Apply for the ICP license in China
If the company is located and targets clients in China, there is a need to apply for an ICP license for the company’s website, otherwise, the company is not complying with all the Chinese laws.
The website is a part of the company that became a must. Doesn’t matter if you are a multinational company or a freelancer, and how many different social channels you have, by the end of the day you need to have a company website. For some companies it is the main source of communicating with the clients and distributing their product, for some it is a lead generation tool and for some, it is social proof that the company exists.
ICP stands for Internet Content Provider (ICP) and it is a permit issued by the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology to permit China-based websites to operate in China. The ICP license numbers for Chinese websites can often be found in the footer of the website.
There are two types of ICP licenses available depending on the information and usage of your website:
- ICP Beian (ICP备案)
- ICP Commercial
ICP Beian is usually used for the company website that is purely informational and is not selling any goods or services on it.
ICP Commercial License gives the company the right to sell products and accept online payments.
It is necessary to have the ICP license in place to assure better speed and a better connection to the company website. Even if the website is somehow deployed without a license, monitoring will soon reveal that it does not have an ICP License, and the website will be blocked. Both the website owner and the IDC/ISP hosting of the website may be fined as well.
If you need support with application and obtaining your ICP license feel free to contact us for more details.
