What is GSXT, and can I search it from outside China?

GSXT is the letters people use for 国家企业信用信息公示系统 — the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System. There is one, it is run by the state, and every company legally registered in mainland China is on it. That is worth restating because it is unusual: there is no equivalent single, free, authoritative company register in most countries. If a Chinese company is not on GSXT, it does not legally exist.

What a GSXT record contains

Field (Chinese)	What it tells you
登记状态	Whether the company is currently in operation, revoked or deregistered
统一社会信用代码	The 18-character identifier — the key to every other record
法定代表人	The individual who can legally bind the company
注册资本 / 实缴资本	Registered capital, and how much of it was actually paid in
经营范围	The registered business scope — what the company is permitted to do
成立日期	Date of incorporation
年报	Annual reports, including social-insurance headcount
经营异常名录	Abnormal operations listings — failure to file, or unreachable at the registered address
行政处罚	Administrative penalties imposed by regulators

What to do when it will not load

1. If https://www.gsxt.gov.cn/ will not load, ask the supplier for their registered Chinese name and 18-character Unified Social Credit Code in writing, plus a photograph of the business licence. This costs you nothing and a supplier who refuses has told you something.
2. Try 信用中国 (creditchina.gov.cn) instead. It is a different system with a different operator, it carries registration basics alongside penalty and blacklist records, and it is often reachable when GSXT is not.
3. Try the provincial portal for the company’s own province. GSXT federates to provincial systems, and they do not all behave the same way from abroad.
4. Ask someone physically in China to run the search and screenshot the record, with the URL and date visible in the image.
5. Treat a licence image on its own as unverified. It is a photograph, and photographs of Chinese business licences are trivial to alter — the whole reason the registry matters is that it is the copy the supplier does not control.

GSXT is one system among several

A registry record answers “does this company exist and is it in good standing”. It does not answer most of the questions that decide whether you should wire money. Those live in other systems, each free and each separate.

System	What it answers	What it will not tell you
GSXT 国家企业信用信息公示系统	Existence, status, scope, capital, headcount, penalties	Whether they can make your product, or whether they pay their debts
信用中国 creditchina.gov.cn	Penalties, blacklists, dishonest-debtor listings	Day-to-day commercial reliability
中国裁判文书网 wenshu.court.gov.cn	Published court judgments involving the company	Disputes settled privately, or cases not yet published
CNIPA	Trademarks and patents actually held	Whether a certificate they showed you is genuine

What a clean GSXT record does not prove

• That the company manufactures. Scope is permission, not capability — see the factory-or-trader question.
• That the bank account you were given is theirs. It must be in the registered company name.
• That the person emailing you works there. Registry data says nothing about who controls an inbox.
• That the certificates they sent you are real. Those are verified with the bodies that issued them, not with the registry.