China customs IP recordal lets ports stop suspected copies of your Chinese trademark, copyright or patent on their own initiative, on exports as well as imports, and notify you (Customs IP Regulations art. 16). You then have three working days to request detention and post a bond, or the goods are released. A recordal lasts ten years and can be renewed (art. 10), and customs has charged no recordal fee since 1 November 2015. You need a right registered in mainland China first. Our fee is USD 690 for the first right and USD 290 for each additional right.
Start from where your brand stands in China
Recordal sits on top of a Chinese right, so your starting point decides the work.
No trademark registered in mainland China yet
Customs enforces only rights that exist in China; a US, EU, UK or Japanese registration gives it nothing to act on. The first step is a Chinese trademark application in the classes covering what your factories make: USD 790 for the first class including the official fee, and USD 390 for each additional class. Recordal follows once the registration is granted. If a factory or distributor has already filed your brand, read someone registered my trademark in China first.
A Chinese registration, and copies are leaving China
This is where recordal earns its keep. We prepare and file the recordal with the General Administration of Customs, including the photographs and product details officers use to tell genuine goods from copies, and the list of factories and exporters authorised to ship your goods. The fixed fee is USD 690 for the first right and USD 290 for each additional right, for example a second trademark registration or a design patent.
Customs has already sent you a notice
The clock is three working days from service of the notice. Send it to us with the photographs the port has supplied. We compare the goods with your genuine product, advise whether to request detention, and prepare the application and bond before the deadline. Notice work has no fixed fee because shipments differ; we confirm the fee in writing before we start, on the same day if the deadline requires it. The step-by-step is in what to do in the three working days.
Rights you can record, and what the application needs
Three kinds of rights can be recorded: registered trademarks, copyright and related rights, and patents, including design patents. Each right needs its own application, and an internationally registered trademark needs one for each class. Documents in a foreign language need a Chinese translation, and customs may ask for notarised or legalised copies where it considers that necessary (Implementing Measures art. 7).
The application describes the rights holder, the right, any licences, and the genuine goods: their name, origin, usual ports, importers and exporters, main features and price, together with whatever is known about infringing goods. In practice the photographs of genuine goods and the list of authorised users matter most. Thin photographs make officers less confident about stopping a shipment. A factory missing from the list gets your own goods stopped.
We build the photograph set the way an inspector at a port will use it: the product from several angles, the logo position and finish, labels, swing tags, the retail box and the export carton marks, and the details that tell your goods apart from the copies you have already seen, such as a moulded code, a stitching pattern or a print colour. We also give a realistic price range, because a declared value far below it is one of the first things that makes officers look twice.
How long does recordal take, and how long does it last?
The General Administration of Customs decides within 30 working days of receiving a complete application (Regulations art. 8). The recordal takes effect on approval and lasts ten years, or until the underlying right expires if that is sooner. It can be renewed in the six months before it ends, for ten years each time (art. 10).
If anything in the recordal changes, the rights holder must update it within 30 working days (art. 11), and customs can revoke a recordal left out of date if that seriously disrupts lawful trade. For a brand sourcing in China the change that matters most is a new factory: add it to the authorised list before its first shipment.
Your factory list decides whether your own goods move
Officers compare each shipment with the recordal. If genuine goods leave from a factory or exporter that is not listed, they can be stopped as suspected infringements, and you spend days proving that your own shipment is yours. We build the authorised list from your purchase orders and supplier records, including trading companies that export on a factory’s behalf, and keep it in step with your supplier changes.
The list also works the other way. A former supplier that comes off the list and keeps exporting your design is exactly the shipment recordal is meant to catch. That is often the clearest evidence you will get that a factory is selling your product to others, and it supports a contract claim under your NNN agreement as well as an infringement case.
What does recordal cost besides our fee?
No official fee, for now. The Implementing Measures still provide for a recordal fee, but customs suspended it for applications from 1 November 2015 (GAC Announcement No. 51 of 2015). The money that matters comes later, when you ask customs to detain goods.
The bond follows the value of the goods: their full value below RMB 20,000; half their value between RMB 20,000 and RMB 200,000, at least RMB 20,000; and RMB 100,000 above RMB 200,000 (Implementing Measures art. 23). Trademark owners expecting repeated detentions can give customs a general bond for the year, normally RMB 200,000, instead of a bond for each shipment (art. 24). The bond is security, not a fee: storage, disposal and any compensation are paid from it, and the balance comes back.
The three working days after a customs notice
When customs suspects that goods infringe a recorded right, it suspends clearance and notifies you in writing. You have three working days from service to request detention and post the bond; if you do neither, customs must release the goods (Regulations art. 16; Implementing Measures art. 22). Working days exclude Chinese public holidays, so count from the date of service, not the day you read the email.
Request detention when the photographs show goods that are plainly not yours. Do not request it just to be safe when the goods might be authorised, such as stock from a licensee or returned goods being resold. A detention that proves unjustified exposes you to the shipper’s losses. If the honest answer is “possibly ours”, say so to customs in writing and sort it out with your supply chain.
What happens after customs detains the goods?
Customs investigates, and in clear counterfeit cases it usually finds infringement and confiscates the goods. If it cannot decide within 30 working days of detention, it notifies both sides, and you need a court order, an injunction or a property preservation ruling, delivered to customs within 50 working days of detention, or the goods are released (Regulations arts. 20 and 24). Design and utility patent cases end up here more often than trademark cases, because a patent is harder to judge on inspection than a fake logo.
Is recordal worth it for a smaller brand?
It is worth it when three things are true: you hold a Chinese registration, copies of your product are made in China, and someone on your side can answer a customs notice within three working days. If the copies come from a known former supplier, recordal combined with a contract claim against that factory works well. If your problem is resellers on a marketplace buying from many small workshops, recordal helps at the margins; platform enforcement in your sales markets, handled by local counsel there, usually does more.
Timing matters too. A trademark application in China usually takes the better part of a year to reach registration, and recordal can only be filed after that. If copies are already moving, file the trademark now, and in the meantime rely on your contract with the factory and, where a specific shipment is known, an application to the port concerned, which customs can act on without a recordal but which needs evidence and a bond up to the value of the goods (Regulations arts. 12 to 14).
What we would not do is record a right and then ignore the notices. A recordal nobody answers stops nothing, and ports notice rights holders who never reply. Before we file, we agree with you who receives notices, who can confirm from photographs whether goods are genuine, and how the bond will be funded.
What recordal does not reach
Recordal works at the border. It does not stop sales inside China, on Chinese e-commerce platforms or at trade fairs; those need platform complaints, administrative complaints or a lawsuit, covered in counterfeits on Chinese e-commerce platforms. It does not protect rights outside China, and it does not bind your factory the way a contract does. For a factory that holds your molds and drawings, the first protection is the NNN and manufacturing contract; recordal is the backstop at the port.
Short answers to common questions
- Can I record a US or EU trademark with Chinese customs? No. Customs enforces only rights valid in China, so register the trademark in China first.
- Do I need a Chinese company to record? No. A foreign company can hold the recordal in its own name; we prepare and file it for you.
- Can a design patent be recorded? Yes. Patents, including design patents, can be recorded, although customs finds patent infringement harder to judge than trademark infringement.
- What if customs holds my own genuine goods? Answer the notice with evidence that the shipment is authorised, then add that factory or exporter to the recordal.
- Is the bond paid to customs? Yes, as a deposit or bank guarantee. It is returned after storage, disposal costs and any compensation are deducted.
Fixed fees for customs work
- Customs IP recordal: USD 690 for the first right, USD 290 for each additional right
- China trademark, if you need the right first: USD 790 for the first class including the official fee, USD 390 for each additional class
- Customs detention notices: quoted per case and confirmed in writing before we start
You engage the firm, and the invoice is the firm’s. The full list is on the fees page.
Related insights (3)
- China Customs IP Recordal: Can You Stop Fakes Before They Leave China?
- China Customs Found Suspected Fakes of Your Product: What to Do in the Three Working Days
- Your Own Goods Held at Chinese Customs Because Someone Else Owns Your Brand in China
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