China Trademark Documents: What to Send, What to Notarise

There is a specific kind of email that arrives three weeks after a China trademark filing, and it always says the same thing: the application is fine, but the supporting documents are not, and please supply the correct ones within thirty days or the filing date is lost.

Almost every one of those emails could have been avoided with about ten minutes of preparation at the outset. What follows is exactly what a foreign applicant has to send to CNIPA, what has to be notarised and what does not, and the three items that genuinely differ depending on where your company is registered.

The starting point: what the rules actually say

The relevant provision is Article 5.1.1.3 of the Trademark Examination and Adjudication Guidelines (商标审查审理指南), in Part One, Chapter One, under the general requirements for formal examination. It runs to three sentences:

Documents submitted by the applicant must all be within their stated period of validity. A foreign applicant must also submit Chinese translations of its identity document and its proof of legal status; if these are not supplied, the document is treated as not having been submitted at all. Where the application is filed through the online trademark service system, the applicant must seal or sign the copy and upload a colour scan of the sealed or signed copy. The seal or signature must be clear and complete.

That is the entire provision. Note what it does not contain: no list of countries, no named documents, and no mention of notarisation, legalisation, annual returns or good-standing certificates.

The Guidelines address foreign applicants in Article 5.1.3.1, and there the requirement is just as abstract: an applicant that is a foreign legal person or other organisation "shall submit a copy of the registration document of its country or region, together with a corresponding Chinese translation". Registration document, of your country or region. Not a named document, not a list.

Everything below rests on one sentence — documents must be within their stated validity period — plus the practical question of which registry documents satisfy it.

The five things a standard application needs

1. Your company registration document. This is the proof of legal status, and what it is called depends on where you are registered. The name matters less than the function: it must show the registry, the company's legal name and its registration number. In the United States it is normally the Articles of Incorporation or Articles of Organization; in Germany the Handelsregisterauszug; in France the Extrait Kbis; in the United Kingdom the Certificate of Incorporation; in Japan the certificate of all current matters (履歴事項全部証明書); in Australia the ASIC company extract.

A copy is enough. The original does not have to be sent, and nothing has to be posted.

2. A Chinese translation of that document. This is mandatory, not a courtesy — Article 5.1.1.3 is explicit that a foreign applicant's identity and status documents without a Chinese translation are treated as never having been submitted. Your agent prepares it and it forms part of the professional fee; you do not need a sworn or certified translator, and nothing needs a notary's stamp. The naming conventions are covered in Translating Your Corporate Documents for a China Trademark.

3. Your trademark name. Just the words you want on the certificate, exactly as they should appear.

Two things are commonly but wrongly assumed to be required. First, you do not have to supply a Chinese name or a translation of your mark. The application registers the sign you give us; a Chinese version is a separate filing decision and a strategic recommendation rather than a requirement. Second, the name you give is the name that will be registered, so if you want the mark registered in a particular stylisation or with particular punctuation, say so now — it is difficult to change afterwards.

4. Your trademark image, but only if your mark is graphical. This is conditional, and the condition is misunderstood in both directions.

A plain word mark needs no image at all. The words are typed into the application and constitute the mark.
A figurative or composite mark — a logo, a device, a word plus artwork — does need an image. A black-and-white JPEG or PNG at sufficient resolution is fine, and whatever you submit becomes the registered representation of the mark.

If your brand is a logo, that logo is the trademark and the image is the single most important item in the file.

5. A signed Power of Attorney. This is mandatory for every application, without exception, and it is the item clients most often forget. A foreign applicant cannot file with CNIPA directly; it must act through a Chinese registered agent, and the agent needs written authority. Article 5.2 of the Guidelines sets the form: the document must state the matters and scope of the authorisation, and for a foreign person or enterprise it must also state the principal's nationality. It should be an original — for an online filing, a colour scan of the original is uploaded, and the scan must be complete and legible.

The form is short, your agent sends it to you after the quote is approved, and a signature is normally the whole of it. The field-by-field guidance is in The Power of Attorney for a China Trademark.

The notarisation question

This is where the most money is wasted unnecessarily.

For an ordinary application from a company in the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Australia, Canada, India, Russia or Hong Kong, China, no notarisation, legalisation or apostille is required at any stage. Nothing needs a consular stamp, and nothing needs to go to a foreign ministry.

The reason is the reciprocity principle in Article 11 of the Trademark Law (Article 11, second paragraph, in the numbering effective from 1 January 2027). Foreign applicants are handled according to international treaties or, absent a treaty, according to reciprocity. Reciprocity is a defensive rule: where your home country does not require a Chinese applicant's documents to be notarised, China does not require yours to be. Since none of the markets listed above imposes that requirement on Chinese applicants, none attracts it here.

If you have been told that a Chinese trademark filing requires notarised documents, you have probably been given one of two pieces of bad advice.

One confuses two different rules. Some markets require a foreign applicant to appoint a local agent or attorney. That is a requirement about who may file, not about whether a document must be notarised. Intermediaries routinely present the first as the second. China does require you to use a Chinese agent — that is item 5 above — but requiring an agent is not requiring a notarised appointment.

The other generalises from the exceptions. Notarisation and legalisation genuinely are required in some situations, and they are narrow:

Collective marks and certification marks. CNIPA requires documents generated abroad, including the proof of legal status and the evidence of inspection capability, to be authenticated before submission. This is the one clear, general exception.
The Middle East and North Africa. The United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, Iran, Iraq and Oman require notarised and legalised corporate documents, and Saudi Arabia and Egypt also expect Arabic versions of some material. These countries apply the requirement to all foreign applicants, not specifically to China filings — it is their general inbound practice, not a China rule.
Türkiye, which requires an apostille rather than full consular legalisation.

For those markets, and only those, budget for the authentication chain and for the additional time it takes. Since 7 November 2023, when the Apostille Convention entered into force for China, a member state's documents need a single apostille rather than the old two-step notarisation plus consular legalisation — worth knowing, because much published guidance still describes the two-step process.

The document that catches people out: evidence your company still exists

This is the item that produces correction notices, and almost nobody warns foreign applicants about it.

Article 5.1.1.3 requires every submitted document to be within its stated period of validity. A certificate of incorporation has no validity period to state, because it is not a statement about the present. It records that on a particular day in history the registrar registered the company. That fact remains true forever and tells CNIPA nothing about whether the company is still on the register today.

Some registries solve this by issuing extracts that are current by construction. A German Handelsregisterauszug, a French Extrait Kbis, a Japanese certificate of all current matters, a Korean corporate register extract, a Macao commercial registration certificate, a Taiwanese company registration certificate, an Australian ASIC company extract or a US Certificate of Good Standing all describe the company as it stands at the moment of issue. For these, the registration document alone is enough.

Others do not. In those jurisdictions you need a second, annually updated filing alongside the incorporation certificate:

The United Kingdom. A Certificate of Incorporation from Companies House records incorporation and the original name only. Send your most recent confirmation statement (the annual filing, form CS01) alongside it, or a recently obtained register extract. Companies incorporated less than a year ago will not have one yet — send the incorporation documents and tell us the date of incorporation.
Hong Kong, China. The Certificate of Incorporation does the same job and carries the same limitation. The annual document is the Annual Return, form NAR1. Neither document needs to be notarised, legalised or apostilled — a Hong Kong, China company's documents are domestic documents for this purpose. The Business Registration Certificate is not a substitute: it is a tax document issued by the Inland Revenue Department, renewed annually, and it does not sit in the chain of proof of legal status. A company incorporated less than a year ago has no anniversary yet, and form NNC1 or NNC1G stands in for the NAR1.

To be clear about the reasoning, because it matters if you are being told otherwise: the Guidelines do not name any country and do not mention annual returns. This is the validity-period sentence applied to how each registry works, plus the fact that a status document lacking current-state information is a common trigger for a formalities correction. We ask for the annual filing up front because a correction notice costs weeks, not because a rule names your country.

Two related points that surprise people:

This has nothing to do with trademarks. China has no annual maintenance fee for a registered mark. A registration is valid for ten years and is renewed before expiry. The annual filing discussed here is an obligation your company registry imposes on your company, with no connection to your trademark rights. See Renewing a China Trademark for the trademark calendar.

Federal systems need a specific answer. In the United States, Canada, India and the European Union, whether a current-state extract exists depends on your particular state, province or member state. Most US states issue a Certificate of Good Standing on request, which is exactly what is wanted; if your state issues only an incorporation record and nothing describing the company today, we will ask for a good-standing certificate separately. The same applies to an EU company registered in a member state whose extract is historical rather than current.

What to prepare before you start

If you want the shortest possible version of this article:

Your registration document, as a clean scan. One look tells us whether a current-state filing is needed.
Nothing notarised, unless you are in the Middle East, North Africa or Türkiye.
The exact words, and the logo file if there is one.
Any prior Chinese filings, under whatever Chinese name you used.
Your company name exactly as the registry has it.

The Power of Attorney comes later, and we send it to you.

That is the whole file. Everything else is our work, not yours.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to notarise my company documents for a China trademark application?

No, for applicants from the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Australia, Canada, India, Russia and Hong Kong, China. Notarisation is required for the Middle East and North Africa group, and Türkiye requires an apostille. It is also a separate requirement for collective marks and certification marks.

Is a Certificate of Incorporation enough, or do I need something else?

It depends on the registry. Where the registry issues an extract describing the company as it currently stands — Germany, France, Japan, Korea, Australia, Macao, China and Taiwan, China, and most US states — the registration document alone is enough. Where it issues only a historical incorporation certificate — the United Kingdom and Hong Kong, China — send an annually updated filing alongside it: a confirmation statement (CS01) for the UK, an annual return (NAR1) for Hong Kong, China.

Does the Power of Attorney have to be an original, and does it have to be notarised?

For an online filing, a colour scan of the original is uploaded and that is sufficient; the paper original need not be posted. Notarisation is not required for the markets listed above. Article 5.2 of the Guidelines requires the document to state the scope of authorisation and, for a foreign applicant, the principal's nationality.

Is a Chinese name for my trademark required?

No. You register the sign you give us, and no Chinese name or translation of the mark is required from you. Registering a separate Chinese version of your brand is often sound, because that is the form customers in China will speak and search, but it is a separate filing decision rather than a requirement of your application.

Do I need to supply a logo file?

Only if your mark is graphical. A plain word mark needs no image at all — the words are typed into the application and constitute the mark. A logo, device or composite mark does require an image, and whatever you submit becomes the registered representation of the mark, so send the version you intend to own.

Why is the annual return requirement only mentioned for some countries?

Because the Guidelines do not list countries. Article 5.1.1.3 requires submitted documents to be within their stated validity period, and the question is simply whether your registration document describes your company as it exists today. Where it does, nothing further is needed. Where it does not, an annually updated filing is the document that does.

What happens if my documents are wrong or missing?

You receive a correction notice with a thirty-day period to respond. If the correction is made properly within that period the original application date is preserved — which is why a correction is recoverable, but also why it costs weeks. If the defect is not corrected, the application is not accepted. Putting the file together correctly the first time is faster than fixing it.