Ten questions foreign companies ask first — conclusion first, then the basis

In most sectors, no. If your business is not on the negative list, you receive national treatment and can generally establish a 100%-owned WFOE. A partner is legally required only in listed restricted sectors — and commercially sensible only where the partner genuinely contributes licences, channels or land. Screen your concrete business scope against the current list edition first. Details: Market Entry.

Registration itself is weeks once documents are ready; the honest end-to-end answer is set by preparation (apostilled corporate documents, a registered address) and the post-registration tail (chops, bank account, tax setup, licences) — bank onboarding and legalisation are the usual long poles. We provide a dated checklist per project rather than a universal number. Details: Market Entry.

No general statutory minimum — but under the 2023 Company Law, subscribed capital must generally be paid in within five years. Subscribe what the business plan needs: too little forces repeated increases, too much creates a funding obligation you never intended. Banks and visa officers read the number as a seriousness signal. Details: Market Entry.

Under the announced framework, yes — with an invitation: invited overseas businesspeople enter on a valid travel document plus a business invitation vetted in advance, staying up to 30 days per entry, extendable per zone rules. The waiver works at the zone boundary only; going beyond the zone needs ordinary immigration status. The zone is in trial operation and procedures evolve — confirm the current requirements before travelling. Details: Oriental Hub Entry Guide.

No. Employment requires a work permit and work-type residence permit; an M-visa worker is illegally employed, exposing both the individual and the company. Short-term business activities (meetings, training attendance) are a different category — which is exactly the niche the Hub's visa-free channel serves, inside the zone. Details: Employment.

Foreign law is available only for genuinely foreign-related contracts; your subsidiary's contracts with Chinese customers are domestic and take PRC law. Cross-border deals usually default to arbitration because awards travel under the New York Convention while foreign judgments depend on treaties and reciprocity. A PRC arbitration clause must name a specific institution. Decide at signing. Details: Dispute Resolution.

Not necessarily lost, but expensive: bad-faith registrations can be opposed or invalidated, prior-use defences are narrow, and negotiated buy-backs are common. Every route costs multiples of what filing first would have. File core classes plus a Chinese-character mark before entering, exhibiting or announcing. Details: Contracts & IP.

The core calendar: AMR annual report with the foreign-investment information report (generally 1 Jan–30 Jun), CIT reconciliation (generally by 31 May), statutory audit in practice, monthly IIT and social-insurance filings, licence renewals — plus ongoing PIPL data compliance including cross-border transfers to headquarters. Missing the annual report lands the company on the irregular-operations list. Details: Governance & Compliance.

Yes — through defined channels with paperwork discipline. Dividends flow from audited after-tax profits (10% withholding; 5% under some treaties with real beneficial ownership); service fees and royalties move funds against genuine services and licensed IP under transfer-pricing scrutiny; banks check the documents before remitting. Failed repatriations usually failed years earlier in the file. Details: Profit Repatriation.

Sell the equity (faster — the company survives) or liquidate voluntarily (complete — creditor process, employee severance, tax deregistration setting the timetable, then final deregistration and remittance). Simplified deregistration exists for clean companies. Never simply walk away: abandonment leads to blacklists with personal consequences for the legal representative and directors. Details: Exit & Liquidation.