What does the Chinese company registration number mean?

The company registration number refers to the uniform identification code assigned by the industry and commerce administration authorities when market entities apply for registration. The company registration number is a unique and permanent number which is to promote the effective supervision and informatization of market entities by the industry and commerce administration authorities.

Code objects of company registration numbers

The company registration number is assigned to all market entities that are responsible for registration by the industry and commerce administration authorities, including 1) Domestic-funded enterprises, such as domestic-funded companies, domestic-funded corporate legal persons, domestic-funded non-enterprise legal persons, non-corporate private enterprises, branch companies, Business units, and various branches, etc.; 2) Foreign-funded enterprises, such as foreign-invested enterprises, Taiwan/Hong Kong/Macau-invested enterprises, resident representative offices, foreign enterprises engaged in business activities in China, etc.; 3) Industrial businesses.

The meaning of company registration codes

The company registration number in Mainland China was 13 digits before 2007 but was later changed to 15 digits. Therefore, there is no 13 digit registration number now. The current 15-digit company registration number is composed of a 14-digit digital body code and a digital check code. The body code includes a 6-digit first registration agency code and 8-digit sequence code. The following will specifically introduce the meaning of each number.

The first 6 digits of the company registration code

The first 6 digits are the codes of the industrial and commercial administration agencies that registered for the first time. State administration for industry and commerce of the people’s republic of china is represented by “100000”, and the provincial, prefectural, and district/county-level registration authority codes are respectively represented by 6-digit administrative division codes. For example, Beijing City is 110000, Beijing Chaoyang District is 110105, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region is 150,000, and Hohhot City is 150100. The following will take the company registration code of Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group Limited by Share Ltd found by Verifyfull as an example to explain it:

Company Name	Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group Limited by Share Ltd
Company Registration number	150000000001703
Registration Authority	The Inner Mongolia autonomous region administration for industry and commerce

It can be found that the top six are in line with the above-mentioned rules. Next, let’s look at what the 7-14 bit sequence code means.

Number 7-14 of the company registration code

The 7-14 sequence code refers to the sequence number assigned by the industry and commerce administration authorities to the market entities applying for registration in the order of priority. In order to facilitate the management, the rules of the 7^th code are allocated in the national standards as follows:

1) “0”, “1”, “2”, and “3” for domestic enterprises;

2) “4” and “5” for foreign-funded enterprises;

3) “6”, “7”, “8”, and “9” for privately or individually-owned business

The 8-bit sequence code is unique within the market jurisdiction, that is, a sequence code can only be assigned to one market entity. The following will verify the company registration code of Wal-Mart (China) Investment Co., Ltd. and a certain individually-owned business that Verifyfull queried as examples to explain it.

Company Name	Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group Limited by Share Ltd	Qing Xiaomaibu
Company Registration number	440301503226645	540191600030610
Company Type	The Company with Limited Liability(Sole Foreign Corporation Sole Company)	Individually-Owned Business

Both Wal-Mart and the individually-owned business meet the requirements of the national standard, indicating that the seventh place can distinguish their economic nature.

The 15th digit of the company registration code

The 15th code is the check code, used to check the correctness of the body code. Here is the “MOD11, 10” verification algorithm specified in GB/T 17710-1999.

However, you may find that some company registration numbers do not completely conform to the company’s registration authority code, or do not conform to the economic nature of the company. This may be due to the company’s own market migration, or the nature of the company has changed. Because of the uniqueness and lifetime invariability of the company’s registration number, when the company undergoes these changes, the registration number will still be the one determined at the time of initial registration and will not change. If the company is canceled, the original registration number will not be renewed by other companies.

After knowing this rule, we can simply understand some basic information of the company through the registration number, and it will also be convenient for us to query corporate information based on the registration number in the future. You can entrust Verifyfull to help you find company registration information such as company registration number, reputation registration information, etc.