What the license is
Every legally operating company in mainland China holds a business license (营业执照) issued by the market regulation authority — a single document that consolidates registration, tax and organizational identity. Suppliers routinely share a photo or scan of it when asked, and asking is normal commercial practice, not an insult.
The license is worth checking for one central reason: everything on it can be independently confirmed against the public registry. A supplier's claims are self-published; a license is checkable. The gap between what the license says and what the supplier says is where most useful findings live.
Reading the license, field by field
Company name (名称)
The registered legal name, in Chinese. This — not the English name on the website — is the company's actual identity. English names are unregistered marketing labels. When you later check the registry, verify the exact characters: near-miss names (one character different, a different district in the name) are a known technique for borrowing a reputable company's credibility.
Unified Social Credit Code (统一社会信用代码)
The 18-character alphanumeric identifier, unique to the entity, stable for its life. This is the key you use to look the company up. If the code on the license does not resolve in the registry, or resolves to a different name, stop — nothing else on the document matters.
Type (类型)
Limited company (有限责任公司), joint stock company, sole proprietorship, or — worth noting — individual industrial and commercial household (个体工商户), a registration form for very small operations. None is disqualifying, but an "individual household" registration behind a claimed large factory is a scale mismatch demanding explanation.
Legal representative (法定代表人)
The person with legal authority to bind the company. Compare against who you are dealing with — not because your sales contact should be the legal rep (they almost never are), but because the name is another cross-checkable fact, and because contracts signed by someone else may need evidence of authorization.
Registered capital (注册资本)
The most misread field on the document. Since 2014, registered capital is generally a subscribed amount — what shareholders have committed, on a timeline that can be decades — not paid-in cash. It is weak evidence of financial strength. Its real use is proportionality: a claimed major manufacturer with ¥100,000 registered capital is a mismatch worth probing.
Establishment date (成立日期)
Compare directly against experience claims. "Founded 2008" on the website with a 2023 establishment date has explanations — a restructure, a new entity in a group — but the explanation should exist and be offered.
Registered address (住所)
Where the company is registered, which is not always where it operates. An industrial-zone address supports a factory claim; an office-tower suite does not refute one by itself, but it moves the question "where is production?" from optional to mandatory.
Business scope (经营范围)
What the company is registered to do. Manufacturing wording (生产, 制造, 加工) versus pure trading wording (批发, 销售, 货物进出口) is the strongest single documentary signal in the factory-versus-trader question. Scope is broad and permissive in modern practice, so extra listed activities mean little — but the absence of manufacturing wording in a claimed factory's scope is a real finding.
Verifying against the registry
A license image proves someone possessed a license image. The verification step is confirming it against the public enterprise credit registry:
- Search by USCC (preferred) or exact Chinese name.
- Confirm the name, code, representative, capital, date and scope match the document.
- Check status is active (存续/在业), not revoked (吊销) or deregistered (注销).
- Check the abnormal-operation list (经营异常名录) — entries for being unreachable at the registered address or failing to file annual reports.
- Note any enforcement or serious-violation records.
Two practical warnings. Registry data lags filings, so very recent changes may not appear. And a forged or altered license image that does not match the registry is not a "discrepancy" — it is the end of the conversation.
What a valid license cannot tell you
Worth stating bluntly, because the license is often treated as a talisman:
- It cannot tell you the company manufactures anything (scope wording is permission, not activity).
- It cannot tell you the company is solvent or that registered capital exists as money.
- It cannot tell you the quality of anything the company makes.
- It cannot tell you the person emailing you actually works there — license images circulate, and a real company's license can dress a fake seller. This is why the payment beneficiary must match the license entity, every time.
- It cannot tell you how the company behaves — with deadlines, defects, or disputes.
A checked license is the floor of due diligence, not the ceiling. It establishes that a real legal entity exists and is in good standing, which makes everything else — document review, references, a site visit — worth doing. Skipping it means building the rest on sand; stopping at it means mistaking the foundation for the house.