Before You Leap · Field tools for European brands looking at Asia

China Cross-Border E-Commerce Positive List 跨境电子商务零售进口商品清单

This list defines which products may enter China through the cross-border e-commerce retail channel — a route that treats goods as personal purchases rather than commercial imports. That one distinction decides both what the channel spares you and what it costs you. Search by product name, or by the 8-digit tariff code used in the Harmonized System.

2019 edition · as adjusted, in force from 1 March 2022

Built from the primary documents — the 2019 edition of the list (1,413 entries) and Announcement No. 7 of 2022, issued jointly by China's Ministry of Finance, General Administration of Customs and State Taxation Administration. Entry counts reconstruct to the officially reported total of 1,476.

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Exporting from the EU? Paste your own Combined Nomenclature code — the first six digits are shared with China's tariff.

or read the original at the source link below

What being on this list actually means

Everything below follows from one line in the rules: goods arriving through this channel are regulated as articles for personal use, not as ordinary imported goods. That is the trade the channel offers.

What it gives you

Your product enters under the personal-use framework. The requirements that ordinary imports face for first-import licence approval, registration and filing are not applied here — the exceptions being goods whose import has been suspended and cases where a major quality-and-safety risk response is triggered. Those three specific pieces of front-end approval work simply do not arise on this route, which is the channel's central advantage and the reason it exists at all.Notice 486/2018, Article 3

What it asks in return

  1. You sell to end consumers, not into distribution. Goods bought this way are for the buyer's own use and may not be resold into the domestic market. This channel reaches shoppers directly; it does not stock distributors or offline retail. If your China plan depends on a local partner holding inventory, this is not the route.Notice 486/2018, Article 4
  2. Each shopper has a ceiling. RMB 5,000 per transaction and RMB 26,000 per person per year. Within those limits, tariff is 0% and import value-added tax and consumption tax are charged at 70% of the statutory amount. Beyond the annual limit, ordinary import rules apply.Cai Guan Shui 49/2018, in force 1 January 2019
  3. Your own country's standards apply, and the buyer is told so. Goods must meet the quality, safety, hygiene, environmental and labelling standards of their country of origin. Before ordering, the shopper must be shown a notice stating that these may differ from Chinese standards and that the risk is theirs.Notice 486/2018, Article 4
  4. You need a presence on both sides. The seller is a company registered outside China, acting through a domestic agent that is itself registered with Customs. Bonded goods generally cannot be collected in person outside a special customs supervision area.Notice 486/2018, Articles 2 and 4

What it does not decide

Which route your goods take. Where an entry is marked bonded e-commerce channel only, direct mail from abroad is not available. That is fixed by the tariff code, not chosen by the seller.

Whether China is closed to you. Absent from the list means this channel is closed. Ordinary trade import remains open, with its own licensing, labelling and registration requirements — heavier, but a different commercial proposition, and the one that does allow domestic distribution.

Sources · Notice on Improving the Regulation of Cross-Border E-Commerce Retail Imports (Shang Cai Fa [2018] No. 486), issued jointly by six ministries, in force 1 January 2019 · Notice on Improving the Tax Policy for Cross-Border E-Commerce Retail Imports (Cai Guan Shui [2018] No. 49). Both are public documents; the article numbers above let you check each statement at source.

What this covers