How a Chinese customer pays a foreign company

China does not restrict payments abroad for goods and services, but the buyer’s bank pays only when the contract, invoice and, for goods, customs declaration match the payment. A service payment up to US$50,000 needs no documents in principle, unless its purpose is unclear. Deposits over 30 days before import, and credit over 90 days, are reported to SAFE.

Your Chinese customer has agreed the price and asked for your bank details. The money now waits on a bank in China, which will not pay until it has matched the payment to your paperwork. A name that differs by one word, or an amount that is not on any invoice, can hold it. The paperwork you send therefore decides how fast you are paid.

One rule is easy to miss. If the foreign exchange regulator has downgraded the buyer, its bank in principle may not pay more than 90 days after the goods are imported. The buyer can get a longer term registered only from six months after the downgrade, and only once it has put right what caused it. Generous credit terms you offer may be terms its bank cannot honour.

Can a Chinese company pay a foreign company at all?

Yes. China does not restrict current international payments, and paying for goods or services bought from abroad is one of them.^⁠[1] For most buyers no government approval is involved, only the bank’s check.

What China does require is a real transaction behind each payment. The buyer’s bank checks that the documents are genuine and that they match the payment (Regulations, Article 12).^⁠[1] It pays from its own foreign currency or buys it from the bank on those documents. The State Administration of Foreign Exchange (国家外汇管理局, SAFE) writes the rules the banks apply, collected in one set of Guidelines that SAFE has amended three times since 2023.^⁠[2,3]

What does the buyer’s bank check before paying for goods?

That the parties, the amount and the nature of the payment on the documents match the payment order.^⁠[2] The bank chooses which documents to ask for. The usual set looks like this:

1. The buyer is on the trade list. Since 1 June 2024 a Chinese company registers on the list of trading companies (贸易外汇收支企业名录) at its own bank before its first foreign payment.^⁠[4] A bank does not, in principle, pay for goods for a company that is not on it.^⁠[2]
2. A contract and an invoice in the name of the company that owns the receiving account, for the amount being paid.^⁠[2]
3. The import customs declaration (进口报关单), or transport documents. The bank may skip the customs check where it can otherwise confirm the payment is genuine (Guidelines, Article 16).^⁠[2]
4. Your name and account number on the transfer. China’s customer due-diligence rules require the remitting bank to record the payee’s name and account number as well as the payer’s.^⁠[5]

A payment made before the goods clear customs is still possible. The bank may ask the buyer for the customs details within 40 days of the import date (Guidelines, Article 17).^⁠[2] A buyer that fails to provide them without a reasonable explanation is flagged in SAFE’s system. The flag is visible to every bank in China and stays for 24 months.^⁠[2]

Our buyer wants to pay a deposit, or pay 120 days after delivery. Does that change anything?

For a buyer in good standing with SAFE (class A, explained below), it adds only a report, made by the buyer, not by you. For a buyer SAFE has downgraded, a 120-day term may not be allowed at all. Two kinds of payment term must be reported to SAFE’s trade monitoring system within 30 days of the payment or the import (Guidelines, Article 20):^⁠[2]

• an advance payment made more than 30 days before the goods are imported;
• deferred payment more than 90 days after the goods are imported.

Say a Danish ceramics brand sells EUR 40,000 of tableware to a Shanghai distributor. The distributor pays a 30% deposit on 2 November 2026, and the goods clear customs on 21 December, 49 days later. That is an advance payment over 30 days, so the distributor reports it by 2 December. The balance is due 60 days after import, on 19 February 2027, which is inside 90 days and needs no report. Had the contract said 120 days, the balance would fall on 20 April 2027, and the distributor would report it by 20 January.^⁠[2]

SAFE grades trading companies A, B or C by their compliance record. For a class A buyer the report is all that changes.^⁠[2] SAFE tells the buyer and its banks of a downgrade, which normally lasts a year.^⁠[2]

Buyer’s grade	Deposit or advance payment	Payment more than 90 days after import
Class A	Paid on the bank’s usual check; reported if over 30 days before import	Allowed; reported
Class B	The bank checks the contract and the invoice	Not allowed in principle; possible by registration with SAFE from 6 months after the downgrade, if the problem has been put right
Class C	Each payment registered with SAFE in advance, on the contract and invoice	Not allowed in principle; the same registration route from 6 months after the downgrade

What changes when you are selling a service rather than goods?

The threshold. For a single service payment of US$50,000 or less, the bank in principle checks no documents at all. It does ask for them where it cannot tell what the money is for (Guidelines, Article 49).^⁠[2] Above US$50,000 it checks that the parties, amount and nature on the documents match the payment.

The documents for a service are a contract naming what is supplied, the parties and the amount, and an invoice or payment notice.^⁠[2] Above US$50,000 the buyer also files the contract with its tax office before the first payment, and the bank checks the filing form.^⁠[2,6] One filing covers every payment under the same contract.^⁠[7] A payment for goods is not on the filing list.^⁠[6]

Advance payments for services get a careful check, so the contract should say what each instalment pays for.^⁠[2] What the buyer withholds in Chinese tax from a service or licence fee is a separate question, set out in selling a software licence to China from abroad.

Can the customer pay us in RMB instead of dollars or euros?

Yes, but paying in RMB does not by itself skip the bank’s check. Goods and services trade can be settled across the border in RMB as well as in foreign currency. Only for a buyer its bank treats as a quality enterprise (优质企业) may the bank pay on the buyer’s payment instruction alone, without first reviewing the documents.^⁠[8]

The currency on the invoice also decides who carries the exchange-rate movement between order and payment. An RMB invoice needs an account abroad that can receive RMB, so ask your own bank whether yours can before the invoice names it. Which currency suits a contract with a long payment period is the kind of single question a Commercial Advice Letter answers with the options side by side.

Why would a payment from China be held?

Because something on the documents does not match the payment, or a step the buyer owes has not been taken. Each case below runs into a written rule:

What happened	Rule it runs into	What clears it
The account holder’s name differs from the seller on the contract	Parties on the documents must match the payment	A contract and invoice issued by the company that owns the account
The amount is not on any invoice	Amount must match	An invoice for the amount paid, or a written explanation of the difference
The buyer has never paid abroad before	Trade list registration before the first goods payment	The buyer registers at its bank
A service payment over US$50,000	Tax filing before the first payment	The buyer files once for the contract
The buyer is graded class C	Each goods payment registered with SAFE first	SAFE’s registration form; this takes longer

The first two are fixed on your side of the deal, before the buyer instructs its bank. A Contract Commercial Review reads the payment clause, the seller’s legal name and the invoicing terms against the documents a Chinese bank will ask for. If the buyer is a distributor, how it holds title to the goods also shapes the paperwork; see selling through a Chinese distributor or agent.

Is SAFE loosening any of this?

For the largest and cleanest buyers, yes. Since 28 October 2025, quality enterprises in SAFE’s pilot areas may net payments both ways with the same overseas counterparty, settling only the difference.^⁠[9] The pilot list of areas grows by notice. Nothing published to 30 June 2026 changes the US$50,000 services threshold or the 30-day and 90-day reports.^⁠[3] The Guidelines are amended by notice rather than reissued, so this page is reviewed every 90 days.

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