What is a Unified Social Credit Code?

An 18-character identifier for a registered mainland Chinese entity. It contains authority, entity category, administrative division, subject identifier and check-character fields.

How do I verify a Chinese Unified Social Credit Code?

First check the length, character set and check character. Then compare the exact code and legal name with a dated registry record. Passing the arithmetic check does not confirm correct copying or company identity.

What do the first two characters of the code mean?

Position 1 is the registration authority and position 2 is the entity category. Under authority 9, codes starting 91 describe enterprises, 92 individually-owned businesses and 93 farmers’ specialised cooperatives.

Does a valid code mean the company is real?

No. A code can be constructed to pass the check. It does not prove company existence, current status, account ownership or permission to export.

Free toolRuns in your browserTested on 2,149 real codes

Unified social credit code (USCI): validate the 18-character code.

Published 8 August 2026 · Updated 7 September 2026 · Standard: GB 32100-2015 · Prepared by Bao L. Zhou (Derrick). I run this desk alone, from Jinan, China.

Also available in Español and Português.

Check a code

A passing result validates the structure and check digit only; it does not confirm a live company. Here, structure means length and allowed characters. The code stays in your browser; the tool updates the URL fragment for sharing. Anonymous usage counts contain no code. Use the official China company registry steps to confirm the live record.

No code yet? If the English company name is all you have, search for candidate registered names, free, and the output shows the registered Chinese name together with its 18-character code.

Structure checked. Now the record. A passing check does not establish company identity. Look up the same code using the free registry lookup: it accepts the 18-character code and can return the registered name, status and scope when its data source is available.

Paste the 18-character code from a Chinese business licence. This page splits it into the five parts defined by GB 32100-2015 and recalculates the check digit. The code is not sent to a server by this calculation. The implementation was run against 2,149 real codes from two official Chinese disclosure files: all 2,149 came back consistent.

The short version

A passing code has a consistent check character. Some changes can still pass, and anyone can calculate a new check character. Compare the whole code with the source document, then check the registered entity.

Optional: measured error detection

What the check character catches. 2.9 million deliberate errors run through both algorithms on 9 August 2026, fixed seed 20260809: reproducible end to end, no estimates.
Error injected	USCI (18-character)	VIN (17-character)
Single-character substitution (1,080,000 trials)	100% caught	92.5%
Swap between data positions	100% caught	86.8%

These results apply to the tested substitutions and swaps. They do not cover every possible change, copied codes or deliberate recomputation of the check character.

Diagram of the 18-character Unified Social Credit Code: positions 1–2 registering authority and category, 3–8 administrative division, 9–17 organisation identifier, and position 18 highlighted as the mod-31 check digit; characters shown are illustrative — Five fields shown in four visual groups. Position 18 is the check digit this tool validates offline: characters shown are illustrative. Original Currawong diagram.

How the 18 characters are built

GB 32100-2015 fixes both the length and the layout. For a supplier, ask for its current business licence to obtain the code.

Positions defined by GB 32100-2015
Positions	Part	Length
1	Registration authority code	1
2	Entity category code	1
3–8	Administrative division code	6
9–17	Subject identifier (organization code)	9
18	Check character	1

What the first two characters tell you

Position 1 is the registration authority and position 2 is the entity category under it. The pairing most buyers care about sits under market regulation (code 9):

Entity categories under registration authority 9 (工商 / market regulation)
Starts with	Entity type	Chinese
`91`	Enterprise	企业
`92`	Individually-owned business	个体工商户
`93`	Farmers specialised cooperative	农民专业合作社

Read the first two-character prefix together: position 1 identifies the registration authority and position 2 the entity category under it.

The prefix does not establish export eligibility. It identifies the registered entity category. Check the goods, destination, customs requirements and the roles of the parties separately.

Other authorities appear in the first position too: 1 for centrally staffed bodies, 5 for civil-affairs registrations such as foundations and social organisations, N for rural collective economic organisations, and several more.

Where it is registered

Positions 3–8 identify the registration authority’s administrative division. This tool decodes only the first two digits, such as 11 Beijing or 44 Guangdong. It does not validate the full city or county code. The prefix is not evidence of a factory’s location.

Codes beginning 71, 81 or 82 map to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. Those are not registered by SAMR, so a mainland business licence would not carry them.

Character set

Codes use digits and uppercase letters, but the standard excludes I, O, Z, S and V because they are read too easily as 1, 0, 2, 5 and U. If you see one, compare with the source document. This check cannot distinguish a typo from an altered document.

Check digit

The eighteenth character is calculated from the first seventeen. Each position has a weight of 3⁽ⁱ⁻¹⁾ mod 31, and the check character satisfies C18 = 31 − (Σ Ci × Wi mod 31), taken modulo 31 so that a result of 31 becomes 0. A single mistyped character will therefore almost always fail.

What a passing code proves, and what it does not

Use the result to check the number, then gather evidence for the company and transaction.

It proves

The check character agrees with the calculation from the first 17 characters.
The input has 18 characters from the permitted set.

It does not prove

That the company exists. A correctly formed code can be constructed by anyone who knows the algorithm, including the one on this page.
That the company is still active and has not been revoked or deregistered.
That its registered business scope covers what you are buying.
That it may legally export to you. The code does not contain the goods, destination or transaction-specific permissions.
That this company is the one issuing your invoice or receiving your payment. Document each party’s role and explain any differences before paying.

A dated registry record helps confirm the legal identity. Other questions need transaction documents, account checks or product-specific advice. The official China company registry steps show the route, including what to do when the portal will not open from where you are.

Common questions

What is a Unified Social Credit Code?: An 18-character identifier for a registered mainland Chinese entity. It contains authority, entity category, administrative division, subject identifier and check-character fields.
How do I verify a Chinese Unified Social Credit Code?: First check the length, character set and check character. Then compare the exact code and legal name with a dated registry record. Passing the arithmetic check does not confirm correct copying or company identity.
What do the first two characters of the code mean?: Position 1 is the registration authority and position 2 is the entity category. Under authority 9, codes starting 91 describe enterprises, 92 individually-owned businesses and 93 farmers’ specialised cooperatives.
Does a valid code mean the company is real?: No. A code can be constructed to pass the check. It does not prove company existence, current status, account ownership or permission to export.

How this implementation was tested

The implementation uses the GB 32100-2015 character set and weight formula. We checked the formula and tested codes extracted from two official disclosure files.

On 11 August 2026, 2,149 real Unified Social Credit Codes from Ministry of Finance and Shanghai Municipal Tax Service disclosure files were tested. All 2,149 returned a consistent check digit. This is evidence about that sample; it does not prove the implementation has no errors or validate every possible code.

The sample checks arithmetic consistency. It does not establish any company’s current status, and this page queries no registry.

Open source, and citing this checker

A related implementation is available in the usci-check repository on GitHub. Check that repository’s version, licence and tests before using it in your own system.

To cite the checker, include its title, URL and the date you used it:

Currawong, “Unified social credit code (USCI): check a China company”, free in-browser validation of the 18-character code structure and the GB 32100-2015 check digit, tested on 2,149 real codes. https://currawongweb.com/verify/china-usci-checker/

Sources

GB 32100-2015 Rules for the code of legal entities and other organizations: structure, character set and check-digit rule. The official catalogue listed it as in force on 6 September 2026; revision plan 20260042-Q-469 was still being drafted.
National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System (GSXT), the official registration record itself.

Next free step: the licence also carries the registered scope: the free in-browser read identifies manufacturing or trading wording in that text, with nothing uploaded.

This page implements the encoding rule only. It does not query any registry, and it is not legal advice or a conformity assessment.

A valid check digit does not prove the company exists. Check the exact code against a dated registry record. Before you spend time on the official search, see our dated measurements of whether it actually serves: China company registry availability.

The full registry-check procedure in your language: Deutsch, Español, Português, Français, Italiano, Polski, Čeština, Magyar, Türkçe, Tiếng Việt, Bahasa Indonesia, العربية.

How we checked

Check-digit behaviour was verified by running the GB 32100 algorithm in this browser tool on real codes and on codes with a single typed error. The most recent query date on this page is 9 August 2026. Where a table carries its own date, that date governs.

The official pages we read are listed on this page with the date each was accessed, so every figure can be re-checked at source.

Being pushed to pay a deposit right now? The checks that matter before money moves are free to read.

If you want these records pulled for your own supplier: the “Just check who they are” selection of the report menu covers them, packs from $26.55. Delivery follows the window on your order confirmation.