Business license of China company

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 。 See the picture belowing.

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. In some cities of China, the company's register information can be checked through local official site of AIC.

There are two ways:
One way is visiting official site of State AIC  http://gsxt.saic.gov.cn/
1. First find which province your china supplier is located in, then choose the right one.

2. Input the company's chinese name or register Number in the blank:

3. You'll see the pop-up for verifing. Unfortunately, unless you know Chinese language well, otherwise you'll stop here

4. After you write the right verify code, you'll get the register information of company(if it's a real company)

Another is visiting local AIC website

For example, You wanna examing a company which is located in Wenzhou city (Zhejiang province) 
Here are the steps:

1.visit official site of Wenzhou AIC http://www.wenzhou315.gov.cn/

2. Find the link to Company Basic information inquiry（企业基本信息查询） and click it.

3. It direct you to this page, you can enter the company's chinese name or Register No in the blank, press enter.

4. If it is a registered company in Wenzhou city, the result will be displayed as the picture, then click 详细信息

5. The basic information of the company.

As China is not an English-speaking country, almost 95% of the local goverment don't have English version homepage, it's not convenient for foreigners to check the information. Also, some cities may charging fees for accessing public records.