters, identical everywhere<\/td><td>Am I looking at the right entity?<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Status (\u767b\u8bb0\u72b6\u6001)<\/td><td>\u5b58\u7eed or \u5728\u8425 = active. \u6ce8\u9500 = cancelled, \u540a\u9500 = revoked<\/td><td>Is this company still alive?<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Legal representative (\u6cd5\u5b9a\u4ee3\u8868\u4eba)<\/td><td>Matches the person signing and the licence<\/td><td>Who can legally bind this company?<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Registered address (\u4f4f\u6240)<\/td><td>Consistent with the factory address you were given<\/td><td>Does the address story hold together?<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Business scope (\u7ecf\u8425\u8303\u56f4)<\/td><td>Includes manufacture if you are buying manufactured goods<\/td><td>Is this a factory or a reseller?<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Registered capital (\u6ce8\u518c\u8d44\u672c)<\/td><td>Understood as a shareholder commitment, not cash in the bank<\/td><td>Is the claimed scale plausible?<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Abnormal operations list (\u7ecf\u8425\u5f02\u5e38\u540d\u5f55)<\/td><td>Absent, or explained in writing<\/td><td>Is something already going wrong?<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>\n<p>Two nuances worth understanding before you read a registry record.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Registered capital is not paid-in capital.<\/strong> Registered capital is what shareholders promised to contribute. Since 1 July 2024, newly established limited liability companies in China are generally required to pay in their subscribed capital within five years, and existing companies with over-long schedules had to adjust toward that five-year window by 30 June 2027. A large registered capital figure next to zero paid-in capital is not automatically a fraud signal \u2014 a young company may simply still be inside its payment period. It is a prompt to ask for operating evidence, not a conclusion.<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8220;Abnormal operations&#8221; is a warning, not a verdict.<\/strong> Companies land on the list for a lost registered address or a missed annual report, and they can apply to be removed after fixing it. The history stays visible. Ask for the written explanation and check it against the rest of your evidence.<\/p>\n<p>Treat commercial aggregators \u2014 Tianyancha, Qichacha, AiQicha and the rest \u2014 as search conveniences, not as records. Their data lags the registry by one to several working days and their entity matching can be wrong. When they disagree with GSXT, GSXT wins. The same applies to marketplace badges: Alibaba&#8217;s Gold Supplier and &#8220;Verified Supplier&#8221; programmes, and similar badges elsewhere, are paid commercial products, not government credentials. Take the Chinese name and USCC out of the profile and run it through the registry yourself.<\/p>\n<h2>Check 2: Beyond the registry \u2014 the public record of trouble<\/h2>\n<p>Registration tells you a company exists. Four more public channels tell you whether it has been leaving damage behind. All are free, all are in Chinese, and none require a login except the judgments database.<\/p>\n<table><thead><tr><th>Channel<\/th><th>What it shows<\/th><th>Why it matters to a buyer<\/th><\/tr><\/thead><tbody><tr><td>China Judgments Online (wenshu.court.gov.cn)<\/td><td>Published court judgments<\/td><td>A pattern of quality or payment disputes, or repeat litigation with buyers<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>China Enforcement Information Disclosure Network (zxgk.court.gov.cn)<\/td><td>Persons subject to enforcement, dishonest judgment debtors (\u5931\u4fe1\u88ab\u6267\u884c\u4eba), spending restrictions<\/td><td>The company or its owner has unpaid judgments it did not satisfy voluntarily<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Credit China (creditchina.gov.cn)<\/td><td>Selected tax, wage, safety and environmental records<\/td><td>Regulatory problems that do not show up in the registration file<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Customs enterprise credit platform (credit.customs.gov.cn)<\/td><td>Customs registration, credit status and penalties<\/td><td>Whether the exporter is registered at all, and whether its rating is advanced-certified or downgraded<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>\n<p>Read these for patterns, not single hits. One judgment three years ago about a delivery delay is a small data point. Repeated claims of the same kind, a dishonest-debtor listing against the legal representative, or a customs downgrade are the kind of signals that should stop an advance payment.<\/p>\n<h2>Check 3: Factory or trading company?<\/h2>\n<p>This is where most buyers lose money without ever being scammed: they are quoted by a trading company at factory prices, they pay factory money, and they inherit a middleman&#8217;s margin, a middleman&#8217;s quality control, and a middleman&#8217;s explanation when something goes wrong. Nothing about that arrangement is illegal. You simply need to know which one you are buying.<\/p>\n<p>Use the registry and the documents together:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Business scope.<\/strong> If the scope covers trading, wholesale and consulting but says nothing about manufacture, and you are buying a manufactured product, you are almost certainly dealing with a reseller. Registered scope only says what a company is permitted to do \u2014 it is a filter, not a conclusion.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Capacity claims versus evidence.<\/strong> Ask directly: do you manufacture this, or do you source it? Then ask who the actual manufacturer is, and check <em>that<\/em> company&#8217;s registry and customs records too. A supplier who cannot or will not name the production entity is telling you something.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Headcount signals.<\/strong> Annual reports sometimes disclose employee counts and social insurance numbers, which is a rough sanity check against a claimed factory scale. Disclosure is optional, so its absence proves nothing.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Certification verification.<\/strong> Quality certificates are among the most counterfeited documents in trade, and the fix takes two minutes: verify the certificate against the certification body&#8217;s record rather than trusting the PDF. IAF CertSearch, the international accreditation database, is searchable by company name and certificate details \u2014 and its team has reported identifying around 20,000 fake or fraudulent certificates in a single year. Also check what the certificate actually covers: a valid ISO 9001 certificate does not mean the product on your purchase order is certified, and product marks such as CE, FCC or RoHS declarations have their own verification routes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Check 4: The bank account name \u2014 the check that actually protects your money<\/h2>\n<p>If you only have time for one check, make it this one.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The account name must match the registered Chinese entity name character for character.<\/strong> Chinese exporters receive foreign currency through corporate accounts opened in the company&#8217;s registered name. When a supplier asks you to pay a personal account, a Hong Kong account, or an account in a different company&#8217;s name, the counterparty on your contract and the recipient of your money are two different parties \u2014 and the relationship between them is undocumented unless you document it.<\/p>\n<p>Bank details also get intercepted. Business email compromise against trade correspondence is routine: a supplier&#8217;s mailbox is compromised, the genuine invoice is replaced with one showing new bank details, and the buyer pays it because the letterhead and the contact names look right.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Compare the account name against the licence and the registry record, literally.<\/li>\n<li>Verify the SWIFT code against the SWIFT directory rather than against the invoice.<\/li>\n<li>Ask for the account details through a second channel \u2014 a known phone number or a video call \u2014 and reconfirm the branch.<\/li>\n<li>Treat any last-minute change of account as a stop signal, and never confirm it by replying to the email that requested it.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This is also where a sourcing agent earns a large part of its fee. When your agent contracts with the factory, the money never leaves the agent&#8217;s controlled payment path, and the payment-account question is answered before the order exists rather than after a deposit has vanished.<\/p>\n<h2>Operational verification: video, audit and samples<\/h2>\n<p>Public records cannot tell you whether a workshop runs, whether the machines work, or whether the people who answer your emails are inside the same building as the goods. Three escalating options close that gap.<\/p>\n<p><strong>A live, unscripted video walkthrough.<\/strong> Ask for a real-time call rather than a video file: a recorded &#8220;factory tour&#8221; is a marketing asset, and some are reused across suppliers. On the call, walk the production flow in one continuous take \u2014 raw material store, production line, finishing, packing, finished goods store \u2014 and ask the camera to show the street-facing entrance, the work in progress on the line today, and the equipment plates on the machines doing your work. Live video is imperfect evidence and it is still far better than a PDF.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1536\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/easy-buy-china.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/china-supplier-live-video-verification.jpg\" alt=\"Factory worker holding a machined component to a phone camera while a colleague films the live factory verification\" class=\"wp-image-50\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/easy-buy-china.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/china-supplier-live-video-verification.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/easy-buy-china.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/china-supplier-live-video-verification-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/easy-buy-china.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/china-supplier-live-video-verification-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/easy-buy-china.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/china-supplier-live-video-verification-768x512.jpg 768w\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">A live call, not a video file: the component being filmed as the factory presents it.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n<p><strong>A third-party factory audit or inspection.<\/strong> For larger orders, accredited inspection firms \u2014 SGS, Bureau Veritas, Intertek, T\u00dcV Rheinland, QIMA and others \u2014 will audit the facility or inspect the goods, with fees typically starting in the low hundreds of dollars per visit. Their value is not the logo on the report; it is that the finding does not depend on the supplier&#8217;s own narrative.<\/p>\n<p><strong>A sample order, paid through the corporate account.<\/strong> Before a production order, buy samples, test them against your written specification, and treat the commercial behaviour around that small order as a preview of the large one: how fast do they answer, do they hit the promised ship date, does the packaging match the spec sheet, and does the invoice bear the same name as the contract?<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1536\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/easy-buy-china.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/china-supplier-sample-comparison.jpg\" alt=\"Two identical plastic housings held up to window light to compare finish and seam lines from two suppliers\" class=\"wp-image-51\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 820px) 100vw, 820px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/easy-buy-china.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/china-supplier-sample-comparison.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/easy-buy-china.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/china-supplier-sample-comparison-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/easy-buy-china.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/china-supplier-sample-comparison-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/easy-buy-china.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/china-supplier-sample-comparison-768x512.jpg 768w\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Samples compared against each other, and against the written specification.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n<h2>Red flags worth stopping for<\/h2>\n<table><thead><tr><th>Signal<\/th><th>What it usually means<\/th><th>What to do<\/th><\/tr><\/thead><tbody><tr><td>Trader-style business scope, sold to you as a factory<\/td><td>You are paying a margin you did not agree to<\/td><td>Ask for the manufacturer and verify it<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Bank account name differs from the entity<\/td><td>Undocumented third party in the payment path<\/td><td>Do not pay until the relationship is documented<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Account details changed shortly before payment<\/td><td>Compromised mailbox<\/td><td>Reconfirm through a known phone or video channel<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>The registry name differs from the contract name<\/td><td>Your counterparty may not be a legal person<\/td><td>Rewrite the contract against the registered entity<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Registered capital high, paid-in capital zero, company very new, order very large<\/td><td>Scale is claimed, not evidenced<\/td><td>Small pilot order first<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Certification PDF that will not validate<\/td><td>Counterfeit or expired certificate<\/td><td>Verify with the issuing body, then decide<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Refusal of any live video walkthrough<\/td><td>No facility, or not their facility<\/td><td>Treat as a hard stop<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Price more than 10% below every other quote with no explained reason<\/td><td>Specification, material or process is being reduced somewhere<\/td><td>Re-check materials and test the sample<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>\n<h2>Screening for regulated markets: the compliance layer<\/h2>\n<p>Verification protects your money. Screening protects your market access, and in the United States the bar has moved recently.<\/p>\n<p>Under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA), goods tied to listed entities face a rebuttable presumption of exclusion at the US border. On 31 July 2026, DHS added 43 companies to the UFLPA Entity List, bringing the total to 187 entities \u2014 a 30% increase and the largest single expansion of the list to date, effective for CBP enforcement from 3 August 2026. The enforcement record is not theoretical: CBP reports denying entry to more than 24,300 shipments under this authority, valued at close to US$1 billion. The new additions concentrate in aluminium, apparel, copper, cotton and tomatoes and their downstream products.<\/p>\n<p>In June 2026, CBP also issued a consolidated Forced Labor Enforcement Operational Guidance for Importers, replacing its earlier UFLPA guidance. The practical effect for an importer is unchanged in direction and heavier in expectation: know your supply chain beyond the first-tier supplier, keep a documented due diligence programme, and be able to answer a detention with evidence rather than explanation. If your market is the United States, screen the supplier and \u2014 where the product category warrants it \u2014 the upstream sources it uses, and keep the screening dated in your file. US importers with other regulated categories (Entity List, OFAC sanctions) should run those screens on the same pass.<\/p>\n<h2>The short version<\/h2>\n<p>Verification is a sequence, and each step costs less than the one it protects you from needing:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Get the Chinese legal name and USCC as text.<\/li>\n<li>Check the registry record against the licence, field by field, and confirm the entity is active.<\/li>\n<li>Search the court, enforcement, credit and customs channels for patterns.<\/li>\n<li>Decide whether you are buying from a factory or a trader \u2014 and if it is a trader, verify the manufacturer behind it.<\/li>\n<li>Verify every certificate with the issuing body, not with the PDF.<\/li>\n<li>Make the bank account name match the registered entity name, confirmed over a second channel.<\/li>\n<li>Watch the factory live, or have someone accredited walk it.<\/li>\n<li>Start with samples, then a pilot order, and hold the balance to inspection.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>None of that requires a background-check subscription or a lawyer on retainer. It requires the registry, half an hour, and the discipline to run the checks before the deposit rather than after the goods.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.easy-buy-china.com\/en\/our-services\/sourcing-purchasing\">Easy Buy China<\/a> runs supplier verification as the first step of every sourcing engagement \u2014 registry and public-record checks, factory identity confirmation, samples, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.easy-buy-china.com\/en\/news\/china-quality-inspection-guide\">pre-shipment quality inspection with video reporting<\/a> before anything leaves China. If you want a supplier checked before you pay them, send us the company details and the product: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.easy-buy-china.com\/en\/contact\">talk to our team<\/a> and we will tell you what the public record shows and what it does not.<\/p>\n<h2>FAQ: verifying a Chinese supplier<\/h2>\n<p><strong>How do I verify a Chinese supplier&#8217;s business licence?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Ask for the licence scan plus the company&#8217;s full legal name in Simplified Chinese and its 18-character Unified Social Credit Code as text. Search the USCC \u2014 not the English name \u2014 on the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System (gsxt.gov.cn) and compare the returned legal name, status, legal representative, registered address and business scope with the licence. Anything that does not match exactly is a stop signal.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What is a Unified Social Credit Code?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>An 18-character alphanumeric code that serves as the company&#8217;s single identifier across Chinese government systems, including registration, tax and customs. Because it is unambiguous where Chinese names can be mistyped, it is the correct input for every check you run.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Can I verify a Chinese company without speaking Chinese?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Not comfortably. GSXT has no official English interface. Browser translation handles navigation, but you should keep the Chinese originals and compare names in Chinese, since English renderings of a company name are unofficial translations. If you cannot read the registry record, that is exactly the point at which a local agent or a paid English-language KYB report is worth its cost \u2014 the report still has to state the Chinese legal name and USCC, or it is not verifiable.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Is Alibaba&#8217;s Verified Supplier badge enough?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>No. Gold Supplier and similar badges are commercial programmes sold by the marketplace, not government credentials. They raise the odds that a company exists; they do not confirm that the entity on the platform is the entity that will produce your goods, and they say nothing about your order. Use the badge as a starting point, then run the registry check against the Chinese legal name.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How do I know if a Chinese &#8220;factory&#8221; is actually a trading company?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Start with the registered business scope: if manufacture is absent and the scope covers trading, wholesale or consulting, assume you are talking to a reseller until proven otherwise. Then ask who manufactures the product and verify that company&#8217;s registry and customs records. A supplier who will not name the production entity is answering the question in the negative.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Is a valid ISO 9001 certificate a guarantee of quality?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>No. It is evidence that a management system was audited, and it may not even cover the product you are buying. Worse, ISO and product certificates are frequently counterfeited \u2014 IAF CertSearch has reported identifying around 20,000 fake or fraudulent certificates in a year. Verify the certificate with the issuing body, check the scope, and confirm the expiry date.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What is the biggest warning sign when paying a Chinese supplier?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A bank account name that does not match the registered company name \u2014 including requests to pay a personal account, a Hong Kong account or a third party. Treat it as a stop signal until the relationship between the parties is documented in writing, and reconfirm any account change through a channel other than the email that requested it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Should I pay a deposit before visiting or verifying the factory?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>No. Verification is what the deposit is contingent on, not what follows it. Minimum sequence: verify the legal entity and the payment account, confirm production capability by live video or an accredited audit, then buy samples. A deposit on a production order comes after the sample matches your specification \u2014 and for a first order, the final balance should release against an inspection, not against a ship date.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Does verification replace inspection?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>No, they cover different risks. Verification asks whether the company is real, is who it says it is, and can do the work. Inspection asks whether the goods you paid for match your specification. A perfectly verified supplier can still ship a defective batch, which is why the two controls sit at opposite ends of the same order.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A business licence proves almost nothing on its own, and a supplier&#8217;s English name is not a legal identity. Here are the four checks that answer the questions that actually matter: does the company exist, are you paying it, and can it make your goods.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sourcing-guides"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/easy-buy-china.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/easy-buy-china.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/easy-buy-china.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/easy-buy-china.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/easy-buy-china.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/easy-buy-china.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57,"href":"https:\/\/easy-buy-china.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52\/revisions\/57"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/easy-buy-china.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/easy-buy-china.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/easy-buy-china.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/easy-buy-china.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}