Do not wire tens of thousands of dollars based on an exchange of emails. Use this step-by-step corporate background check checklist to verify corporate status, domain ages, ICP certificates, and bank account beneficiary records.
When sourcing products from China, you will interact with representatives who speak fluent English, send high-definition photos of factories, and claim to have supplied Fortune 500 corporations. However, in the world of international B2B trade, anyone can hire a web developer to build a premium catalog site or lease a temporary booth at a trade show.
Before signing a purchase contract or initiating bank transfers, you must run basic background checks. These five steps require zero budget but provide massive protection against supplier bankruptcy, intermediary broker markups, and payment fraud.
The business license is the fundamental proof of corporate existence. Genuine suppliers expect compliance checks and will provide a clear PDF copy immediately. If a representative stalls or claims "corporate confidentiality," treat this as an immediate red flag.
Once you have the license copy, locate the 18-digit Unified Social Credit Code (USCC), which is usually positioned at the top. You can refer to our detailed China Business License Lookup & translation guide to verify the incorporation date, registered capital (real factories usually require over 1,000,000 RMB to register production facilities), and the company legal Chinese name. Additionally, once you confirm the business license details, verify that any proforma invoice or contract you receive is chopped with the official corporate seal. Refer to our guide on Chinese Company Stamps and Seal Verification to avoid executing invalid contracts.
If a supplier states on their Alibaba storefront or catalog, "We have been a premium manufacturer of sporting goods since 2010," cross-check this against their digital footprint.
Use a free tool like ICANN Lookup or DomainTools to query their website domain name.
Under Chinese internet law, any website hosted on a mainland Chinese server must secure an **ICP (Internet Content Provider) License (ICP备案)** issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).
Legitimate Chinese companies always display their ICP number (e.g., 粤ICP备12345678号) in the footer of their Chinese website homepage. If the website lists no ICP number, or if you search the official MIIT registry database and find that the domain is registered to a private individual rather than the corporate entity, it indicates a lack of legal company backing.
Commercial invoice fraud represents the costliest risk in B2B sourcing. A supplier may claim their factory is "Ningbo Precision Parts Co., Ltd," but their Proforma Invoice (PI) instructs you to wire money to "Hengxin Trade Co., Limited" or a personal bank account belonging to the manager.
If a supplier claims to be a massive OEM manufacturer, ask for their factory address. Chinese industrial buildings have specific address structures (e.g., Industrial Park, High-tech Zone).
Use Baidu Maps or Tencent Maps (which offer superior local street view coverage in China compared to Google Maps) to search the address. If the location shows a commercial office skyscraper in downtown Shanghai or a residential neighborhood, the entity is a trading broker or an office desk. You can study our 7-step criteria to distinguish between a factory and a trading company in China before committing to orders. If traveling to China is not feasible for physical verification, you can follow our operational checklist to remotely audit a Chinese factory to inspect their assembly lines, warehouse inventory, and quality control systems via video call.
If the order is larger than a simple sample, use the full China supplier due diligence framework to connect legal identity, payment path, factory evidence, and compliance documents before sending a deposit.
We bypass registry CAPTCHAs, query official Chinese state records, verify ICP registrations, and generate an independent supplier risk report.