Business license is a certificate of a business entity’s identity issued by local AIC (Administration of Industrial and Commerce，the corporate registration agency in China). Every company should be registered in local AIC, it’s kinda like Certificate of Incooperation in the US.
Business License provide basic information of a entity，which are: registration No., License No, Company name, registered address, name of the legal representative (the individual who operate business on behalf of the entity), amount of registered capital, actually invested capital, type of the entity, business scope (type of business allowed to do), date of incorporation, expiry date 。
Usually, there is one original copy and one duplicate copy of business license. According to relevant regulations, the original one has to be put in a conspicuous place in the location where the business is operated. Foreign customers dealing with China companies are advised to asking them directly for a copy of business license, examing the basic information of the entity.
Be sure your supplier deliver his own business license but not belong to other legal company, so pay attention, is the company name the same one that you have always been contacting and showed in P/I or Purchasing contract.
Here we’d like to share one way to checking a company online.
1. Visiting official site of State AIC http://www.gsxt.gov.cn/index.html
Copy the exact company name( in Chinese) or register No, fill in the blank.
2. Take an example, if the company name is : 金华市百盾防护用品有限公司 .
If it’s a legal company, then it will show the results that match your searching words like below.
3. After click the company name, you’ll see more info about this company.
Such as if the company has administrative sanction or in black list by breaking law or promise, the company’s stock holders and key personnel, business change information.
Pls make sure that the company name is exact right. Otherwise, if there’s typo in the company name such as 金华市白盾防护用品有限公司 （pls note the right word is “百” instead of ”白“）， then no results can be found, or it shall shown result of other company.
As China is not an English-speaking country, almost 95% of the official government website don’t have English version homepage, it’s not quite convenient for foreigners to check the information.