China Supplier Compliance Checklist: What US & EU Buyers Should Verify Before the First Order

By Vivian Pi, CEO

Most overseas buyers do not lose money on price. They lose it on the first container that gets held at customs, the first batch that fails a retail compliance check, or the first factory that turns out not to exist in the form the website promised. All three problems trace back to the same habit: ordering from a Chinese supplier without verifying the compliance basics first.

Price-driven screening is exactly what it sounds like — you collect five quotes, pick the cheapest, and hope. Buyers in the US, UK, Germany and the rest of the EU screen differently in the first round. They check whether the supplier and the product can legally and safely be sold in the destination market, and whether the paperwork will survive a customs officer or a retailer’s vendor manual. This checklist is that first round, written out in order.

1. Factory audits: BSCI, SEDEX and ISO — what each one actually proves

Three names come up in almost every sourcing conversation, and they prove very different things:

• amfori BSCI is a social-compliance audit. It covers working hours, wages, safety, and the absence of forced or child labour. It says nothing about product quality.
• SEDEX / SMETA is a platform plus an audit methodology, and the report goes deeper into labour, health & safety, environment and business ethics than a BSCI summary does. Because the full SMETA report is shared on the platform, it is harder to fake.
• ISO 9001 is a quality-management certificate: the factory has documented processes, traceability and corrective-action routines. ISO 14001 covers environmental management. Neither guarantees your particular order will be good — but a factory that cannot show any documented process is far more likely to produce inconsistent batches.

Two verification steps matter more than the certificate itself:

Check the certificate is real and current. Every credible ISO certificate has a number and is issued by an accredited certification body. Ask for the PDF, check the expiry date, and look the issuer up in its accreditation register. For SEDEX, ask for the factory’s platform number (a ZC number) instead of a scanned PDF.

Check the scope and the audit date. A BSCI audit from three years ago, or an ISO 9001 scope that covers “metal trading” when you are buying electronics, is a warning sign, not a reassurance.

If you source through a partner, this verification should happen before a quote is ever requested. Our sourcing team works from a pool of 1,500+ factory resources in Guangdong and beyond, and documentation checks are part of the vetting, not an add-on. The factory audit criteria guide shows what we look at on site.

2. Product compliance by destination market

Factory certificates tell you about the factory. Product certificates tell you whether you can legally sell the item. These depend on where you sell:

United States

• FDA — food-contact materials, kitchenware and anything touching food must comply with FDA food-contact rules; ask for the test report naming the exact material.
• CPSIA — anything designed or marketed for children under 12 requires third-party testing by a CPSC-accepted laboratory and a Children’s Product Certificate (CPC).
• FCC — anything with wireless or electronic circuitry (Bluetooth speakers, LED drivers, smart-home devices) needs FCC authorisation.
• California Proposition 65 — retailers increasingly require either test results or correct warning labelling; it is a civil-lawsuit magnet, so treat it as mandatory even if you sell in other states.

European Union / United Kingdom

• CE marking — required for most consumer goods sold in the EU. Importantly, CE is usually self-declared by the manufacturer, backed by test reports against EN standards and a Declaration of Conformity (DoC). A “CE certificate PDF” from a random laboratory is not how CE works; ask for the DoC plus the underlying test reports.
• UKCA — the mark for most goods sold in Great Britain; check the current acceptance rules for CE marks if you sell into both.
• REACH — the EU chemicals regulation; the key items are the SVHC candidate list and, for some goods, specific restricted substances.
• GPSR — the General Product Safety Regulation has applied to all non-food consumer products in the EU since 13 December 2024 and requires an economic operator established in the EU. Our GPSR guide for importers covers what it means for your labels and listings.
• EPR / packaging rules — Germany (LUCID) and France (Triman) require packaging registration; your supplier should pack to specification, but the registration sits with the seller.

The practical rule: compliance obligations land on the importer of record, not the factory. A supplier that answers “CE is your problem” is technically right and commercially useless. Our quality assurance service builds the required certificate and test-report list into the pre-order specification, so it is agreed before production starts rather than discovered afterwards.

3. Trade terms: EXW, FOB, CIF and DDP without the confusion

Incoterms decide who carries risk at every stage, and most first-order disputes are really Incoterm disputes:

• EXW (Ex Works) — goods are ready at the factory door; everything after that (pickup, export clearance, freight, insurance) is yours. Cheapest quote, most control, most work.
• FOB (Free on Board) — the default for most importers: the supplier delivers the container cleared for export onto the vessel; from loading onward, risk is yours. You still control the freight forwarder, which means you control the real shipping cost.
• CIF — the supplier books freight and insurance to your port. Easier, but you lose control of the carrier, and the quote is rarely cheaper than booking freight yourself.
• DDP (Delivered Duty Paid) — the supplier delivers with duties paid. Common for small parcels; for container volumes, know exactly how the customs value is being declared — an under-declared DDP shipment puts your company name next to the customs entry, and that risk is yours, not the supplier’s.

For US and EU buyers ordering container volumes, FOB with your own forwarder — or a consolidated load — is the default for a reason. Our shipping and consolidation service runs both models from our own Guangzhou warehouse, and the shipping & costs guide breaks the cost stack down line by line.

4. US tariffs and HS codes: check before the order, not at the port

Two facts every US buyer should verify per SKU:

First, the HS / HTS classification. The tariff rate depends on the 10-digit HTS code, and similar-looking products can fall under different codes. Get the classification in writing and verify it — classification errors are one of the most common and most expensive customs mistakes. The US tariff guide explains the full stack, including what changed in 2025.

Second, the tariff layers. Many China-origin products carry additional Section 301 duties on top of normal customs duties, and further tariff measures have been layered on top of those since 2025. The rates have changed repeatedly, so build your landed-cost model on the current rate for your specific HTS code, not on last year’s number.

One more change that matters for small-parcel importers: the United States ended duty-free de-minimis treatment for China and Hong Kong shipments in May 2025, and extended the elimination worldwide in August 2025. Low-value parcels are no longer the tariff-free channel they used to be. If your model depends on shipping many small direct parcels to US customers, re-run the numbers.

5. Liability, IP and the paperwork most buyers skip

Three documents that cost little and protect a lot:

• NDA plus IP assignment — an NDA helps, but in China the enforceable tool is an NNN agreement (non-disclosure, non-use, non-circumvention), written in Chinese, under Chinese jurisdiction. If you share designs, also agree in writing who owns the tooling and moulds — otherwise you do not.
• Product liability insurance — if a product injures a consumer in the US or EU, the claim lands on the importer of record first. Confirm your own policy covers imported goods, ask what the factory carries, and keep the documentation, because it is part of your defence file.
• Written specification and approved golden sample — every compliance and quality conversation becomes enforceable only when it points back to a written spec and a sealed sample. The quality inspection guides cover how this connects to inspection before shipment.

6. Red flags in the first-round screening

• A price 20–30% below every other quote, with no explanation of how.
• Certificates that are scanned, undated, or issued by a body you cannot find in any register.
• “Yes to everything” answers on compliance questions, without asking which market you sell to.
• Refusal of a video factory walk-through or a third-party audit.
• A business licence whose registered name differs from the company name on the quotation.
• A request for 100% payment upfront through a personal account.

Any single one is a reason to slow down. Two or more together are a reason to walk.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need BSCI or SEDEX for my first small order?
Not always — it depends on your customers. Retail chains and most US and EU brands require a valid social-compliance audit before they list a supplier. Online sellers are usually not audited themselves, but still carry the reputational risk, so a factory with a recent audit is the safer default either way.

Who is responsible if a product fails CE or FCC requirements?
The importer of record. That is the legal position in both the EU and the US, which is why the documentation list in section 2 belongs in the purchase agreement, not in a chat message.

Can a Chinese supplier ship DDP to the US or EU safely?
For small parcels it is routine. For container volumes, make sure you understand how the customs value is declared and who appears as importer of record — if that is your company, the compliance file must be complete regardless of who paid the duties.

What should I ask for before paying a deposit?
The company licence matching the bank account, the compliance list for your market (DoC, test reports, CPC where relevant), the written specification, and the agreed inspection standard (AQL) tied to final payment. Both common payment structures — deposit plus balance, or full payment — settle before shipment, which keeps the incentives clean for both sides.

How does Select Trade handle this for buyers?
Every order goes through screened factories, a written specification, market-specific documentation checks, and inspection before shipment — the same process whether the order is a single sample or a full container. It is why 798+ buyers have used the service since 2021, starting from a minimum of one piece.

Send us your product and destination market, and we will come back with the compliance list your market requires, factory options, and a landed-cost picture you can defend — before any money moves. Start on our services page or send the details through the contact form.