Sourcing Guides
How to Verify a Chinese Supplier: Business License, Export Record, and Factory Checks
How to verify a Chinese supplier before paying: license fields, export records, and factory checks.
How to Verify a Chinese Supplier: Business License, Export Record, and Factory Checks
Most buyers start to verify a Chinese supplier only after something has gone wrong. The better time is before the deposit, and it takes less effort than you'd expect. The business license tells you who you are actually dealing with, the export record tells you whether they ship goods themselves or hand that job to someone else, and factory checks tell you whether the person answering your email controls the line your order will run on. This guide walks through each step — what the license fields really mean, what platform badges do and don't promise, and the cross-checks that catch problems while they are still cheap to fix.
Start With the Business License, Not the Product Catalog
Every legally registered Chinese company carries a business license (营业执照) with an 18-character Unified Social Credit Code (统一社会信用代码). With that code you can pull the public record on the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System (gsxt.gov.cn), or on commercial databases such as Qichacha and Tianyancha. If a supplier won't share their license, stop there. If the name on the license doesn't match the name on your quotation, or the account receiving your deposit, stop there too.
Then read each field for what it means, not what it seems to promise:
License field | What it tells you | Where it misleads |
|---|---|---|
Unified Social Credit Code | Unique ID; confirms the company exists and whether its status is active ("存续") or struck off ("注销"/"吊销") | Says nothing about size or reliability |
Company name | "Trading" (贸易) hints at a trader; "Industrial"/"Manufacturing" (实业/制造) hints at production | Names are self-chosen; traders often add "Industrial" |
Business scope (经营范围) | The activities registered: manufacturing, wholesale, import-export agency work | Often boilerplate; "shoe manufacturing" in the scope proves no shoe line exists |
Registered capital (注册资本) | What shareholders have committed to contribute | Routinely inflated. China's revised Company Law, effective 2024, requires LLCs to pay it in within five years, but the printed number still says little about the factory |
Establishment date | How old the legal entity is | Teams move between entities, so age is not experience |
Legal representative (法定代表人) | The person legally accountable | Often a figurehead; don't over-read it |
Two follow-ups most first-time buyers skip. Check the company's status and annual filings on the public credit system — entities that fall out of good standing get flagged there — a one-minute check. And before any money moves, confirm the bank beneficiary is the licensed company itself.
Export Records: Do They Ship It Themselves or Not?
To clear Chinese customs in its own name, a supplier needs to be registered with customs as an importer and exporter. The old separate filing with the commerce authorities was removed at the end of 2022, and customs registration — handled through China's international trade "single window" — is the operative step now. Rules shift, so treat it as a question to ask, not a test to grade.
Here is what buyers get wrong: many good factories never self-export. In clusters like Quanzhou — shoes, bags, apparel — it's routine for a factory to make the goods while an export agent or trading company handles the paperwork. That is normal division of labor, not a red flag.
The red flag is vagueness. Ask two questions early: Will you export under your own name or through an agent? Whose name goes on the customs declaration and the bill of lading? A supplier who has shipped before answers instantly and can point to a document; one who never has will improvise.
What Alibaba and 1688 Badges Do — and Don't — Tell You
On Alibaba.com, a Verified Supplier badge means the company's documents and, at some tiers, its premises were checked by Alibaba or a contracted third-party firm. That screens out anonymous sellers, which is genuinely useful. But it is a snapshot on the assessment date, typically refreshed about once a year — not a quality promise, and no confirmation your order would run at that site. If the supplier shares the verification report, open it and check the date.
The "X yrs" badge counts years of paid membership, not years in business. Trade Assurance is the more practical protection on a first order: payment goes through the platform, with a dispute channel if things go sideways.
1688, Alibaba's domestic platform, works differently. Badges such as 实力商家 and 超级工厂 attach to paid tiers with varying levels of document or on-site checks. Prices there are often lower, but many 1688 suppliers don't handle export or answer in English.
Both platforms are usually the right place to start — escrow-style payment and dispute handling reduce risk on small orders. Their limit is structural: the check happened once, possibly in a showroom, so treat every badge as step one, not the verdict. We compared the trade-offs in Alibaba vs. working with a sourcing agent.
A Pre-Payment Checklist to Verify a Chinese Supplier
Documents get you started. Cross-checks do the real work — all of these can be arranged before a deposit:
A live video factory tour. Ask for a walk-through on a working morning, China time — not a produced video. Request specifics: for shoes, the stitching and lasting lines; for bags, the cutting tables and sewing floor; for hardware, machining and assembly. Ask the person on camera to show where your product would run.
An on-site visit. Nothing else comes close. Does the address match the license? Do the machine count and running lines match the claimed capacity? Is there a working QC station and a packing area?
Certificates and audit reports. ISO 9001 and social-compliance audits (BSCI, Sedex and similar) are worth reading — after you verify the certificate number, scope, and validity with the issuing body, and confirm the holder's name matches the supplier's license. Certificates sometimes belong to a neighboring factory in dense clusters, so match names every time.
Two samples, ordered separately. One good sample proves somebody can make one good sample. A second one, ordered weeks later through a different contact, starts to tell you about consistency.
Before the deposit, run this list:
- Business license received; code looked up; status active; name matches the quotation
- Bank beneficiary matches the license name
- Business scope covers manufacturing — or the supplier openly says they're a trader
- Live video tour of the floor where your product would run
- Export path named: own registration or agent; exporter of record confirmed
- Certificates verified with the issuing body; holder name matches
- Two samples compared for consistency
- Plan to re-verify before any much larger reorder
Factory or Trading Company? The Signals
The disguise usually shows in small places:
- The license says 贸易 (trading) while the profile claims "our own factory"
- The registered address is an office tower, not an industrial zone
- They dodge a live factory video but offer a showroom tour instead
- The product range jumps between unrelated categories — shoes, then machinery, then cosmetics
- Equipment photos look staged, or the same photos appear under other companies' names
- Sales staff can't say which processes are in-house and which are subcontracted
None of this means the company is bad. It means you are not talking to the factory — which changes your price, your quality control, and who is accountable when something fails.
Two complications worth knowing. Honest trading companies can be excellent partners: better communication, smaller minimums, several factories under one roof. And many mid-size factories are hybrids — they own some lines and subcontract overflow. Ask directly which processes for your product happen in-house. The answer you want is specific, not proud.
The Mistakes Small Buyers Make Most
- Treating the badge as the finish line. A verification happened once, on a past date, possibly in a showroom. It's a starting filter.
- Wiring to a mismatched account. The beneficiary must match the license. No exceptions, however urgent the "production slot" sounds.
- Verifying the company, not the order. You may have verified a real shoe factory — while your style quietly runs on a subcontractor's line two towns over. Ask where, specifically, your order runs.
- Trusting the registered capital number. It's a shareholder pledge, routinely inflated. Establishment date, scope, and a video tour tell you more.
- Verifying once, forever. Lines move, ownership changes, quality drifts. Before a reorder much larger than the first, re-verify — and ask whether bulk runs on the same line and materials as your approved sample.
How a Local Agent Verifies on the Ground
Distance is the quiet tax on everything above: from far away, tours can be staged, certificates borrowed, showrooms dressed. Being in the cluster removes most of the theater.
GlobalSala works out of Quanzhou, Fujian — one of China's core production bases for bags, footwear, and apparel, with hardware and tools close behind. Screening a factory here means sitting down with the manager, walking the floor on a working day, and checking machines and lines against what the profile claims. We stay with the order too: following production as it runs, then manually checking finished goods item by item before packing, with export paperwork handled alongside.
If your category is footwear, our guide to Quanzhou shoe manufacturers goes deeper; for bags, start with our handbag sourcing guide.
On minimums we keep to one position: "MOQs depend on the product and factory. Tell us what you need and we confirm what is realistic before you commit to anything."
And if you'd rather have someone do this walk-through for you, send your product spec and target price — we'll tell you what's realistic and what we'd check first.
FAQ
How do I verify a Chinese supplier is real?
Get the business license and read the 18-character Unified Social Credit Code. Look the company up on the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System (gsxt.gov.cn), confirm the status is active, and check that the license name matches your quotation and the receiving bank account.
Is an Alibaba Verified Supplier badge enough?
It means a third party checked the company's documents and, at some tiers, visited the premises on a past date. That screens out anonymous sellers but doesn't guarantee quality, capacity, or that your order runs at that site. Treat it as step one, not the last.
Is it a problem if my supplier is a trading company?
Not automatically. Good trading companies communicate better, accept smaller orders, and handle export paperwork well. What matters is honesty — you should know whether a markup and a middleman sit between you and the production line.
What inspection standard should I ask for?
Agree on written defect criteria with the supplier before production starts. Sampling frameworks such as AQL apply if/when agreed between buyer and supplier, so put the level in your PO or contract. For a check on finished goods before shipment, email us to confirm what we can support.
