What is ICP registration?

If the China market is your next business milestone, you may have heard of the ICP registration when you were building up your Chinese website.

ICP stands for Internet Content Provider. ICP registration is a legal requirement from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. According to Measures for the Administration of Internet Information Services, all websites hosted on a server in mainland China require an ICP registration number to be displayed on the footer of the homepage so that the websites can operate legally in China.

Article 4 The People’s Republic of China mandates an ICP filing system for non-commercial Internet information services and an ICP licensing system for commercial Internet information services. Anyone who has not applied for an ICP filing or obtained a commercial ICP license for the website is prohibited from providing Internet information services.

There are two levels of ICP registration. ICP filing is mandatory for all websites. With an ICP filing number, the website can share non-commercial information. An ICP commercial license is required if your website provides commercial internet information services, such as payments for goods and services.

Do you need an ICP registration as a foreign company?

The regulation requires that companies applying for an ICP registration have a business entity registered in mainland China. In our daily business, we have often been asked to find an alternative way by small overseas companies or start-ups that are not yet ready to set up an office in China. In practice, some companies host their websites in Hong Kong in the early stages. The reason is that websites hosted on servers outside of mainland China do not require ICP registration. You can avoid the whole registration procedure. However, the disadvantages cannot be avoided. Slow loading speeds in China, restricted SEO performance, etc. Hosting your website in China requires higher threshold, but it will certainly provide a better level of reliability for your business. We recommend that you choose a proper strategy according to your company’s business plan and budget.

To learn more about ICP registration and get compliance advice, please feel free to send me an email at siming.sun@anber-consulting.com.