ICP (Internet Content Provider) license or recordal is a legal requirement for all websites hosted in the People’s Republic of China. Applying for ICP license is a mandatory step before your website goes public; it takes place after the purchase of your Chinese domain name and hosting. If you don’t have an ICP number, your website can be shut down by the hosting provider without notice. As an alternative, many companies choose to host their Chinese websites in neighbouring regions, such as Hong Kong.

Your decision depends on the scale of your operation. If you only need a small company website to receive a low amount of traffic, hosting outside of Mainland China may be the sensible solution for your company. However, if you are serious about entering the Chinese market and want to ensure your message is getting across to Chinese consumers and clients, it is crucial to host you website within China and obtain an ICP license.

There are two types of ICP issued by the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) at the provincial level. The first is ICP license 京ICP证 — used for commercial (operational) websites. This applies to any website that allows a customer to purchase goods or services online. The second is ICP recordal — 京ICP备 — used for non-commercial (informational) websites including those that don’t include direct sales.

Why is an ICP License useful?

The biggest advantages of hosting from Mainland China is that an ICP license will allow your Chinese visitors to receive a faster connection speed when viewing your website. Any websites hosted inside China loads significantly faster than sites hosted in Australia, the US or Europe and this will have some bearing on how Chinese search engines like Baidu will crawl and rank your website. An ICP license validates your website. It assists Chinese customers and clients to trust your business and enables you to promote your e-commerce website through Baidu PPC Advertising (similar to Google AdWords).

THINK CHINA provides you with a guideline and checklist for ICP application; we prepare and file the application to the Chinese Local Communications Administration. We also undertake ongoing care and maintenance of the ICP and .cn domain name with Chinese authorities. We act as your IT partner and guide you through web hosting set-up in China. Our goal is to provide you with a hassle-free solution that guarantees your business a China-friendly website.