What are your real options for website hosting in China?

Search for website hosting in China and you’ll find top-10 lists that mix mainland clouds, Hong Kong resellers and global web hosts. These are different things, with different legal duties.

This guide sorts them into the four options that really exist, then shows what each provider asks of you. It’s part of our guide on how to put your website in China.

What are your options for hosting a website for China?

You have four, and only two use mainland servers. The dividing line is the server’s location: Alibaba Cloud and Huawei Cloud both say ICP filing applies only to servers in the Chinese mainland.¹⁷

	Current host abroad	Hong Kong	Mainland, own entity	Mainland, partner’s entity
ICP needed	No 7	No 19	Yes 1	Yes 1
Chinese entity	No	No	Yes 7	Theirs 21
Daily slowdown, 2019 tests	5 to 17 hours at most mainland receivers, all senders combined 4	About 3 hours from the Hong Kong sender 4	Not measured	Not measured
Who controls the filing	Nobody needed	Nobody needed	You	Your partner
Fits	A test, if pages load	China matters, no entity yet	Established Chinese business	A case reviewed by an adviser

Mainland hosting lowers latency, but third-party scripts can still fail there.⁵ The same goes for Hong Kong.

The slowdown figures come from a study published in 2020, with tests run in 2019. They count time under 1 Mbps, not a real page load in 2026. India, Japan and Korea were the next best senders, at 4 to 8 hours.⁴

Why can’t you just buy a server in China?

Because the host isn’t allowed to connect your site without a filing. Article 18 of Order 33 bars access providers from serving an unfiled non-commercial site.²³

Both sides carry the risk. The same rules set these penalties:²³

• The site operator (Article 22): an order to correct and a RMB 10,000 fine, then closure if it refuses.
• The access provider (Article 24): an order to correct and a RMB 10,000 fine.

Commercial services fall under separate, heavier rules,²⁹ which our ICP license guide covers.

Providers enforce this themselves. Alibaba Cloud says its monitoring system blocks a domain pointing to its mainland servers without a filing.¹ Tencent Cloud says such sites can be blocked.⁸

So the filing comes first, and it needs a local applicant. Huawei Cloud asks enterprises for a business entity registered in the mainland.⁷

Our ICP filing guide covers the route for foreign-owned entities.

Which providers actually host on the mainland?

We read five big cloud providers’ own pages on November 1, 2026. Each treats the mainland as a separate service or process, so a global account usually isn’t enough.

Provider	Account or operator	What it asks
Alibaba Cloud	China site account, since the international site doesn’t support filing 1	Chinese-language filing system 1
Tencent Cloud	Filing through its Chinese website 8	Real-name check on the domain 8
Huawei Cloud	An account for mainland systems, then its filing system 7	Mainland entity, application in Chinese 7
AWS China	Sinnet runs Beijing, NWCD runs Ningxia, with separate logins 9	Chinese business license, payment in yuan 9
Azure in China	Separate instance run by Shanghai Blue Cloud (21Vianet) 11	Filed custom domain, since default domains are blocked 12

Azure’s rule covers its app services. AWS has a similar one: domains without a recordal can’t provide information services in China.³³

AppInChina, which sells access to Azure in China, counts 104 services there against 199 globally as of October 2026. It also says a foreign company usually needs a Chinese business license or a local partner to open an account.¹³

Google Cloud is the odd one out. Its Compute Engine region list, updated October 28, 2026, shows Hong Kong and no mainland region.¹⁴

What does mainland hosting require, step by step?

Six things, in this order. The site stays dark until the filing clears.

1. A Chinese entity. Set it up first, or work out a partner route with an adviser.
2. A domain in the right name. Azure’s FAQ says the registrant must be the organization, its shareholders, its main head or a senior manager.¹²
3. An approved domain. Both Azure and Alibaba Cloud require an approved suffix and registrar.¹²¹⁸
4. A server that qualifies. For ECS, Alibaba Cloud wants a subscription of more than 3 months with public bandwidth. Free trials and pay-as-you-go instances don’t count.¹⁷
5. The filing, through your host. AWS China lists opening ports 80, 8080 and 443 as the last step, after the authority approves. It says review typically takes 3 to 20 working days, depending on the local authority.¹⁰ Other estimates are in how long an ICP takes.
6. The numbers on your site. Your ICP number goes on the home page.²⁹ Then comes the PSB filing, due within 30 days of going online, according to Dezan Shira in 2019.²⁶ China Briefing counts from the ICP number.²¹

1. 1Chinese entity
2. 2Domain held by the filer
3. 3Qualifying server
4. 4Filing through the host
5. 5Ports open
6. 6ICP number on the home page
7. 7PSB filing

Your filing also ties you to your host. Alibaba Cloud says to add a new provider before removing it, or the site may be classed as an “empty shell.”¹ Plan a move as carefully as the launch.

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What about using a local partner’s ICP?

Sellers offer it, and it’s a real dependency. China Briefing says a foreign company needs a local subsidiary or a licensed partner.²¹

AppInChina offers an Azure setup where the partner holds the account and filings.¹³

Check these points before you sign:

• The domain. The filer must hold it, under the rule above.¹² Ask what that means for your brand.
• The exit. If the relationship ends, your hosting setup can end with it. Get a written exit plan.
• The law. WilmerHale summarized a 2006 ministry notice as saying domestic telecom firms may not rent, lend, transfer or resell their license to a foreign investor. It adds that their domains and trademarks must belong to the company or its shareholders.²³

We’ve read that 2006 summary, not the notice itself. No source we read applies it to a website filing or says how it’s enforced today. So don’t take a vendor’s word in either direction.

Ask a local adviser, and see working without a Chinese company.

When is staying offshore the better choice?

While you’re still testing demand. No ICP, no entity and no new contract are needed, and you can measure real interest first. The catch is that offshore sites may load slowly or be blocked.²¹

Hong Kong is the next option to weigh, and our Hong Kong or mainland guide has the data. Alibaba Cloud mentions a public security filing for such sites,¹⁹ so check that with an adviser.

A CDN doesn’t get you around this. Cloudflare says the ICP rule also applies to a site delivered to visitors in China through a CDN.⁶ Tencent Cloud and Alibaba Cloud drop the filing only for zones that exclude the mainland.²⁴²⁵

See do CDNs work in China? for the detail.

Sources disagree on how far offshore or Hong Kong can take you, and each one has something to sell.

Source	Position	Its interest
Dezan Shira, 2019	Host in China if China is your main market 26	Sets up companies in Asia
Chinafy, 2020	“99.9%” of companies don’t need an ICP 27	Sells a service for offshore sites
Alibaba Cloud, undated	Hong Kong gives low latency for China 20	Sells Hong Kong hosting
Geekflare, 2025	Hong Kong has limited use for mainland users 28	Earns affiliate revenue

We found no independent 2026 test that settles it. Your own pages will tell you more than any of these.

Chinafy says hosting in China doesn’t by itself make a site work there,²⁷ so also fix what slows your site.

How do you check a China hosting offer?

Ask five questions in writing, and treat a vague answer as an answer.

1. Which city is the server in? “Asia” or “China region” isn’t an answer. Hong Kong is a fine choice, but it isn’t the mainland.
2. Who files the ICP, and in whose name? A true mainland host can’t legally skip this,² so “no ICP needed” points to a server elsewhere or to a rule being broken.
3. Which account do I sign up for? Check it’s the provider’s mainland service, not its global one.¹⁹
4. What happens if I leave? Ask about the filing, the domain and your data.
5. Can I test first? Run your real page from mainland cities, using our test guide.

The bottom line

If you remember one thing, make it this: the real choice is offshore or mainland, not one brand of host over another. Mainland means an entity, a filing and a domain in the right name.

Stay offshore until Chinese demand pays for those, and test your own pages from China before you move anything.

How Index in China can help

We translate your site into Simplified Chinese with a human reviewer, index it on Chinese search engines and send a monthly report on Chinese traffic.

Hosting and ICPs aren’t part of the offer we list, and we’ll tell you if your case needs a local adviser. See what we do or book a 30-minute call.

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