What is an ICP in China, and which legal rules apply to your website?

Search “ICP China” and you’ll mostly find vendors selling filings. The ICP is one rule among several, and it may not be the one that concerns you.

This page shows which Chinese rules reach your website, then links every guide in this section. It’s part of our guide on how to be visible in China.

It’s a map, not legal advice. For your own case, use a local adviser.

What is an ICP in China?

An ICP is the government number of a website served from mainland China. ICP stands for Internet Content Provider, and the number comes in two forms.

China’s internet Measures, last revised on December 6, 2024, set a filing for non-commercial services and a license for paid ones.¹

	ICP filing	Commercial ICP license
Chinese term	备案 (Bei’an)	经营许可证 (ICP Zheng)
Covers	Free, public information	Paid online services, and any monetization per China Briefing 17
Real example	京ICP备06006969号-2 (EU SME Centre) 4	京ICP证030173号 (Baidu) 24

Our guide to ICP filing vs ICP license shows which one fits your site.

How to read and check a number

Look at the footer. The first character is the province, 备 marks a filing and 证 marks a license.³⁵ License formats may vary, so confirm any number in the lookup below. A suffix such as -2 gives the site’s order under the company.³

The filing Measures, issued in 2005 and amended in 2024, place the number at the bottom center of the homepage, with a link to the filing system under it, so the public can check it.²²³

Alibaba Cloud adds a regional detail: Guangdong filings show the company number, and other provinces show the website number.³

To check a domain, use the MIIT’s lookup at beian.miit.gov.cn, which is in Chinese only.⁵

Does an ICP apply to your website?

Only if the site is served from mainland China. Alibaba Cloud states that ICP filing applies only to servers in the Chinese mainland.⁶

Cloudflare’s China Network documentation adds sites delivered to visitors in China through a CDN.⁵

Baidu is a separate matter. Chinafy says sites hosted outside China can appear in its results without an ICP.⁸

Whether that costs you rankings is unproven, as our guide on ranking on Baidu without an ICP explains.

Staying abroad has a price, though. China Briefing warns that such sites load slowly and may be intermittently blocked.⁷ Our ICP license guide covers that tradeoff.

Which rules reach a site hosted outside China?

Several can. The ICP falls away, but privacy, tax and content rules turn on who you serve and what you publish, not on where your server sits.

Rule	On mainland servers	Hosted abroad	Guide
ICP filing	Required 6	Doesn’t apply 6	Filing vs license
Commercial license	If the site earns money 7	Doesn’t apply 7	ICP license
PSB filing	Required, within 30 days 9	Sources disagree 910	PSB filing
Privacy law (PIPL)	Applies 12	Can apply if you provide services to people in China or analyze their behavior 12	Privacy
Content rules	Apply 1	Banned content can be blocked 13	Sensitive content
Advertising Law	Applies, online included 14	Not settled	Advertising words
VAT and invoicing	Follows the seller, not the server	If the seller is foreign, the buyer may withhold 15	Fapiao
.cn domain	Not required 18	Not required 18	.cn domain

Follows the server

• ICP filing
• Commercial license

Follows the activity

• Privacy if you serve or analyze people in China
• VAT if you sell in China
• Content everywhere

To confirm

• PSB outside the mainland
• Advertising law for a foreign site

Five rows need a closer look, because this is where guides tend to go quiet.

PSB filing. Alibaba Cloud says a site outside the mainland that serves the mainland must also file within 30 days.⁹

AppInChina ties the filing to mainland hosting, and says only Chinese-registered businesses can apply.¹⁰

The underlying 1997 Measures speak of an organization’s network connection, not of this case.¹¹ Treat it as open, and ask a local adviser.

Privacy. The PIPL covers processing outside China when you aim to provide products or services to people in China, or analyze their behavior.¹²

We found no official test for what counts as aiming, so don’t assume a Chinese version falls on either side.

Content. The internet Measures bar nine categories of content for services within China.¹

Article 52 of the Cybersecurity Law, as amended on October 28, 2025, also says banned information from abroad is to be cut off by technical means.¹³

Advertising. The law covers commercial advertising within China and applies to the internet.¹⁴ We found no source that settles its reach over a foreign site.

Article 9 bans terms such as 最佳 (“best”), so avoid them in your Chinese copy anyway.¹⁴

Tax. Under the VAT Law, a foreign seller’s taxable sale in China makes the buyer the withholding agent, unless a local agent is appointed under State Council rules. The rate for most services is 6%.¹⁵

DLA Piper’s example is a foreign consulting firm whose staff never enter China: the Chinese client withholds the VAT.¹⁶

How that applies to your own service is one for a tax adviser. Only an entity registered for Chinese VAT can issue a fapiao, so a foreign invoice isn’t one.¹⁷

Can a foreign company get an ICP?

Not on its foreign registration alone.¹⁹ China Briefing says both forms need a Chinese business entity, which means your own local subsidiary or working through a licensed local partner.⁷

How a partner arrangement would work in your case is one for a local adviser.

Sources agree on that much, then split on which entities qualify for the license. Our ICP license guide sets out the disagreement.

Selling to Chinese clients is a separate question from hosting in China.

The EU SME Centre treats a European company serving a Chinese client from abroad as a normal case, with tax handled by the client.²²

See can you do this without a Chinese company? and how to sell to Chinese clients without being in China.

Free check

Is your website visible on Baidu?

Enter your website. We check Baidu, access from China and how your site is set up, then email you the report.

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What happens if you break the rules?

It depends on the breach. Some guides quote a single range: AppInChina gives CNY 10,000 to 50,000 for non-compliant sites.¹⁹ The texts split it into separate cases.

Breach	Text	What it provides
Paid service without a license	Measures, Art. 19 1	Correction order, gains confiscated, fine of 3 to 5 times the gains
Same, gains absent or under RMB 50,000	Measures, Art. 19 1	Fine of RMB 100,000 to 1 million, closure in serious cases
Non-commercial service without a filing	Measures, Art. 19; filing Measures, Art. 22 12	Correction order, RMB 10,000 fine in the filing Measures only, closure if you refuse
No number on the homepage	Measures, Art. 22 1	Correction order, fine of RMB 5,000 to 50,000
No link under the number	Filing Measures, Art. 25, as amended in 2024 23	Correction order, fine of RMB 5,000 to 10,000 only if you miss the deadline
False filing details	Filing Measures, Art. 23 2	Site closed, filing canceled

This may explain a figure that looks like a contradiction. Alibaba Cloud quotes RMB 5,000 to 10,000 for not displaying the number.³²⁰

That matches the range for the missing link, not the one for the missing number. And since 2024, that fine applies only after a missed correction deadline.²³

The first practical risk may be your host. Cloudflare says China-based hosts are told to shut down sites without a number, often without notice.⁵

These rules may also change. On July 3, 2026, the CAC opened a second consultation on a 94-article rewrite of the internet Measures, with comments due by August 2, 2026.²⁵ We found no final text as of November 1, 2026, so this page describes the current version.

All the guides in this section

Each question has its own guide, grouped here by theme.

The ICP itself

• Do you need an ICP license to appear on Chinese search engines? Hosting, indexing and who can get one.
• ICP filing vs ICP license Which one applies, and how the process runs.
• How long an ICP takes and what it costs Published timelines and fees, compared.
• What a PSB filing is The public security step that follows.

Your company and your invoices

• Can you do this without a Chinese company? What works from abroad, and what doesn’t.
• Do you need a WFOE to be online in China? What a foreign-owned company changes.
• Invoicing Chinese clients and the fapiao Withholding, and what to do when asked for a fapiao.

Your data, content and claims

• Does China’s privacy law apply to your website? Scope, notices and consent.
• Sensitive content on a Chinese website Banned categories and geography mistakes.
• Banned advertising words in China Absolute terms and their exceptions.

Your domain

• Do you need a .cn domain? Who can register one, and when it matters.

Where to start

Work through these in order. Most of the answers depend on the first one.

1. Decide where you’ll serve from. Compare website hosting in China with Hong Kong or mainland hosting.
2. Check what the site does. If visitors pay online and you host in the mainland, the license is in play.
3. List the data you collect. Start with your contact form, then your analytics.
4. Review your Chinese copy. Look for superlatives, sensitive topics and how you name places.
5. Take your list to an adviser. Use a lawyer for structure and data, and a tax adviser for invoices.

The bottom line

An ICP matters only if you serve your site from mainland China, and that takes a Chinese entity: your own or, per China Briefing, a licensed local partner’s.⁷ Most other rules depend on who you serve, what you publish and what you sell.

Settle your hosting first, then check the rest with a local adviser before you publish in Chinese.

How Index in China can help

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

We don’t promise rankings or traffic. An ICP isn’t part of the offer we list. We don’t give legal advice, and we’ll tell you when your case needs a local adviser. See what we do.

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