The name of company incorporated in China has its special patterns and features. Government guidelines say new companies cannot register names that are paragraphs or long sentences, or that include sensitive language, including political terms. As China’s economy has matured, its officials have increasingly talked about improving regulation and enforcement, and better protecting trademarks and patents. Company names are an example of the problem, writ small. Below are some features of Chinese company name which you may refer to when choose a name for your NewCo.
Structure of the name
Before getting too concerned about the Chinese characters in a China company’s name, you can actually tell whether or not they are foreign-owned just by looking at the structure of their name.
Most Chinese company names are structured like this:
Registered location + Chosen name + What the company does + Company type
However, foreign-owned company names take this form:
Chosen name + (Registered location) + What the company does + Company type
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Where the company is incorporated
Chinese company names include the location where the company is registered. Companies in Mainland China are registered by a branch of the AIC and this registration may be at the local, city, provincial or state level.
A Chinese company name usually just includes the name of the location (e.g. 深圳 for Shenzhen) but may also include the relevant character for county (县), city (市) or province (省). Companies registered at the state level meanwhile include the Chinese characters for China (中国) as the registered location.
Note that the characters for city (市) or province (省) may or may not be omitted from official Chinese company names.
What will the company do
Readers from many countries may be surprised to hear that Chinese company names actually include a brief description of the company’s main activity!
Although a more in-depth description of a company’s activities are provided in the business scope section of their business license, being able to read a company’s Chinese name can be very useful in some cases, for example when identifying that a company claiming to be a manufacturer is actually a trading company.
What will be the company type
Finally, at the end of Chinese company names comes the company type. This is consistent with most parts of the world, e.g. many US company names end in “Inc.” or “LLC” and many UK company names in “Ltd.”
In China the majority of companies you are likely to encounter are limited liability companies which is formally written as “有限责任公司”, but the official abbreviation “有限公司” is more commonly used.
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