A Mainland company is verified by its Chinese name and its 18-character code.

One Chinese name. One 18-character code. One public register.

A Hong Kong team checking a Mainland China company has one public register, several commercial databases built on top of it, and one document that ties the record together. The register is the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System. The document is the business licence.

The complication is that the names on the record are personal information under the Personal Information Protection Law. Moving the result to Hong Kong needs a lawful basis.

Start with the Chinese name

A Mainland company has one official name, in Chinese characters, as registered with the local market regulation bureau. English names are not registered and are not part of the record.

Two companies can share an English trading name. Searches by English name therefore return candidates, not matches.

Ask the counterparty for the exact Chinese name and the Unified Social Credit Code from its business licence. With those two items, every other step is a lookup.

If you only have an English name, treat the search as a shortlist and confirm the entity with the counterparty before relying on anything.

The Unified Social Credit Code

The Unified Social Credit Code (统一社会信用代码) is the 18-character identifier assigned to every legal person and other organisation registered in the Mainland. It replaced the separate business registration number, organisation code and tax number. A registry, a tax bureau and a bank all use it for the same entity.

The code uses Arabic digits and capital letters. The standard leaves out the letters I, O, Z, S and V to avoid confusion with digits, which gives the 31-character set behind the check character.

A code that fails the check character or uses an excluded letter is invalid. It may be mistyped or falsified; confirm the code and the entity against the register.

The national publicity system

The National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System (国家企业信用信息公示系统, often shortened to NECIPS, at gsxt.gov.cn) is operated by the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR, 国家市场监督管理总局) with provincial sub-sites.

A record on gsxt.gov.cn shows:

• Registration particulars: Chinese name, credit code, type of entity, legal representative, registered capital, date of establishment, business term, registered address, business scope and registration authority.
• Shareholders and officers: shareholders and their subscribed contributions, and the company's officers.
• Branches and changes: branches, and changes to the record with dates.
• Licences and penalties: administrative licences and administrative penalties.
• Abnormal operations: whether the company is on the list of abnormal operations (经营异常名录), for example for failing to file an annual report or being unreachable at its registered address.
• Serious violations: whether it is on the list of serious violations of law and dishonesty (严重违法失信名单).

Registered capital is usually subscribed (认缴), rather than paid-in (实缴). The revised Company Law sets a five-year contribution period for newly established limited liability companies, with transitional rules for existing companies. A large subscribed figure does not prove that funds are available.

The register shows registered shareholders, not beneficial owners. Since 1 November 2024, companies, partnerships and branches of foreign companies file beneficial owner information with the registration authority under the Administrative Measures on Beneficial Owner Information (People's Bank of China and SAMR Order No. 3 of 2024). Entities registered before that date had until 1 November 2025 to file.

The information goes to a People's Bank of China system that authorities and financial institutions may query for anti-money laundering purposes. It is not on the public record.

Registry evidence

A compliance file needs the registry record, the retrieval date and the source, so that a reviewer in two years can see what was checked. Our Mainland China KYC and AML page sets out what Hong Kong regulators expect that file to contain.

The business licence

The business licence (营业执照) is issued by the registration authority when the company is set up, and reissued when the registered particulars change.

Licence fields include the Chinese name, credit code, entity type, address, legal representative, registered capital, establishment date, business scope and registration authority. Check the business term where shown, or obtain the filed particulars if it is absent. Company and branch licences have different applicable fields.

When a counterparty sends a licence, check the particulars against the publicity system record on the same day. A licence that was valid when scanned may be out of date: the company may have changed its legal representative, its address or its scope.

Company chops

Mainland companies commonly use company chops (公章) and specialised seals. A seal impression alone does not establish the validity of every transaction; check the signatory’s authority, the document and the circumstances.

Others serve specific purposes: the financial chop (财务专用章), the contract chop (合同专用章), the invoice chop (发票专用章) and the legal representative's chop (法人章).

Where a document carries a company chop, compare its Chinese name with the registered entity. Also confirm who signed and their authority; a different name or unexplained seal requires clarification.

Translation and summary

Everything above is in Chinese. A compliance file in Hong Kong usually needs an English version of the key fields and an explanation of what the record shows.

Transliterate names and keep the Chinese characters alongside them, because the characters are the identifier.

The personal-information rules

A company record names people: the legal representative, the directors and supervisors, and any individual shareholders, sometimes with a partially masked ID number.

Under Article 4 of the Personal Information Protection Law (in force since 1 November 2021), information recorded electronically or otherwise that relates to an identified or identifiable natural person is personal information, excluding anonymised information.

Article 27 allows a processor to handle, within a reasonable scope, personal information that the individual has disclosed or that has otherwise been lawfully disclosed, unless the individual has expressly refused.

Article 38 still requires a lawful route before personal information is provided outside the Mainland: a security assessment organised by the Cyberspace Administration of China, certification by a professional body, a standard contract on the CAC's template, or another condition set by law or by the CAC.

Document the applicable lawful route, including any relevant exemption, the parties and the permitted purposes. A filed standard contract is one route; its scope must cover the proposed transfer and use.

The GBA Standard Contract guide explains the route built for the Greater Bay Area and Hong Kong, and the PIPL and GBA Standard Contract page summarises the rule.

How Fill Easy fits in

Our China Cross-Border Data service returns Mainland records with source documents and an English summary. Our filed Standard Contract (Filing No. 202500031) supports transfers within its documented scope; we confirm the data categories, receiving parties and restrictions for the proposed use case.

Send the Chinese name or credit code by email to agent@fill-easy.com or through the API. The company search, business registration, KYB report and UBO tracing options are listed in the catalogue.

A sample Mainland company report (opens in a new tab) shows the format, and the trust page describes the security controls and the PCPD inspection of the transfer platform. Every result records its source, retrieval time and request ID, which is the audit trail a reviewer needs.

On what basis does Mainland company data reach your Hong Kong office today?