6 things to settle before you exhibit at the China International Import Expo (进博会)

The China International Import Expo (进博会) runs in Shanghai from 5 to 10 November 2026. Exhibits enter without paying duty if re-exported within six months. Exhibits sold there are tax-free only within a quota that excludes alcohol and cars. A mark first shown there gets six months’ priority, proved with the organiser’s exhibition certificate.

Your stand in Shanghai is booked, the crates leave in the next fortnight, and Chinese buyers will see your brand for the first time on 5 November. What goes wrong from here is rarely the stand. It is duty on the exhibits you sell, a stranger filing your Chinese name in December, or an order form that turns out to be a contract. The expo gives food and agricultural products 85,000 square metres of floor,^⁠[1] and wine sold off those stands gets no duty exemption at all.^⁠[2]

Six things settle most of it. Each has its own section below.

1. Ship the exhibits as temporary imports, under an ATA carnet or through the official forwarder, and plan to take them home within six months.
2. Decide what you will sell or hand out to taste, because only a limited quantity escapes import duty and VAT, some goods none at all, and tastings need customs approval in advance.
3. File the trademark, Chinese name included, before you show it. Exhibition priority is a back-up, not a plan.
4. Ask for an exhibition certificate (展出证明) during the fair, with your company papers translated into Chinese.
5. Read every order form as if it were a contract, because under Chinese law it may be one.
6. Put an interpreter and a person who can commit the company on the stand.

What is the CIIE, and who runs it?

The China International Import Expo (CIIE, 进博会) is an annual fair for goods and services sold into China. Its 9th edition runs from 5 to 10 November 2026 at the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai). The Ministry of Commerce and the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government host it.^⁠[1] Government hosting matters below, because trademark and patent priority from showing a product applies only at exhibitions the Chinese government hosts or recognises.

Treat the headline numbers as intentions. The organiser reports US$83.49 billion of “intended deals counted over a year” (按一年计意向成交额) for the 8th edition in 2025, alongside 4,108 overseas exhibitors.^⁠[1] Neither is a count of signed contracts.

How do exhibits get through Chinese customs for the expo?

As temporary imports. Goods shown or used at an exhibition can enter without paying duty for now, on condition that they leave China within six months of entry. An extension follows the customs authority’s rules, and anything not re-exported in time pays duty (Customs Duties Law, Article 37).^⁠[3]

There are two ways to do it. An ATA carnet (ATA单证册), the international customs document for temporary imports, covers goods within the conventions China has joined. Exhibits without one are declared as temporary imports, and customs takes a guarantee for them. The customs rules allow an extension at most three times, each of up to six months.^⁠[4] The organiser’s advice is to ask the expo’s official forwarder (主场运输单位) how each kind of exhibit is declared, and to appoint it to do the declaration.^⁠[5]

Can we sell exhibits off the stand without paying import duty?

Up to a limit, and not for every product. A reasonable quantity of imported exhibits sold during the expo is exempt from import duty, import VAT and consumption tax.^⁠[2] The exemption is a standing 2020 notice with no end date, and the organiser still cites it to exhibitors.^⁠[2,5]

	What the notice says
Taxes exempted	Import duty, import VAT and consumption tax, on a reasonable quantity of exhibits sold during the expo
Never exempt	Alcohol, tobacco, cars, goods China prohibits, endangered species and their products, and major equipment on the list of imports not exempted
Per exhibitor	A number of items for the categories in the notice’s list. For all other exhibits, sales up to US$20,000
Sold above the limit, or unsold and kept in China	Taxed in the normal way
Who reports the sales	The CIIE Bureau and the venue company send the list of exhibitors and exhibits sold to Shanghai Customs

Selling at the stand is allowed. For the 2025 expo, customs even excused food and cosmetics sold on site in small quantities from Chinese labels.^⁠[12] What differs is the checking. Appliances shown only for display were excused China’s compulsory certification, but those to be sold were inspected against Chinese technical standards. Anything to be tasted, tried or handed out needed a written application to Shanghai Customs in advance, with its compliance certificates.^⁠[13]

Should we file our trademark in China before the expo?

Yes. China registers a mark to whoever files first, and on the same goods the earlier application is the one published.^⁠[6] The organiser counted more than 460,000 registered visitors in 2025.^⁠[1] Six days in front of them is a long time for a brand nobody in China has filed. Choosing the Chinese name belongs in the same filing, because it is the name buyers will repeat.

If the filing is not in by 5 November, exhibition priority is the fallback. It covers a mark first used on goods shown at an international exhibition the Chinese government hosts or recognises. Priority lasts six months from the day the goods were shown (Trademark Law 2019, Article 26).^⁠[6] The revised law in force from 1 January 2027 keeps the same rule.^⁠[7] Priority dates your application back to that display day and no earlier, so a stranger who filed before your stand opened still comes first.

	Trademark	Patent (invention, utility model or design)
What it gives	Priority from the day the goods were shown	The exhibition does not destroy novelty
Window	6 months from the day the goods were shown	6 months before the filing date
When you claim it	A written declaration when you file	A declaration when you file
Proof, and its deadline	The exhibition’s name, evidence of the mark used on the goods shown, and the display date, within 3 months of filing	Proof that it was shown, and when, within 2 months of the filing date
If you miss it	Treated as if no priority was claimed	The grace period does not apply

The priority attaches to the mark used on the goods shown. A Chinese name that appears nowhere on those goods has nothing to claim from. The filing itself, classes and the Chinese name included, is what trademark strategy and filing coordination covers.

What is an exhibition certificate (展出证明), and how do we get one?

It is the organiser’s certificate that a product or mark was shown at the expo, and it is the proof both priority claims ask for. The organiser issues it for exhibits shown for the first time at the CIIE and not yet filed for a patent in China, and for marks first used on goods shown there.^⁠[10] At the 6th edition in 2023, the China National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) reported first-exhibition certificates being issued.^⁠[11] The most recent published rules are the 2020 edition, and they work like this:^⁠[10]

1. Apply in person at the expo’s intellectual property and commercial dispute service centre, during the six days of the fair. Only paper is accepted, and only applications made there and then.
2. Hand in the application form, signed and sealed, with its product or trademark description. Add a signed and sealed copy of your company’s proof of legal status, and the original authorisation letter if someone applies on your behalf.
3. Attach a Chinese translation of every foreign-language document, sealed by a translation agency qualified to provide one.
4. Two or more of the centre’s staff inspect the stand. The day they inspect is recorded as the day the product or mark was shown.
5. The organiser issues the certificate within 15 days after the expo ends, usually by post.

Say a Danish tableware brand opens its stand on 5 November with a new mark and its Chinese name printed on the goods, and the centre inspects on 6 November. The certificate arrives by 25 November. Priority runs to 6 May 2027. If the application goes in on 15 January 2027, under the revised law, the declaration is made that day and the certificate is filed by 15 April 2027.^⁠[7]

The translations are the part to do before you fly. A certified Chinese translation of your certificate of incorporation and any authorisation letter, sealed and ready, means the application can go in on day one.

Is an order form signed at our stand a binding contract in China?

It can be, and in two different ways. An order or reservation form in which both sides agree to conclude a contract later, naming the parties and the goods, is a preliminary contract (预约合同) (Civil Code, Article 495).^⁠[14,15] Refusing to sign the main contract afterwards is a breach, and the other side can claim the loss.^⁠[15]

A form that already agrees the goods, the quantity and the price, and does not say a further contract will follow, is the contract itself. A letter of intent that only expresses an intention to trade is neither.^⁠[15] The heading on the paper decides none of this. What it agrees does. How this applies to fair paperwork generally is in whether a deal signed at a trade fair binds.

Who should be on the stand with us?

Two kinds of person: one who can follow the conversation in Chinese, and one who can say yes for the company. An interpreter working a buyer meeting at a stand does a different job from one translating a brochure, as what a negotiation interpreter does sets out.

The person who can say yes needs to be able to show it. If that is not a director, they carry written authority, and its terms are covered in a power of attorney for China. If someone else applies for the exhibition certificate for you, they hand in an original authorisation letter as well.^⁠[10]

What is still unconfirmed for the 2026 expo, as at 9 October?

Three things. The exhibition certificate rules quoted above date from 2020, the latest the organiser has published, so check the 2026 exhibitor manual for changes. Customs has amended its rules on temporary imports since the 2018 text cited here, and the selling and tasting arrangements quoted are those of the 2024 and 2025 expos. This year’s customs notice is the official forwarder’s to explain. The tax notice has no end date, but a replacement could still be issued.^{⁠[2,4,10,12,13]}

After the expo closes on 10 November, this page will add the organiser’s closing figures, attributed to the organiser.

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