Three different Chinese words can all reach you in English as revoked or cancelled.
The status word on a Mainland record decides whether you are dealing with a live company, a penalised one that still exists, or one that is gone. In English the three can look identical.
By Matthew Lee
吊销 is a penalty. 注销 is an ending. 撤销 is an undoing.
All three come out of translation as "revoked" or "cancelled". They mean different things for a counterparty, and only the Chinese word on the record tells you which one you have.
The status words
| Word | Meaning | For onboarding |
|---|---|---|
| 存续, 在业 | In existence, in business: registered, and not revoked or deregistered | Live entity. Read the rest of the record |
| 吊销 | Business licence revoked as a penalty; the company still exists | No new business. It must wind up |
| 注销 | Deregistered; the company has ended | It no longer exists |
| 迁出, 迁入 | Moved out, moved in: registration passed to another authority | Find the record at the new authority |
| 歇业, 停业 | Suspended | Ask why, and until when |
| 撤销 | Registration revoked because it was obtained by fraud | Treat as a serious red flag |
Live is not the same as trading
存续 covers more than a working business. The 2014 Interim Regulations on Enterprise Information Publicity list operating, suspension and liquidation together as states of existence (Article 9). Article 236 of the Company Law says a company in liquidation still exists but may not carry on business unrelated to the liquidation.
So a 存续 record is where the check starts. The annual reports, the abnormal operations list and any liquidation notice decide the rest.
吊销: revoked, but still there
A revoked licence is an administrative penalty. Revocation is a ground for dissolution under Article 229 of the Company Law, and the directors must form a liquidation group within 15 days (Article 232). The company cannot trade. It still owns its assets and owes its debts.
- Six months on: if no liquidation group has been announced and no deregistration sought, the bureau may add a special mark on the publicity system (Implementing Rules, Article 67).
- Three years on: the registration authority may announce for at least 60 days and then deregister the company itself (Company Law, Article 241).
- For the people: a legal representative personally responsible for a revocation cannot be legal representative of another company for three years (Market Entity Registration Regulations, Article 12).
Since 1 May 2024, silence can also end in 吊销. Two missed annual reports in a row, with no contact at the registered address, lead to revocation.
注销: the end
Under Article 31 of the Market Entity Registration Regulations, the entity ends when the bureau deregisters it. The credit code is kept (Company Registration Implementing Measures, Article 25), so a search by code still finds the record.
The simplified route
A company with no debts, or with all debts paid, can use simplified deregistration (简易注销) under Article 33 of the Regulations and Article 240 of the Company Law. All investors sign an undertaking, the company publishes it on the publicity system for 20 days, and if no one objects it applies to deregister within the following 20 days.
Shareholders who undertook falsely are jointly liable for the company's debts from before deregistration. The route is closed to a company whose licence was revoked, whose registration was revoked, or which is on the abnormal operations list.
If your counterparty is in that notice period, it has started a deregistration process. Check for objections and whether deregistration is completed before drawing a conclusion.
迁出 and 迁入: moved
A company moving its domicile to another authority's area applies to the new authority before it moves (Regulations, Article 27), and the old bureau hands over the file within three months (Implementing Rules, Article 62). The code does not change. A record reading 迁出 is the old file. Look up the current one.
歇业 and 停业: paused
Since 1 March 2022, a company in difficulty after a natural disaster, accident, public health or social security event may file a suspension (歇业) for at most three years, published on the publicity system with an address for legal documents (Regulations, Article 30). It must still file annual reports. A company that simply stops for six months without filing risks revocation (Company Law, Article 260).
撤销: undone
Where a registration was obtained with false materials or other fraud, the bureau revokes the registration itself (Regulations, Article 40). The person directly responsible may not register another market entity for three years. A counterparty with this word in its history needs more than a status check.
How Fill Easy fits in
A Mainland China company search through CorpVerify returns the registry record translated into English, with the original attached, so the Chinese status word is always there to check against our translation. Records that name people reach Hong Kong under Filing No. 202500031 through China Cross-Border Data. For a book of existing clients, monitoring and remediation re-checks each entity against its registry. The China company verification guide covers the rest of the check.
When a report in your files says "revoked", do you know which Chinese word it came from?