Almost every importer who loses money to a Chinese supplier did check something first. They saw a Gold Supplier badge, a slick catalogue, a responsive salesperson with good English. None of that is verification.
Real verification takes about thirty minutes and costs nothing. Here is the sequence.
1. Ask for the business licence — and expect to get it
Every legally registered company in China has a business licence (营业执照). Ask for a photo or scan of it. A serious supplier sends it the same day; hesitation, excuses or a "we'll send it after the order" is itself your answer.
The licence is in Chinese. You don't need to read Chinese to use it — you need to check a handful of fields.
What's on the licence, and what it tells you
- Company name 名称
- The legal Chinese name. It often differs from the English trading name on the marketplace — that's normal, but note it, because you'll need it again.
- Unified Social Credit Code
- An 18-character alphanumeric code, unique to that entity. This is the number you verify.
- Business scope 经营范围
- The most useful field. It states what the company is registered to do. Manufacturing terms mean production; wholesale and trade terms mean they buy and resell.
- Legal representative 法定代表人
- The individual legally responsible for the company.
- Registered capital 注册资本
- Rough indication of scale. Treat with care — it is a declared figure, not cash in the bank.
- Date of establishment
- A company registered three months ago selling a mature product line deserves more questions.
- Registered address
- Compare with the factory address they gave you. A mismatch isn't automatically bad — plenty of firms register an office separately — but it's a question worth asking.
2. Verify it free on the official government database
China's National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System — commonly called GSXT, at gsxt.gov.cn — is the authoritative public record, operated under the State Administration for Market Regulation. It's free.
Search the Unified Social Credit Code or the Chinese company name. What comes back should match the licence exactly: registered name, status, legal representative, registered capital.
- Status must be active (存续 or 在业). Anything indicating revoked or deregistered ends the conversation.
- Any mismatch is a red flag. A doctored licence image is easy to make; a matching government record is not.
- The site is in Chinese — use your browser's translate. If you'd rather not, this is exactly the kind of check a sourcing agent does for you.
Be clear about what this proves. A GSXT match confirms the company legally exists and is registered to do what it claims. It does not tell you whether they make good products, hit deadlines, or will still answer the phone when something goes wrong. Registration is the floor, not the ceiling.
3. Work out whether they actually make anything
A large share of "manufacturers" on the big marketplaces are trading companies. That isn't automatically disqualifying — a good trading company with real factory relationships can be useful, especially for small orders — but you should know which one you're dealing with, because you're paying a margin for it and you're one step further from whoever can fix a problem.
Four questions that settle it quickly:
- What else runs on that production line? A factory answers immediately and specifically. A trader gets vague or checks with someone.
- Can I see an unedited video walk-through today? Live, not a brochure. Ask them to show the machinery making your product category.
- Who owns the tooling for this product? Matters enormously if the product is custom — and if they don't own it, they're not making it.
- What's your monthly capacity for this item? Real production has real numbers attached.
None of this is rude. Serious factories field these questions every week and respect buyers who ask them.
4. The payment check that matters most
Pay only a company bank account whose name matches the business licence exactly.
If you're asked to pay a personal account, an account in a different company's name, or an account in another country "for tax reasons" — stop. This is the single most common way importers lose money, and it is almost impossible to recover from once the transfer is made. A legitimate exporter has a corporate account in its registered name.
Two related habits worth keeping:
- Never pay 100% upfront. Standard terms are 30% deposit and 70% before shipment. The balance is your only leverage — don't give it up early.
- Don't release the balance until the goods have been inspected. Once it's paid, you're a creditor in another legal system.
5. Red flags, ranked by how much they cost
- Bank account name doesn't match the licence. Walk away.
- Won't provide the licence. Walk away.
- Demands 100% upfront on a first order. Not a payment preference — information.
- Price is far below every other quote. Either the specification isn't what you think, or the material isn't.
- Refuses inspection or wants to pick the inspector. The only reason to refuse is not wanting the goods seen.
- Communication collapses after the deposit. Early warning; escalate before production finishes.
- Pressure to skip sampling to "save time". You lose the only objective standard you'd have had.
6. What verification still won't protect you from
This is the honest limit of desk research. A fully legitimate, correctly registered, genuinely-a-factory supplier can still send you a bad batch — because the material changed, the line was busy, or a sub-supplier substituted something.
That's why verification and inspection are two different jobs. Verification tells you who you're dealing with. A pre-shipment inspection against a signed golden sample, done before the balance is paid, tells you what's actually in the boxes. You want both.
The cheapest insurance in importing: a signed golden sample. Both sides sign and keep a physical unit before production starts. Without one, "this isn't what I ordered" is an opinion. With one, it's a test with a right answer.
Want someone on the ground doing this for you?
We check licences, verify capability, and inspect every order to AQL 2.5 against your approved sample — before the balance is paid. Quote usually within one working day.
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What it really costs to import from China to the UK — duty on freight, VAT on duty, and the £135 relief being scrapped.