How does Clacta check a supplier?
Clacta reads the public record about one company and prints what it found, line by line, with the authority that made each record and the date it was read. It does not grade companies and it does not tell you whom to choose. Where a register was not asked, the line says so. Where it was asked and returned nothing, the line says that instead.
What a report contains
The identity card. The company as it is registered: its English display name, its registered Chinese legal name quoted verbatim, its Unified Social Credit Code (USCC), its registration status and the authority holding it, the date of incorporation, a stock listing where one exists, and its customs registration code. Every binding between these fields is computed from the records that bind them, never from the company's own statements.
Standing and risk screening. Two lamps summarise the identity card: registered and operating and no adverse records. Under them sits an itemised list, one row per register: the dishonest-debtor and judgment-debtor lists, the business-abnormality list, the serious-violation list, administrative, environmental and tax penalties, the two customs rosters (discredited enterprises and business-abnormality), and international sanctions lists. There is no rolled-up "all clear" on the page. Each row carries its own state and, for a clean screen, the date of the copy it was screened against.
Five bars. Each bar is a group of checks and shows three counts: verified, declared, not screened.
| bar | what it groups |
|---|---|
| Market admission | customs export registration; the certificates the company holds for its products and its market |
| Proven capability | who it ships to (import records); product recall and spot-check registers; a verified production site; disclosed scale |
| Accountability | registration standing; stock-exchange disclosures; social-insurance headcount |
| Transaction | customs credit class; tax credit grade; export history; corporate bank account on file |
| Sustainability | documents the company publishes itself; a bonus bar that never lowers the others |
A short bar means documents are missing, never that the company is weak.
The words on every line
| word | meaning |
|---|---|
| verified | the record exists in the register that made it, and it binds to this company by its registered identifier |
| declared | the company says so, and no register confirms or denies it |
| not screened | this check was not run, or the register could not be reached; it is never shown as clean |
| no record found | the register was asked by the company's exact identifier, answered with a receipt, and holds nothing; used where a hit would have been good news (a customer, a certificate) |
| clean | the same receipted empty answer, where a hit would have been bad news (a penalty, a listing); always shown with the date of the copy screened |
| not applicable | the register was asked and this company falls outside its scope |
The distinction between not screened and no record found is the one buyers most often ask about. They look alike on other services. Here they are different words because they are different facts.
When a report is published
A report is published only when its core checks reach a minimum coverage and the mandatory registers were actually screened: business registration and tax standing verified, customs registration verified or receipted empty, the penalty registers screened, both lamps screened. Below that, the page exists but says what is missing; it does not fill the gap with a guess.
What tiers show
One report, three tiers. Without an account: the identity card, scale, tax and customs standing, certificate counts, and the names of the registers in the risk section. With a free account: certificate numbers and validity, patents and trademarks, the group tree. A Deep Check: the risk section in full, the verified production site, recall and spot-check records, customers, the corporate account. Nothing changes between tiers except how much of the same report is visible.
How often
Registers are re-read on a schedule that differs by register; each line shows the date it was last read. An Annual Check re-reads the whole record on a yearly cycle. A copy of a register that is older than its freshness window turns its rows back to not screened.
Limits
- Coverage today is China. Registers outside China are read only for sanctions and for import records into the United States.
- A register can be reachable one day and not the next. The page reports the day's state; it does not smooth over it.
- Registry copies are not always complete. A miss in a copy supports "not in our copy", never "does not exist"; the page words it that way.
- The supplier's own website is read for what it declares (products, sites, certificates it shows). Declarations stay declarations.
- Clacta presents public records and the supplier's own statements with their verification state. It is a starting point for your own checks, not a certification, rating or guarantee.
Sources
Records are named on each line by the authority that made them. The authorities read today:
- Business registration, status, penalties, abnormality and serious-violation lists — State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) and its provincial and municipal bureaus, via the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System
- Customs registration, customs credit class, discredited-enterprise and business-abnormality rosters — General Administration of Customs of China (GACC)
- Certificates — the certification body that issued each certificate and, for China-issued certificates, the national certification and accreditation information platform operated under CNCA
- Pollutant discharge permits and registrations — the municipal or provincial Ecology and Environment Bureau that issued them, via the national permit platform of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment (MEE)
- Product recalls and quality spot checks — SAMR recall and supervision registries
- Dishonest-debtor and judgment-debtor lists — the People's Courts (enforcement information published by the Supreme People's Court)
- Sanctions — the United Nations, European Union, United Kingdom and United States lists, read as published
- Import records — U.S. Customs and Border Protection bill-of-lading data
- Stock-exchange disclosures — the exchange on which the company is listed
- Tax credit grade and social-insurance headcount — as recorded in the company's registry filings and annual reports (self-reported where the register says so)
Data as of 2026-09-13 · Last reviewed 2026-09-13
Cross-check, Clacta.