ICP License

ICP license is a digital identifier of your website which confirms the legitimacy of your presence in the Chinese Internet space. By the license number, the place of registration of the site - city or province - and the type of license are easily determined. Without an ICP license, your site may be subject to blocking and entered in the registry of prohibited or undesirable websites. In addition, you will not be able to use paid promotion services in the largest search engines in China, for example, contextual advertising in Baidu. An ICP license registration is only available for residents of China - physical or legal entities. Each Web resource requires a unique license, and if you have multiple sites, you need to register each license for each site separately.

ICP LICENSE TYPES

ICP licenses are divided into commercial (ICP商务许可证) and standard (ICP备案 bèi àn). A commercial license is required for information portals distributing information on the Chinese Internet (press and mass media) and sites that are involved in e-commerce and/or are responsible for storing data; for all other sites it is possible to register a standard license, which is suitable for foreign businesses that plan to enter the Chinese market. Simply said, if you do not accept payment on your website and are not a news agency, a standard ICP license is for you.

WHAT IS NEEDED TO OBTAIN A STANDARD ICP LICENSE?

1. Legal entity in China

2. Commercial license (营业 执照 yíngyè zhízhào)

3. Personal details of the company's representative

4. Representative's actual residential address in China

5. Chinese phone number registered to the representative

WHAT IS NEEDED TO OBTAIN A COMMERCIAL ICP LICENSE?

1. Legal entity in China

2. Commercial license (营业 执照 yíngyè zhízhào)

3. Chinese CEO (法人 fǎrén)

4. Authorized capital of 1M+ yuan

5. Three corporate employees

You can not obtain an ICP license without having a China-based company because the license is purchased for a domain that, in turn, may only belong to a Chinese company.

COST AND TERMS?

An ICP license is free and issued by a Chinese hosting provider which processes the documents submitted by you and sends an application to the Ministry of Industry and Information. You will pay only for the hosting provider's services.

• A standard ICP license is issued within 3 weeks.

• A commercial ICP license is issued within 30 calendar days.

CAN I DO WITHOUT ICP LICENSE?

If you just want to freely open a website in China and bring the information to Chinese consumers, then you may be hosted on servers not far from China, for example, in Hong Kong, Taiwan or Singapore, and you will not have to obtain an ICP license. Also, you may not be afraid of having your website blocked unless the hosted information contradicts the PRC policy or violates the law.