Third-party due diligence, start with a clear brief and checkable evidence.

1. Check the source and any conflicts

Ask who prepared the evidence and what they were asked to check.

• Seller documents. Compare licence and certificate details with their named sources. A document can be useful even when the seller supplied it.
• Platform reports. Read the assessor, company name, site, scope and date. Compare the subject with your invoice; they may match or differ. What marketplace badges cover.
• A check you commission. Agree a written brief, the checker's skills, conflicts and reporting limits. Ask whether fees or referrals depend on the deal closing.

Who pays is one factor. It does not, by itself, establish whether a report is independent or fit for your decision.

2. What a third-party report should contain

Choose the records that address your question. For each, require the matched entity, source, query date, result and limits. These four groups help you write the brief:

• Registration. The registered Chinese name and Unified Social Credit Code, active status, entity type, and a registered scope that plausibly covers your deal. This lane starts free: validate the code’s structure in your browser, then read the company registration record behind it.
• Litigation and enforcement. Request relevant cases and their dates, role and outcome. A match needs context; an empty search may be incomplete.
• Assets and finance. Capital, pledges and mortgages may raise questions. They cannot establish cash available or what a creditor could recover. Request financial documents and qualified advice where needed.
• Operations. Administrative penalties, abnormal-operation listings, serious-violation lists, licence status. Patterns matter more than single entries.

A report should state what was searched, what was returned and what could not be checked. A clear result may be valid; ask for its evidence.

In our 8 August 2026 access test, the registry homepage returned HTTP 521 on all three attempts from one mainland connection. The control site loaded. This describes that connection and date, not today's access or any company's record. Ask the checker to separate access failures from findings.

3. When commissioning it is worth the fee

Pay for a defined gap in evidence. Consider the order value, unresolved claims and cost of a wrong decision:

1. Start with the information you hold. Ask for the licence, check the code format and checksum, and read the scope text. These checks do not prove that the entity exists or operates a factory.
2. Commission record checks when the deposit is material relative to your business, when the entities in the paperwork do not line up, when all existing evidence came from the seller or a platform, or when the deal was rushed toward payment. Pick the lanes that match the risk — litigation and assets for prepayment risk, registration and operations for identity risk — rather than buying everything reflexively.
3. Skip what does not fit the question. Records answer who the counterparty is and what state it is in. They do not answer whether the factory can hold your tolerances. That is a different instrument.

4. From records to eyes: the escalation that records cannot replace

Every lane above reads what is on file. Three questions are structurally beyond the file:

• Whether production happens at the claimed site, at the claimed scale — the registered address and the factory are separate facts.
• Whether the equipment and workforce match the profile shown to you.
• Whether your specific order’s quality can be held, which is inspection, ordered per shipment, not diligence at all.

An L3 human record check rechecks selected records; it does not inspect a factory floor. A separately scoped L4 site visit can address site questions. Choose the service for the evidence needed, rather than treating each price tier as a required step.

Related: the full supplier & vendor due diligence checklist. This page defines the standard; the checklist runs the sequence.

5. What records can reach, and what they cannot

Agree what each check can support and what remains unknown. Access, source coverage and entity matching affect the result.

In our 8 August 2026 access test, five of eight official sources did not open from the tested connection. That snapshot does not establish current access for every buyer or provider.

The one-sentence standard

Choose a provider who explains the scope, relevant skills and conflicts, then reports matched evidence with sources, dates and unresolved questions.

This page describes an evidence standard. It is not legal advice, and nothing here is a judgement about any particular supplier or provider. Start with the free in-browser check, or commission a China-side read of the official records.

Common questions

What is third-party due diligence?

An outside party checks evidence against an agreed brief. Assess their skills, conflicts, scope and reporting method; the fee payer alone does not establish independence.

What should a third-party due diligence report contain?

The entity checked, sources, query dates, results and gaps. Select relevant registration, court, financial or operations records for your decision.

When is third-party due diligence worth paying for?

When a defined evidence gap matters to the order and the proposed check can address it. Record checks and site visits answer different questions.

Is a marketplace verification badge the same as third-party due diligence?

Read the underlying report. Check the assessor, company, site, scope and date against your seller and order. A badge alone does not show all of these details.