The five dates that run a Chinese company’s year
| Deadline | What is due | Applies to |
|---|---|---|
| 30 April (typical) | Statutory annual audit by a Chinese CPA firm | Foreign-invested enterprises |
| 31 May | Corporate income tax annual settlement (汇算清缴) | All companies |
| 1 Mar – 30 Jun | Individual income tax annual reconciliation | Employees & the company as withholder |
| 30 June | Annual report (“many-in-one”) and foreign-related annual reporting | All companies; FIEs additionally |
| Following 30 June | Transfer-pricing local file, where thresholds are met | Companies with related-party transactions |
Deadlines verified July 2026; local bureaus occasionally vary the audit timing. Confirm your own dates before relying on this table.
Why an independent check. If the firm that keeps your books also assures you the filings are done, nobody is checking anyone. This is a second pair of eyes on your back office — and because we never keep the books ourselves, there is no homework of ours to mark.
What is ours and what is not. The independent check and the exit project management are ours. Tax settlement, catch-up filings and the statutory audit are performed by a licensed accounting firm that contracts with you directly — agency bookkeeping and audit are licensed activities in China and we hold neither licence. Where the check turns up missing filings, we scope the remediation and manage the firm that does it.
The health check
Filing trail
What was actually filed and when — audit report, CIT settlement, annual report, foreign-related reporting — checked against the record, not against an assurance.
Public credit standing
Whether the company is listed as operating abnormally, whether the legal representative is restricted, and what a Chinese counterparty sees when they look you up.
Licence & scope drift
Whether what you now invoice for is still covered by your registered business scope, and whether address, capital or shareholder changes were ever filed.
Exposure & fix list
A ranked list of what is wrong, what it risks, and what it costs to put right — with the items that must be fixed before an exit flagged separately.
Closing a company properly
Deregistration is harder than registration, and the order is not negotiable: tax clearance first, then customs and foreign-exchange closure if they apply, employee settlement, liquidation and public notice, licence cancellation, chops destroyed, bank accounts closed last. Tax clearance is where timelines blow out, because the bureau can revisit years of filings before it signs off.
- Simply walking away is the expensive option. An abandoned company gets its licence revoked, which triggers penalties and puts the legal representative on a national restriction list — a status that follows the individual into other Chinese ventures.
- Dormancy is not free. A dormant entity in a first-tier city still runs roughly US$8,000–15,000 a year in bookkeeping, filings and address hosting.
- Simplified deregistration exists. Since the 2024 Company Law it is open to most foreign-invested companies that wound down cleanly with no unpaid debts — worth checking before assuming the long route.
- Selling may beat closing. If the licence, scope or qualifications have value, an equity transfer can be faster than liquidation. We will tell you when that is realistic and when it is wishful thinking.
Indicative pricing
| Item | Typical basis |
|---|---|
| Compliance health check (written report) (our fee) | from US$350, fixed fee |
| Catch-up filings & remediation (accounting firm) | Quoted once the check shows what is missing |
| Deregistration project management (our fee) | Quoted on scope — tax history is the main driver |
| Official filing, publication & audit fees | Billed at cost |
