Eight things a China company registration quote leaves out

What a quote usually covers

Name approval, preparation and lodgement of the registration documents, the business licence, and the set of company chops. That is a real piece of work and it is legitimately what most providers sell. The problem is not the price of it. The problem is that a buyer reads “company registration” as “a working company,” and those are different finish lines.

Before any of this, there is a prior question worth asking properly: whether you need a Chinese entity at all. If you only buy from or sell to China from abroad, you usually do not. See do you actually need a Chinese company?

The eight it usually does not

1. The registered address, and what has to sit behind it

A foreign-invested company needs a real address with a lease and evidence of ownership behind it, of a property nature the registration authority will accept for the use you are registering. Addresses offered informally by a landlord or a supplier frequently cannot produce that paperwork, and the discovery usually happens after the name is approved.

2. The chops, and who physically holds them

A Chinese company operates through its seals rather than through signatures, and it will have several — the company chop, the legal representative chop, finance and invoice chops. They are usually included in a registration quote. What is never in the quote is the arrangement for custody, which is the thing that actually matters: whoever holds the company chop can bind the company.

3. The corporate bank account

The corporate bank account is the single most common omission from a registration quote, and usually the longest step in the whole project. The account opening permit was abolished by PBOC Order [2019] No. 1, but that removed a regulator’s licence, not the bank’s own review — banks run their own onboarding checks on a new foreign-invested company, on their own timetable, and generally require the legal representative to complete identity verification at the branch in person. A registration timeline that does not say whether the bank account is inside it is not a timeline.

4. Tax registration, and the taxpayer election that follows it

Registering with the tax authority is only the administrative half. The consequential half is whether the company is a general VAT taxpayer or a small-scale taxpayer, because that election governs how it invoices, what it can deduct, and — decisively for a trading business — whether export refunds are available to it at all. It is a structural decision that arrives disguised as a form.

5. Exporting in your own name — a separate sequence, and one that changed

If the company is to export under its own name, the licence is roughly half the job. What is left is a short sequence that most English-language guidance still gets wrong:

• The foreign trade operator filing no longer exists. It was abolished on 30 December 2022, when the NPC Standing Committee deleted the provision from Article 9 of the Foreign Trade Law and commerce departments stopped accepting filings the same day. If a proposal lists it as a step, that tells you when the proposal was written.
• Customs filing is now a filing rather than a registration, under GACC Decree No. 253 in force since 1 January 2022 — and it can be handled inside company registration itself under the “multi-certificate integration” process, with the data shared to Customs, if the box is ticked at the right moment. Miss that moment and it becomes a separate errand.
• Electronic port access, for declarations and the associated credentials.
• Foreign exchange directory registration, which since 1 June 2024 is done at the bank rather than at the foreign exchange bureau.
• Export tax refund filing with the competent tax authority.

6. The licensed accounting firm

Bookkeeping and tax agency in China require a licence from the finance authorities, and the statutory audit must be done by a licensed CPA firm. These are separate engagements with separate fees, and a registration quote that appears to include them is worth a question about who actually holds the licence. We do not hold one either, which is why we say so on what we don’t do.

7. Registered capital is a five-year clock, not a badge

Under the State Council regulation implementing the Company Law, in force since 1 July 2024, the subscribed capital of a limited liability company must be paid in within five years of establishment. Both the subscribed and the paid-in figures are published on the national registry. A large number chosen to look substantial is therefore a public, dated commitment to transfer that money — not a presentation choice. It is the single most common expensive mistake made in the first hour of a setup.

8. The annual report

Every company files an annual report through the national registry in the window running from 1 January to 30 June, and the content is published. Missing it puts the company on the abnormal operations list, which is visible to anyone who looks it up — including the counterparties running the same checks on you that you ought to be running on them.

Whose fee is whose

What we are not claiming

We have not given you a number. Setup costs vary by city, vehicle, scope and bank, and a figure quoted here would be repeated back to us as though it were a quotation. What we have given you is the list of things to make a provider address in writing — including ours. The right question to put to any proposal is not “how much” but “which of these eight are inside your scope, and who does the rest.”

Nor is any of this a criticism of fixed-fee registration providers. Filing work is a real service and scoping it tightly is reasonable. The failure is asymmetric information, not dishonesty, and it is fixed by one written question.

Quick FAQ

Do I still need a foreign trade operator filing to export from China?

No. The foreign trade operator filing (对外贸易经营者备案登记) was abolished on 30 December 2022, when the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress deleted the provision from Article 9 of the Foreign Trade Law, and commerce departments nationwide stopped accepting filings that day. A great deal of guidance published in English still lists it as a required step. What remains is customs filing, electronic port access, foreign exchange directory registration and export tax refund filing.

What is included in a China company registration fee?

Typically name approval, preparation and lodgement of the registration documents, the business licence itself, and the set of company chops. Typically not included: the registered address, the corporate bank account, tax registration follow-through, the filings required to export in your own name, the licensed accounting firm that must keep your books, or the registered capital you have subscribed. Ask for the exclusions in writing.

How long does it take to register a company in China?

The licence itself is usually a matter of weeks once the documents are in order. The realistic end-to-end figure is longer, because the corporate bank account is a separate process run by the bank on its own timetable and its own review, and because exporting in your own name requires further filings afterwards. Any timeline quoted to you should say explicitly whether the bank account is inside it.

Can a foreigner own 100% of a Chinese company?

Generally yes. A wholly foreign-owned enterprise is exactly that, and a foreign individual can hold it without an intervening company. A Chinese shareholder is needed only for a joint venture, or where the sector sits on the foreign investment negative list. See the negative list explained.