Which Chinese trade fairs let you sell your exhibits tax-free?

Exhibits for a trade fair in China may enter without paying duty for now, provided they leave within six months. Sold at the fair, they are free of import duty, import VAT and consumption tax only up to a per-exhibitor allowance. Caps differ across the CIIE, CIFTIS and nine regional expos, and alcohol, tobacco and cars never qualify.

You are choosing a fair in China for next year, and you would rather sell the goods on your stand than ship them home. Whether they sell tax-free depends on which fair you pick, more than on what you sell. At the China International Import Expo, a maker of food-packaging machines can sell up to 12 machines tax-free, and the list counts them by number, not by value. At the China-ASEAN Expo, the same machines share a single US$20,000 allowance with 19 other categories of goods.^⁠[1,2]

The allowance comes from a notice issued for each fair, or group of fairs, by the Ministry of Finance, the General Administration of Customs (GACC) and the State Taxation Administration. Three such notices are in force for the fairs covered here, and two were issued on 28 February 2026. “Tax-free” on this page means free of import duty, import VAT and consumption tax, the three taxes the notices exempt.^⁠[2,3]

Which Chinese trade fairs let exhibitors sell exhibits tax-free?

This page covers 11 fairs open to foreign exhibitors selling into China, each with a current notice. The table sets out which notice covers each fair, and for which editions.

Fair	Notice	Editions covered	Who sends the sales list to customs
China International Import Expo(进博会)	财关税〔2020〕38号	From October 2020, no end date	The CIIE Bureau and the venue company, to Shanghai Customs
China International Fair for Trade in Services(服贸会)	财关税〔2026〕22号	2026 and 2027	Beijing’s trade-in-services affairs centre, to Beijing Customs
China-ASEAN, China-South Asia, China-Africa, China-Eurasia, China-Mongolia and China-Russia Expos; the Qinghai fair’s international carpet area	财关税〔2026〕23号	2026 to 2030	Not stated in the notice
China-Northeast Asia Expo and China-Arab States Expo	财关税〔2026〕23号	2026 and 2027	Not stated in the notice

Every notice excludes the same things: goods China prohibits, endangered species and their products, tobacco, alcohol, cars, and equipment on the catalogue of major imports that are never exempted.^⁠[1,2,3] So no wine, beer or spirits can be sold tax-free at any of these fairs. The catalogue in force for fairs held since 1 March 2025 is the 2025 edition. It names two kinds of packaging machine, for soda ash and for petrochemical granules, at all specifications.^⁠[4]

How much can each exhibitor sell tax-free at each fair?

Each allowance is per exhibitor, per edition, and it comes in two shapes. At the CIIE and CIFTIS, heavy goods are counted in items, and all other exhibits together may sell up to US$20,000. The nine regional expos count no items at all. There, one US$20,000 covers the 20 listed categories together, not each of them, and a second US$20,000 covers everything outside them.^⁠[1,2,3]

Goods	CIIE	CIFTIS	The nine regional expos
Machinery and electrical equipment (not medical)	12 items (the line also covers instruments and meters)	10 items	Inside the shared US$20,000
Tractors, tractor units and special-purpose vehicles	2 items (tractors and tractor units)	2 items (tractor units and special-purpose vehicles)	No separate line
Ships and floating structures	3 items	3 items	No separate line
Medical or surgical instruments	5 items	5 items	No separate line
Optical, photographic, measuring and precision instruments	No separate line	5 items	No separate line
Art, collectors’ pieces and antiques	5 items	No separate line	Art is inside the shared US$20,000
20 named categories, from food and textiles to cosmetics, jewellery, toys, carpets and machinery	No separate line	No separate line	US$20,000 in total, across all 20
All other exhibits	US$20,000	US$20,000	US$20,000

Exhibits sold above the allowance are taxed as ordinary imports, and so are exhibits left unsold that do not leave China after the fair.^⁠[1,2,3] The lists name product categories, not tariff codes. Which line a product sits on turns on its customs classification, the category and code it is declared under.

What would we actually pay at each fair?

Say a German maker of food-packaging machines brings four machines worth US$60,000 each and sells all four at the stand. At the CIIE the limit is 12 items, and at CIFTIS 10, so all four fall within the allowance at either. At the China-ASEAN Expo, machinery is category 13 of the 20 that share one US$20,000. If the maker sells nothing else from those 20, at most US$20,000 of the US$240,000 is tax-free and at least US$220,000 is taxed as an ordinary import. The notice does not say whether customs exempts part of one machine’s price or taxes that machine in full.^⁠[1,2,3]

Now take a Portuguese skincare brand that sells US$26,000 of display stock. Cosmetics are not on the CIIE or CIFTIS item lists, so they fall under “all other exhibits” at both, and US$6,000 is taxed. At the China-ASEAN Expo cosmetics are category 9, so the result is the same. Adding textiles changes nothing at either fair. At the CIIE their value counts towards the same “all other exhibits” US$20,000, and at the China-ASEAN Expo textiles are category 4, inside the same shared US$20,000.^⁠[1,2]

For heavy, expensive goods, the CIIE and CIFTIS are the fairs with the more generous allowances. A range that also includes goods outside the 20 categories does better at the regional expos, where those goods have a second US$20,000 of their own.^⁠[2] The CIIE’s own rules, including what customs asks before tastings, are on our page on exhibiting at the CIIE.

What happens to the exhibits we do not sell?

They have to leave China within six months of entry. Goods shown or used at an exhibition may enter without paying duty for now on that condition (Customs Duties Law, Article 37). Duty is payable on any still in China when the period ends. An exhibitor who needs longer applies to customs for an extension under GACC’s rules.^⁠[5]

This temporary-import rule is separate from the sales allowance. Entering without duty does not make a sale tax-free: a sold exhibit is free of tax only within the fair’s allowance. Each fair notice also taxes exhibits left unsold and not shipped back after the fair.^⁠[1,2,3] The ATA carnet, the international customs document for temporary imports, is covered on the CIIE page, with the organiser’s advice on the expo’s official forwarder. The other fairs’ notices name no forwarder.

Who records what we sold, and when?

The organiser does, for customs. At the CIIE, the expo bureau and the venue company send customs the list of exhibitors and of exhibits sold. At CIFTIS, Beijing’s trade-in-services affairs centre does.^⁠[1,3] The regional notice only requires each organiser to report how the policy was used to four ministries within three months of the fair. It does not say how sales reach customs, so ask the organiser before the fair opens.^⁠[2]

Whoever is on the stand needs to keep that record as sales are made: which exhibit, to whom and at what price. Each sale at the stand is also a contract, and whether a deal signed at a trade fair binds depends on what the paper agrees. If the brand will be shown in China for the first time, file it before the fair through trademark strategy and filing coordination. For buyer meetings at the stand, business interpreting is booked by the day.

What is still open for Hainan’s consumer products expo and the 2027 editions?

Two things, as at 13 October 2026. The China International Consumer Products Expo (消博会) in Haikou had its own notice in 2021, but that notice applies “before island-wide closure”.^⁠[6] Hainan’s island-wide special customs arrangements began on 18 December 2025.^⁠[7] Before the 2026 edition, Sheng Qiuping, a vice minister of commerce, said exhibits could be sold there tax-free, and Hainan lists tax-free exhibits at the expo among its tax-free schemes.^⁠[8] No post-closure notice with limits was found, so the expo is not in the tables above.

The second is time. Both the CIFTIS notice and the regional notice’s lines for the Northeast Asia and Arab States expos cover only the 2026 and 2027 editions. At the CIIE there is no end date, and a replacement notice could be issued at any time.^⁠[1,2,3] We will check this page against the ministries’ notices again before the 2027 season.

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