Revoked, cancelled, struck off: a Chinese registration status in plain English
Two different Chinese statuses are routinely translated as “cancelled”. One describes a company that has lost the right to trade but still exists. The other describes a company that has ceased to exist. The gap between them decides whether you have a counterparty at all.
Written by a practitioner with ten years of legal and asset-disposal work, including risk-control and legal functions at the head office of one of China’s largest banking institutions.
The translation problem
English-language platforms collapse at least five distinct Chinese statuses into “cancelled”, “revoked” or “closed”. They are not interchangeable. One of them describes a company that can still sign a contract, still receive your money, and still be sued — but has lost the right to trade. That is the one worth learning.
What each status actually means
| Status | What happened | Exists · may trade? | Your exposure |
|---|---|---|---|
| 存续 / 在营 Active | Normal registration, no adverse flag | Yes · yes | Ordinary commercial risk |
| 经营异常 Abnormal operations | Usually a missed annual report, an unreachable registered address, or undisclosed information. Not a status change — a public flag | Yes · yes, flagged | Signals administrative neglect; after three years unremedied it escalates to the serious-violation list |
| 吊销 Licence revoked | An administrative penalty, imposed without the company’s consent — commonly for trading without cause for six months, or for serious violations | Exists · may not trade | Still signable, still suable, still able to hold assets. This is the middle state that hurts buyers |
| 注销 Deregistered | Registration formally cancelled after liquidation (or in some cases without it) | No · no | No counterparty left; recovery runs against shareholders instead |
| 撤销 Registration annulled | The registration itself was obtained unlawfully and is annulled | Registration unwound | The people behind it remain exposed, and so do you if you paid them |
| 迁出 Moved jurisdiction | Registration transferred to another registration authority | Yes · yes | Administrative; not a risk signal |
The dangerous middle state
吊销未注销 — licence revoked, deregistration never completed — is the one to catch. The entity retains its legal personality, which means it can still hold assets, still be sued, and still produce documents that look entirely normal. What it has lost is the right to trade. A supplier in this state that accepts a purchase order and a deposit is doing something its registration no longer permits, and its liquidation is overdue: a company whose licence is revoked must form a liquidation group within fifteen days, and after three years without deregistration the authority may cancel the registration itself.
Downstream consequences also matter. Where the revoked company’s legal representative bore personal responsibility for the violation, that person is barred for three years from serving as a director, supervisor or senior manager of any company. People whose names keep appearing behind revoked entities are a pattern worth noticing.
What deregistration does and does not clean up
Deregistration after a proper liquidation is a clean exit: the debts were dealt with, then the entity was dissolved. Deregistration without liquidation is different. Where a company is deregistered without liquidation and the result is that liquidation becomes impossible, the shareholders — and, for a joint-stock company, the directors and controlling shareholder — can be held liable for the company’s debts. So a deregistered counterparty does not always mean the money is gone. It does mean you are no longer chasing a company; you are chasing people, usually in another jurisdiction, usually through local counsel.
How to check it in one pass
- Look up the exact Chinese name on 国家企业信用信息公示系统 (gsxt.gov.cn) — the English name will not resolve
- Read 登记状态 first, before anything else on the page
- Check 成立日期 against the age the supplier claims, and 注册资本 against 实缴资本
- Open 变更记录 for changes of legal representative, shareholders, and — importantly — any reduction in registered capital
- Open the 经营异常 and 严重违法失信 tabs, which many buyers never click
Frequently asked
Is a revoked licence a death sentence?
Not automatically. A revoked company still exists and can still be pursued. What changes is your negotiating position: a company that cannot lawfully trade has little to lose from a dispute, and its liquidation is likely to be run for creditors rather than for customers.
Is deregistration good news for me?
Only if you were not owed anything. If you were, deregistration usually removes the entity you would have sued. Your route shifts to the shareholders or liquidation obligors, and depends on whether the deregistration was preceded by a proper liquidation.
Why do platforms show a different status from the registry?
Platform badges and third-party databases are snapshots, sometimes months old, and often translate the status loosely. The registry page is the primary record. If the two disagree, the registry wins — and the disagreement itself is worth resolving before money moves.
- Registration status and history
- Abnormal-operation and serious-violation flags
- Capital, shareholders, change records
- Red / amber / green conclusion