What the primary sources say
| Fact | Primary source |
|---|---|
| Article 4: a licence is required for commercial internet information services and a filing for non-commercial ones; without either, one may not engage in internet information services. | State Council Decree No. 292, Administrative Measures on Internet Information Services |
| Article 3 divides services by whether users are charged: commercial means providing information or web page services for a fee; non-commercial means openly available information provided free of charge. | State Council Decree No. 292, Article 3 |
| Article 7: the reviewing authority shall complete its review of a commercial licence application within 60 days of receipt. | State Council Decree No. 292, Article 7 |
| Article 12: the licence number or filing number must be displayed in a prominent position on the website homepage. | State Council Decree No. 292, Article 12 |
| Article 19: a non-commercial service operating without a filing is ordered to rectify within a time limit; if rectification is refused, closure of the website is ordered. | State Council Decree No. 292, Article 19 |
Sources verified by the 21YunBox China engineering team on 2026-08-28.
Almost every explanation of China’s ICP requirements you will read is a paraphrase of a paraphrase. The distinction between a filing and a licence — which decides whether your China launch takes weeks or months, and whether you can charge money — is set out in a single instrument, and it is short enough to read.
This page quotes the operative articles and says what each one means for a foreign company. The full text is published by the State Council and is linked at the bottom; nothing here replaces reading it or taking Chinese legal advice.
Instrument: 《互联网信息服务管理办法》 — Administrative Measures on Internet Information Services, State Council Decree No. 292, in force since 25 September 2000.
The two regimes exist because there are two kinds of service
第三条 互联网信息服务分为经营性和非经营性两类。经营性互联网信息服务，是指通过互联网向上网用户有偿提供信息或者网页制作等服务活动。非经营性互联网信息服务，是指通过互联网向上网用户无偿提供具有公开性、共享性信息的服务活动。
Article 3. Internet information services are divided into commercial and non-commercial. Commercial means providing information or web page production services to users for a fee. Non-commercial means providing openly available, shared information to users free of charge.
In practice: the dividing line is whether you are charging users through the site. A corporate marketing site, a product documentation portal, a careers page — these are ordinarily non-commercial. A site that takes payment, sells subscriptions, or runs a storefront is not.
And each regime has a different gate
第四条 国家对经营性互联网信息服务实行许可制度；对非经营性互联网信息服务实行备案制度。未取得许可或者未履行备案手续的，不得从事互联网信息服务。
Article 4. The State applies a licensing system to commercial internet information services and a filing system to non-commercial ones. Without having obtained the licence or completed the filing formalities, one may not engage in internet information services.
In practice: this single article is the whole “filing versus licence” question. Non-commercial sites file (备案, bèi’àn). Commercial sites must obtain a licence — the ICP licence proper, commonly called a B25 — which is a substantially heavier process. And the last sentence is the part that gets underestimated: without one or the other, operating the service is not permitted at all. Not slower, not degraded. Not permitted.
The licence has a statutory review clock
第七条 ……省、自治区、直辖市电信管理机构或者国务院信息产业主管部门应当自收到申请之日起60日内审查完毕，作出批准或者不予批准的决定。
Article 7. … the provincial telecommunications authority or the competent department under the State Council shall complete its review within 60 days of receiving the application and decide whether to approve.
In practice: 60 days is the review window for the commercial licence once an application is accepted — not the total elapsed time for a foreign company, which also has to establish a qualifying domestic entity first. Filing (非经营性备案) is a different and materially faster process. Anyone quoting you a single number for “how long does ICP take” is answering a question that the regulation does not ask.
The number has to be displayed
第十二条 互联网信息服务提供者应当在其网站主页的显著位置标明其经营许可证编号或者备案编号。
Article 12. An internet information service provider shall indicate its licence number or filing number in a prominent position on the homepage of its website.
In practice: this is why every compliant China-served site carries a number in the footer, and it is also why the presence of that number is verifiable by anyone. It is worth checking that yours actually resolves in the Ministry’s public record — a number in a footer is a claim, not a confirmation.
And the consequence of skipping it is not a fine
第十九条 ……未履行备案手续，擅自从事非经营性互联网信息服务，或者超出备案的项目提供服务的，由省、自治区、直辖市电信管理机构责令限期改正；拒不改正的，责令关闭网站。
Article 19. … whoever engages in non-commercial internet information services without completing filing formalities, or provides services beyond the scope of the filing, shall be ordered by the provincial telecommunications authority to rectify within a time limit; if rectification is refused, closure of the website shall be ordered.
For the commercial case the same article provides for confiscation of unlawful gains and fines of three to five times those gains, or between RMB 100,000 and RMB 1,000,000 where there are no quantifiable gains, with closure of the site in serious cases.
In practice: the enforcement mechanism for the filing regime is not primarily monetary. It is an order to correct, and then the site goes off. This is the concrete reason compliance is a launch prerequisite rather than a post-launch cleanup task — the failure mode is your site ceasing to exist in that market, at a time you do not choose.
What this instrument does not decide
Three things that regularly get attributed to Decree 292 and are governed elsewhere:
- Whether you need a Chinese legal entity. The decree presupposes a domestic applicant; the entity requirement comes from how filings are administered, not from this text.
- Public Security Bureau filing. A separate obligation with a separate process. We cover it in the PSB filing guide.
- Personal information and cross-border data. Governed by PIPL and the Data Security Law, entirely outside this decree.
Why this matters before you choose an architecture
Article 4 attaches to providing the service, and in practice the filing obligation is triggered by serving from inside mainland China. That makes it an architectural decision, not a paperwork one — the delivery arrangement that removes the cross-border problem is the same arrangement that brings you inside the scope of this instrument.
We have measured what that trade-off actually costs in performance terms, including the finding that being inside China and filed does not, by itself, make a site work. And the two gates — reachability and permission — are laid out together in our reference page on delivery options.
Primary source: 《互联网信息服务管理办法》（国务院令第292号）, full text published in the State Council Gazette: gov.cn/gongbao/content/2000/content_60531.htm. Filing records are queryable at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology’s public system, beian.miit.gov.cn.
Translations above are ours and are provided for orientation only. Where the English and the Chinese differ, the Chinese governs. This page is not legal advice.
