Do you need a Chinese phone number to register for Baidu Webmaster Tools?

Most guides treat the phone number as a yes-or-no question. Baidu’s own help pages don’t agree with each other, so a clean answer doesn’t exist.

The useful question is which route fits your company, and what comes after the SMS. This guide belongs to our section on Baidu SEO: how it differs from Google.

Can you register a Baidu account with a foreign number?

Sometimes, but you can’t count on it, and an EU number is explicitly excluded. Baidu’s help center gives two different answers, and neither page carries a date.

One page says accounts can only register with a mainland Chinese number.¹ Another says foreign numbers can register through four product lines: public cloud, Haokan, Xiaodu speakers and Apollo.²

That second page suggests the Xiaodu app, and adds that EU numbers aren’t supported for now.² It names no countries, so don’t assume how a UK or Norwegian number is treated. Third-party guides split just as sharply.

Source	Date	What it says
Baidu Help	Undated	Mainland numbers only 1
Baidu Help	Undated	Foreign numbers via 4 products, no EU numbers 2
Weber, a hosting provider	Summer 2021	Sign-up page listed Swiss numbers, not German +49 14
The Egg, an agency	October 2021	Mainland and overseas numbers both supported 10
Extrabux, a cashback site	December 2021, title says 2025	Same 4 products, no EU numbers, and the account then works across Baidu 21
Chinafy, a vendor	May 2022	Overseas numbers no longer accepted 9
Hongkiat, a blog	Updated January 2024	Walks through the overseas page 11
Calilio, a virtual number seller	July 2025	Selected countries, not Hong Kong, Macau or Taiwan 12
Marketing to China, an agency	September 2026	156 countries, with no source given 13

The overseas link itself exists. Hongkiat gives one on passport.baidu.com and The Egg gives one on ziyuan.baidu.com.¹⁰¹¹ A passport.baidu.com overseas link still opened as a sign-up screen on November 1, 2026, but we couldn’t read its form, so we can’t say which numbers it takes today.

What Baidu Webmaster Tools registration involves

Registration has four stages, and the phone only solves the first. Our Baidu Webmaster Tools setup guide covers the full process.

1. Baidu account by phone

2. Real-name authentication in the Baidu app

3. Add and verify the site

4. Link the entity

Stage	What you need	Source status
Baidu account	A phone number that receives the SMS	Baidu, undated 12
Real-name authentication	Done in the Baidu app	Baidu, September 2023 3
Site verification	A file or an HTML tag on your site	Baidu, updated 2020 6
Entity link	Entity details linked after verification	Baidu, November 2021 5

Two practical details. Baidu paused CNAME verification in January 2023 and we found no notice reversing that, so older tutorials that recommend it are out of date.⁷ And keep the file or tag in place, because Baidu rechecks it.⁶

The interface is another obstacle if you don’t read Chinese. See using Baidu Webmaster Tools in English.

One provider adds that webmaster access asks for company contact details plus QQ and WeChat accounts.¹⁴ That page is undated, and Baidu’s 2021 guide only says to complete your contact details without listing fields,⁵ so expect the form to differ.

The second hurdle: real-name authentication

None of the competing guides we read cites these notices. In September 2023, Baidu removed site verification from risk-flagged sites, including those under accounts without real-name authentication.³

Later that month, it cut sitemap submission for those accounts and for low-quality sites, and adjusted API quotas. It said it would gradually restore rights for compliant sites after the holiday.⁴ We found no later notice on how far that went.

Its earlier notice points site owners to the Baidu app’s account settings to authenticate.³

For a foreign company, the open question is which documents that step accepts. We found no Baidu text that answers it for the Baidu app.

Marketing to China, an agency, says a flagged account is typically asked for a government-issued ID and a selfie. It doesn’t name a passport or cite a source.¹³

The closest evidence comes from a different product. Baidu AI Cloud says foreigners need a Foreign Permanent Resident ID, and that other documents aren’t supported.⁸

Don’t assume the same rule applies, but don’t assume a passport passes either.

Your options without a Chinese number

You have four real options, and each has a limit. Choose by how much your company has in China today.

Option	Fits	Main limit
Try the overseas route with your own number	Non-EU companies testing the market	May fail, and authentication stays open 23
Take a Chinese SIM in your own name	People who travel to China	In-person step, and authentication stays open 317
Use your Chinese entity or a contracted partner	Companies with a local presence or partner	You depend on that party, so set the terms in writing
Work without the account for now	Early market tests	No submission tools or platform reports 1923

On the SIM route, GWBMA, a company formation firm, says foreigners must enter China and show a passport and valid visa at a carrier store.¹⁷ Check the current rules before you plan a trip around it. Keep the number active afterward, because Baidu’s login recovery relies on a phone you can use.¹⁵

The partner option only makes sense for a real role, such as your subsidiary, an employee or a contracted provider acting in its own name.

Which party may hold the account is a question for a local adviser. See working without a Chinese company.

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Why a virtual number isn’t the fix

Competing guides often present this as the answer,¹²¹³ and Calilio sells the numbers. It solves the least important part of the problem.

• The code may not arrive. Even Calilio, a seller of virtual numbers, says some services may not send codes to VoIP numbers.¹²
• Authentication stays unsolved. A number doesn’t give you the identity step Baidu asks for.³
• Recovery depends on the phone. Baidu’s fallback for an unusable phone is an account appeal, which then lets you rebind a new number.¹⁵
• The number can outlive your control. If a rented number lapses, your route back into the account lapses with it.

We don’t recommend third-party numbers, or borrowing someone’s number or identity. The account should rest on a number and a person you can account for.

Can Baidu find your site without an account?

Yes. The account gives you tools, and it isn’t a condition for being found. Baidu’s 2023 notice says removing verification doesn’t affect natural discovery, display or ranking.³ That notice covers sites losing verification, not sites that never had it, but it separates the tools from discovery.

In 2017, Baidu called links its most important way of discovering pages.¹⁸ And submitting doesn’t guarantee indexing anyway: Baidu says it can’t promise that a submitted page gets included.¹⁹

That doesn’t make the account worthless. Without it, you lose Baidu’s submission options and its reporting.

Whether a foreign site gets indexed at all is covered in does Baidu index foreign websites?

Who should hold the account?

We found no Baidu rule on this for foreign companies, but its guide shows where the risk really sits. Control of your site matters more than the login.

Baidu’s 2021 guide says this about lost accounts, in its Q&A on staff who left without a handover:⁵

• A lost account means a new one. You register a new account, verify the site again and link the entity again.
• The new account can use all the tools. Rights such as fast crawling and a site logo stay with the site, not the account.
• Old messages don’t follow. The new account only receives messages sent after it registered.
• A departed employee’s phone can block the entity link. Baidu says to register the entity under a new account, then link it to the site.
• Several people can work on a site. You can add administrators with different permission types.

That guide predates the 2023 notices and doesn’t mention real-name authentication, so expect a new account to need it too.

Re-verifying requires a file or tag on the site,⁶ so whoever controls the site can start again, provided they can register and authenticate a new account. The guide doesn’t say what happens to the old account’s access, so don’t assume it ends.

If you work with a provider, agree on the handover in writing before anyone registers, including the account, the number and any authentication.

The bottom line

A mainland number is the safest route, and an EU number is the one Baidu excludes by name. The harder question comes next: real-name authentication.

Decide who can legitimately hold the account before you register. If nobody can yet, your site can still be found without it.

How Index in China can help

Our monitoring work covers indexing upkeep, your Baidu webmaster account and a monthly report on Chinese traffic. We commit to a set number of indexed pages and to reporting. We don’t guarantee traffic.

How the account gets set up depends on your case, and we’ll tell you if it needs a local adviser. See what we do, or book a 30-minute call.

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