Companies plan the shipping and discover the certification. The order should be reversed: find out what your category requires before you commit to a distributor, a price or a launch date.
The three things to establish first
- Your HS code. It determines the duty rate, the VAT and which regulations apply. Getting it wrong distorts every subsequent calculation.
- Whether your category needs mandatory certification. Several categories do — electrical goods, some machinery, certain consumer products. The process takes months and involves factory inspection.
- Labelling requirements. Chinese-language labelling is mandatory for consumer products and the rules are specific. It is a common reason for goods to sit at the port.
Who is the importer of record
This is the question that decides a great deal. Without a Chinese entity, your distributor imports — which means they hold the registrations, the certifications and often the relationship with the authorities. Changing distributor later can mean redoing all of it, which is why exclusivity and registration ownership belong in the first contract rather than in a renegotiation.
Ask your prospective distributor to name the certifications they would hold in their own name. The answer tells you how reversible the relationship is.
Where to read it yourself
Official pages, opened and checked on 15 October 2026. Where a rule changes, these are the addresses that change with it — this article does not.