How to Check a Chinese Factory's Export Licence and Business Scope (Without Getting Fooled)

Every serious buyer eventually asks the same question: is this company actually what it says it is? The good news is that China publishes more corporate information than most people realise, and a supplier\'s own paperwork will tell you a lot before you have spent a yuan. The catch is knowing which fields matter and which are decoration.

This is not about "the one trick that proves a scam". It is a set of checks that, stacked together, tell you whether you are dealing with a real manufacturer, a trading company, or a shell. None of them is conclusive on its own. Together, they are worth more than most "third-party verification" badges.

Start with the business licence (营业执照)

Ask for a scan of the business licence. Do not accept a photo of a certificate of incorporation from Hong Kong or a "factory licence" plaque. You want the mainland business licence with the unified social credit code (18 characters). That code is the key: it lets you look up the company in public registries such as the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System (gsxt.gov.cn) and in commercial databases.

Things to read off the licence itself:

Company name, full, in Chinese. Compare it character by character with the Chinese name on the quotation, the invoice, and the bank account. A mismatch, even a small one, is a red flag.
Type. "有限责任公司" (limited liability company) is normal. Be cautious with sole proprietorships or individual businesses for larger orders; they carry different liability and are often small resellers.
Registered capital. Not a virtue signal on its own, but a company with registered capital of 100,000 RMB is not funding a factory with injection moulds and SMT lines. Note that since the revised company law, capital is subscribed, not necessarily paid in, so treat it as a hint, not proof.
Establishment date and address. A company "established" last month claiming 20 years of export experience is a contradiction. Address should match where you are told the factory is.
Legal representative and scope. Discussed below.

Read the business scope (经营范围) carefully

The scope is the list of activities the company is legally allowed to conduct. It is the single most useful line of defence against a trading company pretending to be a factory, or a factory that legally cannot sell abroad.

Look for these categories:

生产 / 制造 (production / manufacturing) of the actual product type. If the scope lists only 批发 (wholesale), 零售 (retail), 进出口 (import/export) and 技术服务 (technical services), you are talking to a trader, not a maker. Traders are not evil, they are sometimes the right choice, but do not let one pretend.
货物进出口 / 技术进出口 (goods and technology import/export). Without an export scope, a company cannot legally export on its own behalf. It would have to route the export through a third party, which changes who is responsible for customs and who can be pursued if something goes wrong.
The specific commodity category. Manufacturing cables is not the same scope as manufacturing lithium batteries, which needs extra permits. If the product is regulated (medical, food contact, chemicals), the relevant scope and permit must be present.

Scope lists are long and full of generic add-ons. Do not be impressed by the length. Be specific: does it contain the actual thing you are buying?

Export licence and customs registration

Two separate things get confused here:

The first is the general right to import and export, registered with the commerce authority and reflected in the business scope. Most real export factories have it, or the trading arm does.

The second is customs registration as a consignor/consignee (报关单位注册登记), which lets the company clear goods under its own name with China Customs. Ask for the customs registration number and, where relevant, the name it is registered under. If a supplier asks you to pay the shipping to a different company name than the one you signed with, stop and ask why. It is often innocent, sometimes it is not, but you must understand it before money moves.

For certain products you will also hear about export licence categories or export quotas. Most consumer goods have none. If a supplier invokes "export licence" to justify a surcharge or a delay on ordinary goods, politely ask for the document.

The bank account check

This is where a lot of losses are actually prevented. The bank account holder name must match the company name on the contract, exactly, in Chinese. If the supplier asks you to send a T/T to a personal account, or to a Hong Kong company with a different name, or to a "our affiliated sister company", you are carrying the risk. Legitimate suppliers can and do present a company account matching the contract. Push back and expect them to comply.

Ask them to state the account name, bank, and SWIFT in writing on company letterhead, and compare with the business licence name. If they cannot or will not, treat the order as unpriced risk and walk.

What a registry lookup will and won\'t tell you

Public databases will give you basic facts: status (in business / revoked / abnormal), registered capital, legal rep, address, sometimes shareholders and change records. What they will not give you is quality, capability, or whether the people answering your emails are the people named on the licence. Abnormally frequent changes of legal representative or address, or an "operating abnormality" tag, are worth asking about directly.

A registry tells you the company exists and can trade. A video call walking the production floor tells you whether it can actually make your product. Use both.

Do this before the deposit, every time

Practically, the routine is short. Get the licence. Compare the name to the invoice and the bank account. Check the scope for manufacturing and export. Pull the registry entry for status and history. Ask one or two questions you already know the answer to, and see whether the story holds. Then, for anything with real tooling or money attached, spend a little on a video walkthrough or a third-party audit.

None of this is exotic. It takes an afternoon. It routinely saves buyers from the most expensive mistake in sourcing, which is sending a deposit to a company that was never going to ship what you paid for.