The first thing you see when you pull up a Chinese supplier's registration record is a short line labelled 登记状态 (dēngjì zhuàngtài — registration status), and next to it a two-character code you probably can't read: 存续, 注销, or 吊销. Machine translation renders these as something like "existing," "cancelled," and "cancelled" — which tells you almost nothing.
The actual difference between them is the difference between a healthy company, a defunct shell, and a business that had its license stripped as a penalty.
This guide explains what the three main status codes mean, what each one implies commercially, and what you should do when you see it on a supplier's record. A status code alone never closes a decision — but misreading one is an expensive mistake.
Every company in China is registered with the local market supervision authority (市场监督管理局), and those registrations are public. The official source is the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System (国家企业信用信息公示系统 — gsxt.gov.cn). Commercial databases such as Tianyancha compile the same official data and make it searchable.
On a company profile, the status usually appears as a single line under "登记状态". One detail trips people up: Chinese provinces have historically used different wording for the same thing. So one active company shows 存续 while another shows 在业 (zàiyè — in business) or 在营 (zàiyíng — operating). GSXT treats these as functionally equivalent: the legal entity exists and its registration is in force.
Read the whole line, not just the first two characters. A combined entry like 吊销，未注销 says far more than any single-word code.
存续 means the company's legal personality exists and its registration is current. This is the minimum you want to see on a supplier — if the record shows anything else, you can stop the conversation right there.
But 存续 does not mean "this company is actually trading." A company can be legally alive and operationally empty: no staff, a virtual registered address, zero-revenue tax filings. A scenario importers run into all the time: the seller looks polished on Alibaba, you pull the registry record, status is 存续 — but the registered capital is subscribed rather than paid in (认缴, capital committed but not yet injected), the incorporation date is eight months ago, and the address belongs to a mass virtual-office block. The code is a green light; everything around it is amber.
For example, you might see a 存续 company with a registered capital of five million RMB that looks impressive on paper — until you notice the paid-in (实缴) figure next to it is zero and the annual reports have never disclosed actual capital injection. Nothing here is illegal. It just tells you the "established manufacturer" pitch needs more digging.
So when you see 存续, look beyond the status line. Check whether the company sits on the 经营异常名录 (business operations anomaly list), which flags companies that missed their annual report filing or couldn't be reached at their registered address. Check the 严重违法失信名单 (serious violations and dishonesty list). Then compare the incorporation date, the paid-in capital, and the registered address against the story the seller told you.
存续 is the starting line of your screening, not the end of it.
注销 means the company has completed its liquidation process and has been formally struck off the registry. Its legal personality has ceased to exist — there is no longer anyone by that name to contract with.
Most 注销 records have nothing sinister behind them. The owner retired, the business model changed, the partners split; plenty of Chinese SMEs close voluntarily every year. The commercial risk is not the closure itself — it is someone else trading under the closed name.
The classic pattern: a polished quotation lands in your inbox with a letterhead, a company name, and a USCC (统一社会信用代码 — Unified Social Credit Code). You look the code up on GSXT and the company genuinely exists — but the status line reads 注销. The person you are dealing with is either a well-meaning former employee unaware of the deregistration, or a fraudster collecting deposits under a dead company's name. Either way, the party you would be paying does not legally exist, and if anything goes wrong there is no one to sue.
When you see 注销, there is exactly one course of action. Do not sign a contract under that name, and do not pay into that name's bank account. If the counterparty says "we re-registered, here is the new code," ask for the new USCC and verify that one separately.
吊销 is a much heavier state than 注销. The company's business license (营业执照) has been revoked by the market supervision authority — typically for serious regulatory violations or prolonged failure to meet reporting obligations. The company did not choose to close; it was shut down.
The critical part is that you will see this in two forms on the registry, and they are not the same.
吊销，未注销 (license revoked, not yet deregistered): The legal personality technically still exists, but the company has no authority to conduct business. A liquidation obligation has arisen, and the owners have failed to complete it and strike the record. This is one of the clearest "walk away" signals in the Chinese registry: you are looking at management that lost its license to penalties and couldn't even carry out an orderly wind-down. A contract signed with such a company is of questionable validity under Chinese law, and enforceability problems pile up on top.
吊销，已注销 (license revoked, then deregistered): The company was penalized, then liquidation was completed and the record closed. The outcome is the same as 注销: no legal personality, no valid contract.
A real-world pattern: a supplier you have worked with for two years stops answering. You check the record and the status is 吊销，未注销 — the license was revoked eight months ago. That is beyond "we moved offices, new email." If you have an outstanding receivable, this is the picture that calls for legal counsel quickly, not another friendly message on WeChat.
Two characters on one line, and the tone of your next message changes completely.
Beyond the main three, you may occasionally run into 撤销 (chèxiāo — registration rescinded), where illegality was found at the incorporation stage and the registration was pulled back. Like 注销, the entity is gone — but there is a violation in the background, which puts it closer to 吊销 on the risk scale. 清算 (qīngsuàn — in liquidation) means the company is mid-shutdown and not supposed to take on new business; placing a long-term order there makes little sense. 停业 (tíngyè — business suspended) is a temporary pause — not an automatic disqualifier, but you want to know why. And 迁出 (qiānchū — moved out of the registry) simply means the registration moved to another region, so your job is to find the new record, since the legal entity may well continue operating.
In practice, run three questions in order. Is the status code 存续 (or its equivalents 在业 / 在营)? If not, stop. If it is, are the anomaly list (经营异常名录) and the dishonesty list (严重违法失信名单) empty? And does the bank account you are asked to pay match the registered company name character for character?
The third question matters more than people think. For example, a seller may have quoted steadily for months with flawless paperwork — then asks you to send the deposit to a personal Alipay account "for faster settlement." No matter how clean the status code is, that single request voids everything the record told you. You can run these checks yourself on GSXT; if you would rather not wrestle with a Chinese-language interface, you can pull a verification report by company name or USCC through a service such as China Trade Intel (ankadata.com.tr) and see the status code, anomaly records, and litigation history in a single document.
No. 存续 only says the legal personality exists and the registration is current. Whether the company actually operates, carries debts, or has a clean record requires checking the anomaly list, the dishonesty list, litigation history, and paid-in capital on top.
The legal personality technically persists, so there is room for legal debate — but the company's authority to operate has been revoked and it should be in liquidation. The practical answer is: don't sign. If you are already entangled with one, get advice from someone who knows Chinese commercial law before signing anything else.
Yes, and periodically. Status codes are not fixed: a healthy company can be penalized into 吊销 or quietly deregistered as 注销. Re-checking the current record before a large order or a deposit takes a few minutes.