Does Altis Work in China? ICP, Data Residency & an Offshore Host
Altis Cloud serves each site from a single Origin in North America, Europe or Asia Pacific — none in mainland China — so a China-facing Altis site is hosted offshore with no ICP-filing path, and all its content and personal data land outside the mainland under PIPL. A compliance-first look at the two doors.
Does Altis work in China?
Whether you can run Altis in China is first an ICP and data-residency question, not a speed one. Altis is managed enterprise WordPress hosting — Altis Cloud serves your actual public site, so where that site is hosted and where its data lives is what China's law responds to.
By Altis's own documentation, projects are served from an Origin location in North America, Europe or Asia Pacific — none in mainland China, and "All customer data is stored within this region." So a China-facing Altis site is hosted offshore: there is no in-country host for the ICP filing a public mainland site turns on, and the content and personal data it keeps for Chinese users sit outside the country — a cross-border transfer PIPL governs. The table below is Altis's own wording and the rules it triggers.
This is a risk picture, not a verdict — your obligations turn on what you publish, your data volumes and your role. Our China team can map your Altis exposure with you →
Compliance snapshot
- ✕ No mainland-China Origin — Altis serves from North America, Europe or Asia Pacific only
- ! A public Altis site serving the mainland has no in-country host to carry an ICP filing
- ! All customer data — content (MySQL) and assets (S3) — stored in your single offshore Origin
- ! China users' personal data held offshore is a cross-border transfer — PIPL applies
- ✓ A compliant, ICP-filed in-country delivery path exists — no rebuild, no move off Altis
What Altis's own documentation says about China
| Fact | Primary source |
|---|---|
| In Altis's own words: "Altis projects are primarily served from any one of our Origin locations," and the Origins it provides are North America (North Virginia, US), Europe (Ireland; London, UK; Frankfurt, Germany) and Asia Pacific (Singapore; Tokyo, Japan; Sydney, Australia) — none in mainland China. A public site served to mainland visitors from inside China needs an ICP filing tied to a hosting resource inside the mainland, so a platform whose every Origin is offshore leaves nothing to file against. | Altis — Origin Locations documentation, retrieved 2026-10-07 |
| Altis is explicit about residency: "All customer data is stored within this region," the single Origin you choose, "in durable, persistent storage across multiple availability zones." Content lives in "Database Servers (MySQL)" and uploads in "S3 Storage" — so your China users' posts, accounts, form entries and media sit offshore, in whichever region your project runs. | Altis — Where is my data stored?, retrieved 2026-10-07 |
| Personal data gathered from users in China and held in an offshore Origin leaves the country. PIPL governs that cross-border transfer: the personal-information handler (you, the site operator — not Altis) must give notice, obtain separate consent, and satisfy one transfer mechanism — a CAC security assessment, the CAC standard contract, or certification. | PIPL Chapter III, Articles 38–43 |
| For a CIIO or large-volume handler, personal information collected in China must be stored inside mainland China (PIPL Article 40; Cybersecurity Law Article 39 (formerly Article 37)). Altis publishes no mainland Origin, so the only way to keep your China users' data on Chinese soil is to run that storage on infrastructure inside the mainland — which is the same footing an ICP-filed, in-country presence requires. | PIPL Article 40; Cybersecurity Law Article 39 (formerly Article 37) |
| The exposure scales with volume and role, not merely with using the platform: under the CAC's March 2024 cross-border rules, a non-CIIO transferring fewer than 100,000 individuals' non-sensitive personal information in a calendar year is exempt from the security assessment, standard contract and certification. | CAC — Regulations on Promoting and Regulating Cross-border Data Flows, March 2024 |
Sources verified by the 21YunBox compliance team on 2026-10-07.
For a mainland-China audience, the deciding question about Altis is not how quickly a page renders — it is where the site is allowed to be hosted and where the content and data behind it are allowed to live. Altis is a managed enterprise WordPress digital-experience platform: Altis Cloud hosts your live site and serves it from a single Origin location, and it answers both questions in its own documentation. That Origin sits in North America, Europe or Asia Pacific — never in mainland China — so a China-facing Altis site is reachable but hosted entirely offshore. The site loads; what it lacks is a mainland host to license it and an in-country home for the data it collects.
Altis in China at a glance
| What decides it | In Altis's own terms |
|---|---|
| Where it runs | Each Altis project is served from one Origin: North America (North Virginia), Europe (Ireland; London; Frankfurt) or Asia Pacific (Singapore; Tokyo; Sydney). No Origin is inside mainland China; the nearest, Singapore or Tokyo, is still offshore. |
| Who hosts the public site | Altis Cloud is managed enterprise WordPress hosting. The Origin is “the data-center that is responsible for generating application requests for un-cached pages, logged in user requests and requests to the admin interface” — and that host sits offshore. |
| Serving the public | A site served to mainland visitors from inside China needs an ICP filing tied to a mainland hosting resource. With no mainland Origin, Altis offers no ICP-filing path of its own. |
| Your data on Altis | “All customer data is stored within this region” — content in MySQL, assets in S3 — so your China users' records and uploads sit offshore: a cross-border transfer PIPL governs, plus a localization duty for CIIOs and large-volume handlers that an offshore Origin cannot meet. |
| Is it reachable? | Served from offshore. An Altis site reaches mainland visitors across the border, not from inside the country — and reaching it creates neither an ICP filing nor in-country data residency. |
No mainland Origin, so no footing for an ICP filing
Altis Cloud serves each project from a single Origin location — in Altis’s words, “the data-center that is responsible for generating application requests for un-cached pages, logged in user requests and requests to the admin interface.” Its documented Origins are North Virginia in the US; Ireland, London and Frankfurt in Europe; and Singapore, Tokyo and Sydney across Asia Pacific. Not one is in mainland China, and the closest — Singapore or Tokyo — is still outside it.
The map of those Origins decides the licensing question before speed is even on the table. A public-facing site delivered to mainland visitors from inside China turns on an ICP filing (ICP 备案) under State Council Order No. 292 and MIIT Order No. 33, and that filing must attach to a hosting resource physically located in the mainland. Altis Cloud hosts your site, but every Origin it offers is offshore — so there is nothing on Altis to file against. “We already run on Altis” does not travel across the border: reaching China is not the same as being cleared to operate a public site there, and picking the Singapore or Tokyo Origin moves you nearer the mainland, not inside it.
Your China users’ content and data stay offshore
Altis is explicit about where your data sits: “All customer data is stored within this region” — the single Origin you pick — “in durable, persistent storage across multiple availability zones.” Content lives in “Database Servers (MySQL)” and uploads in “S3 Storage,” and both stay in that offshore region. So the posts, user accounts, form entries and media your Altis site holds for Chinese users live outside the mainland. Under China’s Personal Information Protection Law that is a cross-border transfer, and the handler — you, the site operator, not Altis — has to give notice, obtain separate consent, and clear one transfer mechanism: a CAC security assessment, the CAC standard contract, or certification. If you are a critical information infrastructure operator or a large-volume handler, personal information collected in China must be stored in the mainland (PIPL Article 40; Cybersecurity Law Article 39 (formerly Article 37)) — a residency duty none of Altis’s three regions can satisfy, and one its single-Origin model cannot meet even in part.
Reachable from offshore — but reach is not clearance
Altis is not the kind of platform China blocks outright; an Altis site hosted in Singapore or Frankfurt is reached by mainland visitors across the border. But that reach is delivery, not compliance. A site that loads from offshore still has no ICP filing and no in-country data residency — those are licensing and architecture facts, and no amount of network tuning creates the mainland footing they require. Because Altis serves logged-in requests and the admin interface from that same offshore Origin, the dynamic half of the experience makes the border crossing on every request a cache cannot absorb. This is a risk map, not a ruling: whether an ICP filing, in-country storage, or both apply to you turns on what you publish, how much personal data you hold, and who your audience is — a question to close with counsel before you build.
Where 21YunBox fits — a compliant overlay, not a migration
You keep building on Altis, and your Origin and WordPress stack stay exactly as they are. We add the one piece a platform with no mainland presence cannot: compliant, ICP-filed delivery from inside the mainland, placed in front of your existing Altis Origin — no rebuild, no second WordPress install, and no move off Altis. Our China team weighs your ICP and PIPL data-residency obligations against your entity and the personal data your site holds, then stands up the in-country delivery — and, where the law requires it, the in-country storage — a lawful China presence needs, while your site keeps running on Altis Cloud exactly where it does today.
Related reading:
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Altis store Chinese users' data in China?
No. By Altis's own documentation, its Origin locations are North America, Europe and Asia Pacific only, and all customer data is stored within the single region your project is assigned — content in MySQL, assets in S3. So the posts, accounts, media and form entries your Altis site holds for Chinese users sit offshore, not on the mainland.
Is it against the law to run an Altis site for China?
Not inherently. The issues are two: a public mainland site needs an ICP filing tied to an in-country host, which an all-offshore platform cannot provide; and holding your China users' personal data offshore is a cross-border transfer PIPL permits only if you give notice, obtain separate consent and meet a transfer mechanism — with in-country storage required if you are a CIIO or large-volume handler. Treat it as a risk to assess with counsel, not a blanket prohibition.
Can 21YunBox help make our Altis setup compliant in China?
Yes. Our China team can assess your ICP and cross-border exposure for your data volumes and role, and stand up compliant, ICP-filed in-country delivery in front of your existing Altis Origin — and, where the law requires your China users' data to stay on the mainland, in-country storage. Get in touch to work through your specific case; no China entity is required to start.
