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France–China

Checking a Chinese company before you commit

Most of it is public, most of it is free, and it takes an afternoon. Almost nobody does it, and it is the cheapest insurance in the whole relationship.

France → China

Every company registered in mainland China is in a public register, with its legal name in Chinese, its registration number, its registered capital, its legal representative, its scope of business and its status. That record is the single most useful document in a first relationship, and it is routinely skipped because it is in Chinese and nobody asked for it.

What to check, and what each thing tells you

  • The Chinese legal name. The English name on the website is often marketing and has no legal existence. Everything — the contract, the chop, the bank account — must match the Chinese name.
  • The scope of business. It states what the company is registered to do. A company whose scope is trading is not a manufacturer, whatever the brochure shows.
  • Registered capital and date of establishment. Not a measure of quality, but a company founded four months ago that quotes on a large order is worth a second look.
  • Status. Active, or in abnormal operation, or revoked. This alone has saved people entire orders.
  • The legal representative. The named individual who binds the company. Useful to know whether they are the person you have been talking to.

Three checks beyond the register

  1. Does the bank account belong to the same entity? Payment instructions naming a different company, or an individual, or an account in another jurisdiction, is the most common fraud pattern in this trade and the easiest to catch.
  2. Do the certificates verify? Certificate numbers are checkable on the issuing body's register. A PDF is not evidence.
  3. Does the address correspond to a factory? Satellite imagery is free and settles in two minutes whether an address is an industrial site or an apartment block.

None of this replaces a lawyer for a significant commitment, and register data can be out of date or incomplete. Treat it as the screen that decides who is worth paying a professional to examine properly.

Questions we get on this.

What is the most common fraud when buying from China?

Diverted payment: instructions that name a bank account belonging to someone other than the company on the contract — a different entity, an individual, or an account in another jurisdiction. Checking that the account holder matches the registered Chinese legal name, and confirming any change of bank details by a channel other than email, prevents most of it.

Keep reading on this.

China marketThe company chop: what actually binds a Chinese companyA signature is not what makes a Chinese contract binding. The red seal is — and there is more than one of them.China sourcingQualifying a Chinese supplier: what to check before the first orderFinding candidates is cheap and fast. Establishing that one of them can actually deliver what you need is the work — and it is mostly unglamorous.China sourcingPaying a Chinese supplier: deposits, transfers and letters of creditThe payment structure is a risk allocation, not an administrative detail. It also tells the supplier a great deal about how you will behave.France–ChinaBuilding trust with a partner you have never metPresence is better. When it is not possible, trust is still built — by a small number of deliberate behaviours repeated until they become evidence.

If this raised a question about your own project, tell us where you are — the first conversation usually clarifies more than a proposal.

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