By SupplierVerify Team | Published: August 12, 2026
Every legitimate company in China is registered in a government database. That database is public — but accessing it, navigating it, and interpreting what you find is where most international buyers hit a wall. China's corporate registry landscape spans official government platforms like NECIPS and third-party aggregators like Tianyancha and Qichacha, each with different strengths, interfaces, and accessibility challenges. This guide walks you through exactly how to search each one, what data you can expect to find, and when you should bring in professional help to interpret the results.
Before diving into the step-by-step instructions, it helps to understand the landscape. China's corporate registry data exists in three tiers of accessibility. Knowing which tier to use for which purpose saves you hours of frustration and ensures you're looking at the right data for the question you're trying to answer.
The National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System (国家企业信用信息公示系统, NECIPS) is the official government registry maintained by China's State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR). It is the authoritative source — the data comes directly from government registration records, and it is free to use. Every company registered in mainland China appears here. However, the interface is entirely in Chinese, the search experience is clunky, and the CAPTCHA system frequently times out for overseas users. NECIPS gives you raw government data, not analysis.
Tianyancha (天眼查), Qichacha (企查查), and Qixin (启信宝) are commercial platforms that scrape, aggregate, and enrich government data from NECIPS and other public sources — including court records, intellectual property filings, customs data, and news mentions. They present the same core registration data as NECIPS but layer on significantly more useful information: shareholder relationship maps, related-company networks, litigation history, and trend analysis. The interfaces are more modern and slightly more foreigner-friendly, but the underlying data is still Chinese. These platforms are freemium — basic searches are free, but detailed reports and relationship mapping require a paid subscription and, critically, a Chinese phone number for account registration.
Professional verification services like SupplierVerify's Safety Shield sit on top of both tiers. They pull data from NECIPS, Tianyancha, Qichacha, and Qixin, cross-reference findings, and deliver a plain-English report that interprets what the data means for your sourcing decision. If you don't read Chinese, don't have a Chinese phone number, or need more than just raw data points, this tier is the practical solution. You get analysis — not just a data dump — in a format you can act on.
NECIPS (国家企业信用信息公示系统) is the starting point for any serious corporate registry search in China. The official URL is gsxt.gov.cn. This is the government's own database — if the data exists anywhere, it exists here. But accessing it from outside China requires patience. Here is exactly how to navigate it.
NECIPS provides the following data points for every registered Chinese company:
Step 1: Navigate to gsxt.gov.cn. The homepage loads with a prominent search bar in the center. The site may be slow outside China — be patient. If the page fails to load, try again at a different time of day (China business hours are worst for server load). Using a VPN with a China-based exit node can significantly improve load times.
Step 2: Enter the search term. You have two search options: enter the full Chinese company name (公司名称) or the Unified Social Credit Code / registration number (统一社会信用代码/注册号). The English company name will NOT work — the database is indexed in Chinese. If the supplier gave you "Shenzhen Great Electronics Co., Ltd.," that is meaningless here. You need "深圳伟达电子有限公司" or the 18-digit USCC.
Step 3: Solve the verification puzzle. NECIPS uses a slide-puzzle CAPTCHA (滑块验证). You need to drag a puzzle piece to complete an image. This is finicky — the CAPTCHA may fail multiple times. If it does, refresh the page and try again. This is the single most common frustration point for overseas users. There is no workaround; the CAPTCHA exists to prevent automated scraping and cannot be bypassed.
Step 4: Review the search results. If your search term is precise and the company exists, you will see a single result with the company name and registration number. Click through to the company profile page. If you get multiple results, your search term was too broad — you need the exact legal name in Chinese characters. Fuzzy search in NECIPS is unreliable.
Step 5: Navigate the company profile. The profile page has tabs across the top. The tabs are in Chinese: 企业登记信息 (registration info), 行政许可信息 (administrative permits), 行政处罚信息 (administrative penalties), 列入经营异常名录信息 (abnormal operation list), 列入严重违法失信企业名单信息 (serious illegal enterprise list), and 企业年报 (annual reports). Click through each tab. The "registration info" tab is the most extensive and contains the business license details described above.
Step 6: Check the annual reports tab. Annual reports (企业年报) show whether the company has been filing on time — and contain self-reported data about revenue, profit, employee count, and assets. Companies that have not filed annual reports for multiple years are flagged as "abnormal operation." This is a major red flag, as it suggests either operational neglect or deliberate evasion of regulatory scrutiny.
Important limitation: NECIPS is entirely in Chinese. There is no English interface, no translation option, and no support for non-Chinese-character input. If you cannot read Chinese and do not have the supplier's legal name in Chinese characters, you will not be able to use NECIPS effectively. The site is also notoriously slow when accessed from outside mainland China — page loads of 10-30 seconds are common, and the CAPTCHA often times out before you can complete it.
If NECIPS is the raw government ledger, Tianyancha, Qichacha, and Qixin are the polished dashboards that make the data usable. Each platform pulls from the same government sources but differentiates on how they organize, enrich, and visualize the information. Here is how to decide which one to use — and what you are actually getting with each.
Tianyancha's core strength is its relationship graph (关系图谱). It maps shareholder structures, related companies, and beneficial ownership networks with a visual interface that makes it easy to see who ultimately controls the company. If you want to know whether your "factory" shares a shareholder with three other trading companies, Tianyancha is the tool for the job. It also has strong media monitoring — it flags news articles mentioning the company, which can surface reputation issues you would otherwise miss. Tianyancha offers a browser-based interface at tianyancha.com and a mobile app, both entirely in Chinese. The free tier shows basic registration data; relationship graphs and detailed reports require a VIP subscription (typically ¥360-720/year, payable via WeChat or Alipay).
Qichacha excels at litigation data. It aggregates court judgments from China Judgments Online (中国裁判文书网) and organizes them by case type, role (plaintiff vs. defendant), and outcome. If a supplier has been sued multiple times — especially for contract disputes or product quality issues — Qichacha will surface that faster and more comprehensively than Tianyancha. Qichacha also tends to update data more frequently than Tianyancha, particularly administrative penalties and enforcement actions. The interface is at qcc.com. Like Tianyancha, Qichacha requires a Chinese phone number for full access and a paid subscription for detailed reports. The platform has a slightly cleaner mobile experience than Tianyancha, which matters if you are having a Chinese-speaking colleague help you search.
Qixin (formerly Qixinbao) is smaller than Tianyancha and Qichacha but has carved out a niche in financial data. It provides proprietary credit scores (企业信用评分) that aggregate risk indicators into a single rating, and its financial data module includes tax payment records, customs import/export data, and bid-winning records for government procurement contracts. If you need to assess financial health — not just registration status — Qixin is worth checking alongside the other two. The interface is at qixin.com. Credit reports on Qixin tend to be more structured than Tianyancha's and Qichacha's, making them easier to interpret if you are working with a translation layer.
Practical tip: The most thorough approach is to check all three platforms — NECIPS for the authoritative government record, Tianyancha for ownership mapping, and Qichacha for litigation history. But if you can only check one, start with Tianyancha. Its relationship mapping alone catches more red flags than any other single feature. And remember: all three platforms require a Chinese mobile phone number (+86) to create an account with full search access. Without one, you will hit paywalls and feature restrictions very quickly.
A search of China's corporate registry gives you a factual snapshot of a company's legal existence and compliance record. It tells you whether the company is real, legally registered, and in good standing with regulators. It does not tell you whether the company is a good business partner, whether their products meet your quality standards, or whether the person you are emailing actually works there. Here is what each data point means and how to interpret it in the context of supplier due diligence.
Chinese company registration status uses specific legal terms. Understanding them is critical because a company that is not in "active" status may not legally exist:
The business scope (经营范围) on a Chinese registration is not a marketing statement. It is a legally binding list of permitted activities. A company can only conduct business within its registered scope — operating outside it is technically illegal and can void contracts. The first-listed activity is the company's primary business category. If the first item is 销售 (sales) or 贸易 (trade), the company is a trading company, not a manufacturer. If the first item is 生产 (manufacturing) or 制造 (fabrication), the company is primarily a manufacturer. This ordering is significant — it tells you what the company declared to the government as its main line of business. Always check that the supplier's claimed business matches their registered scope. A company presenting itself as a factory but registered as a trading company has already misrepresented itself on the most fundamental legal document it possesses.
Corporate registries reveal the full shareholder structure — who owns the company and in what proportion. This is where Tianyancha's relationship graph becomes invaluable. A single shareholder structure is straightforward. But when a company is owned by a holding company that is itself owned by another entity, tracing beneficial ownership becomes detective work. Key things to check: Is the legal representative also a shareholder? (If not, who actually controls the company?) Are there foreign shareholders? (If yes, the company has a different registration type and regulatory obligations.) And critically: what is the paid-in capital (实缴资本) versus the registered capital (注册资本)? Since 2014, China allows companies to set registered capital without immediately paying it in. A company with ¥10 million registered capital and ¥100,000 paid-in capital is not well-capitalized — the registration number is largely aspirational.
NECIPS and the third-party aggregators all list administrative penalties (行政处罚) imposed by regulatory agencies — tax authorities, customs, environmental regulators, and SAMR itself. A penalty for late tax filing three years ago is less concerning than multiple penalties for customs violations, product safety issues, or environmental breaches. Context matters: one or two minor infractions over a decade is normal. A pattern of penalties, especially recent ones or those related to product safety, is a serious red flag. Also check the "abnormal operation list" (经营异常名录) entry. Companies are added to this list for failing to file annual reports, failing to disclose required information, or providing false information. An abnormal operation listing is not criminal — but it means the company has already failed basic compliance obligations. Multiple entries or a current listing should stop a deal.
Tianyancha and Qichacha both map related companies — entities that share shareholders, legal representatives, or executives with the company you are checking. This is one of the most powerful features of the third-party platforms and one that NECIPS alone cannot provide. A common fraud pattern: a supplier operates multiple companies, and when one accumulates too many complaints or legal judgments, they simply pivot to a different entity. Checking related companies can reveal whether the person you are dealing with has a history of failed or penalized companies. If the legal representative of your supplier is also the legal representative of a company that was revoked or blacklisted, proceed with extreme caution — or not at all.
Red flag pattern we see repeatedly: A supplier gives you a company name and USCC that both check out — the registration is active, the business scope matches. But a Tianyancha relationship search reveals the legal representative also controls two other companies that were revoked (吊销) within the last three years. This is the classic shell-game pattern. The active company is real, but the people behind it have a documented history of running companies into regulatory trouble. A basic NECIPS search would have missed this entirely.
Even when buyers know these databases exist, they frequently make the same mistakes — mistakes that can give false reassurance or, worse, cause them to dismiss a legitimate supplier. Here are the five most common errors and how to avoid each one.
NECIPS, Tianyancha, Qichacha, and Qixin all index companies by their Chinese-language legal names. Searching for "Guangzhou Bright Lighting Co., Ltd." will return zero results — not because the company doesn't exist, but because the database does not index English names. The company's legal name is "广州亮明灯饰有限公司" and that is what you must search. This single issue stops more buyers than any other technical barrier. Before you even open a database tab, make sure you have the supplier's name in Chinese characters — ideally copied directly from their business license.
Chinese companies often use English names that bear little resemblance to their legal Chinese names. "Great Wall Industrial Group" might be registered as "北京长城工贸有限公司" — the English name is a marketing label, not a legal identifier. There is no requirement for the English name to match the Chinese name, and there is no central registry of English-language company names in China. The only name that matters for a corporate registry search is the name printed on the business license in Chinese characters. If a supplier won't give you their Chinese business license, assume the English name they provided is either inaccurate or deliberately misleading.
A NECIPS search that returns a clean registration record for a single company is incomplete due diligence. The company may be clean, but the people behind it may have a history of failed, penalized, or blacklisted entities. Related-company checks on Tianyancha or Qichacha are where the real risks often surface. A procurement manager who checks only the company in front of them is seeing one tile of a mosaic — the full picture includes every company connected to the same shareholders, legal representative, and key executives.
A registration status of 存续 (active) means the company's business license is valid — nothing more. It does not mean the company is financially healthy, ethically managed, or capable of fulfilling your order. Many fraudulent suppliers operate fully registered, active companies. A registration check is a filter, not a seal of approval. It eliminates the obviously fake and the already-shut-down, but it does not vouch for the quality, reliability, or honesty of the entity behind the registration number.
A supplier boasting "¥50 million registered capital" sounds impressive — until you check the paid-in capital and discover it is ¥0. Since China's 2014 company law reform, registered capital is a subscription amount, not a contribution amount. Shareholders can set registered capital at any figure and contribute it over a period of decades — or never contribute it at all in some cases. Paid-in capital (实缴资本) is the amount actually contributed. A company with high registered capital and zero or minimal paid-in capital is not well-funded; it is wearing a financial costume. Always check both numbers, and always assess financial substance based on paid-in capital, not registered capital.
There is a genuine satisfaction in conducting your own due diligence — pulling up NECIPS, successfully navigating the CAPTCHA, and finding the company record yourself. But in several common scenarios, DIY searching is either impossible or inadvisable. Here is when to step back and bring in professional help.
Without the Chinese legal name, you cannot search any Chinese corporate registry — period. No database accepts English names. No translation tool will reliably reverse-engineer the legal name from an English approximation. If your supplier gave you only an English company name, or refuses to share their Chinese business license, a professional service can investigate using the information you do have — website domain, contact details, product catalogs — to identify and verify the correct legal entity. This is often the bridge between "I have a name but it doesn't work" and "I have a verified legal entity."
Every corporate registry database in China — NECIPS, Tianyancha, Qichacha, Qixin — is exclusively in Chinese. The data fields, the search interfaces, the CAPTCHA instructions, the legal status labels, the penalty descriptions — all of it. Browser translation tools like Google Translate can give you a rough idea, but legal and regulatory terms frequently translate incorrectly, leading to misinterpretation. A status that translates as "cancelled" might actually be "revoked" (吊销), which has different legal implications. Professional services provide interpreted results — not just translated text, but analysis of what the data means in the context of international sourcing.
A corporate registry search tells you what a company's legal filings say. It does not tell you whether the company is a good partner for your specific sourcing needs, whether the factory exists at the registered address, whether the company is actually manufacturing products or merely reselling them, or whether the person you are communicating with is authorized to represent the company. These are risk assessment questions that require cross-referencing registry data with on-the-ground intelligence, industry knowledge, and investigative methodology. Raw data answers "is this company real?" Risk assessment answers "should I trust this company with my money?"
Learning to navigate NECIPS, Tianyancha, and Qichacha effectively — including understanding the data, interpreting legal terminology, and cross-referencing findings — takes hours of hands-on practice, even if you read Chinese. If you are evaluating multiple suppliers or facing a deadline on a purchase order, the time cost of DIY verification may exceed the cost of a professional report. The question is not whether you can learn to do it yourself — you can, eventually. The question is whether your time is better spent on verification or on the other parts of your business that only you can do.
Our Safety Shield service does the corporate registry search for you — across NECIPS, Tianyancha, Qichacha, and Qixin — and delivers a plain-English report that tells you what the data actually means for your sourcing decision. You get a complete business license analysis, registration status verification, shareholder and ownership structure mapping, litigation and penalty history review, related-company network analysis, and a clear risk assessment — all in English, with no CAPTCHA puzzles, no Chinese phone numbers, and no guesswork.
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