How to Host a Website in China
Hosting a website for users in mainland China requires regulatory approval before it serves a single page. An Internet Content Provider (ICP) number is issued at the provincial level, and without it, China-based hosting providers are instructed to shut a site down, often without notice. Under the Telecommunications Regulations of the People’s Republic of China, introduced in September 2000, every public website operating on a mainland server, or delivered to mainland visitors through a CDN, must hold one, according to Cloudflare’s China Network documentation.
Below is the practical path: which credential you need, which providers can host you, what CDN acceleration delivers, and where the performance effort is focused.
Key Takeaways:
- An ICP number is required for any site hosted on a mainland server or delivered to mainland visitors through a CDN.
- ICP filing (备案) covers informational sites; an ICP license (许可证) is required to sell goods or services.
- Filing takes 1 to 2 months, a commercial license 2 to 3 months, and foreign ownership is capped below 50% for license applicants.
- Domestic CDNs (Alibaba Cloud, Tencent Cloud) have the largest node counts inside China; global CDNs need a mainland partner and an ICP number.
- Target load time is under 3 seconds; blocked third-party resources are a common cause of failure.
ICP Filing vs ICP License: Which One You Need
Two credentials share the ICP name, and the choice depends on what the site does. Cloudflare’s documentation draws the line: an ICP filing, known in Chinese as Bei’An (备案), is the first level of registration and allows a site to be hosted on a mainland server or CDN for informational purposes only. An ICP license, or ICP Zheng (许可证), is required for any online platform or third-party seller that sells goods and services.
The eligibility rules differ sharply, and this is where most Western companies encounter difficulties. A filing is open to a representative office, a wholly foreign-owned enterprise (WFOE), a joint venture, a local company, or even an individual. A license is restricted to a local Chinese company or a joint venture in which foreign ownership is below 50%. A 100% foreign-owned entity cannot obtain the commercial license, a point EC Innovations also makes in its China launch checklist.
If you only need a marketing or corporate-information site, a filing is sufficient and the process is shorter. If you process payments or transact directly, plan the entity structure accordingly, because the ownership cap cannot be changed later. A company applying for an ICP license must already hold an ICP filing, so the license is an upgrade rather than a parallel track.
There is a second distinction worth understanding. Global From Asia separates the “brochure” credential, which lets a business display its products and services but not run comments or user-generated content, from the user-generated-content license, which only Chinese companies can obtain. If your site has forums, reviews, or any public interaction, that changes the credential you need.
Application Process, Timeline, and Cost
The application runs through your hosting or cloud provider, which registers the ICP number on your behalf. You supply documents and the provider files with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT). For commercial companies, the required documents are a copy of the business license and the organization code certificate. Individuals submit an application form, a copy of their ID, website authentication forms, and a domain certificate.
Timelines, drawn from Cloudflare’s documentation, are 1 to 2 months for an ICP filing and 2 to 3 months for an ICP license, with final approval typically taking 4 to 8 weeks depending on site type and province. EC Innovations reports a shorter window for informational filings, at 2 to 4 weeks, and confirms the commercial license application at 60 to 90 days. The variance reflects provincial processing speed and documentation completeness; incomplete or inconsistent paperwork is the most common cause of delay.
On cost, the regulatory fee itself is free. Registration with MIIT carries no charge. Your provider may charge a processing fee on top, and if you need legal support to establish the Chinese entity first, that is a separate and larger expense. Ask your provider for the processing fee schedule before committing.
| Credential | Purpose | Eligibility | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|
| ICP filing (备案) | Informational, non-transactional site | Representative office, WFOE, joint venture, local company, individuals | 1 to 2 months (Cloudflare); 2 to 4 weeks (EC Innovations) |
| ICP license (许可证) | Selling goods or services | Local company, or joint venture with foreign ownership below 50% | 2 to 3 months (Cloudflare); 60 to 90 days (EC Innovations) |
Once approved, the ICP number must appear in your site’s footer. Websites sharing an apex domain can display the same number.
Approved Hosting Providers and the Hong Kong Fallback
An ICP can only be filed through a mainland-approved hosting provider. Foreign infrastructure disqualifies the application, so the provider choice and the filing are connected. The main domestic providers are Alibaba Cloud (阿里云), Tencent Cloud (腾讯云), Baidu Cloud, and Huawei Cloud, each offering filing guidance in its console. Western firms without a local presence typically establish a WFOE or work through a local partner.
If you cannot or will not set up a Chinese entity, Hong Kong hosting is the common fallback. It requires no ICP and deploys faster, but it does not match mainland speeds or Baidu rankings. Global From Asia notes that a site on a shared IP can be blocked because of what other tenants host, and offshore hosting accepts that latency and reliability risk in exchange for avoiding the filing. The choice between the two depends on whether you prefer speed or regulatory simplicity.
CDN Options and What They Deliver
A China-optimized CDN is the second half of the performance challenge. Alibaba Cloud CDN reports more than 3,200 nodes worldwide across over 70 countries and regions, with total bandwidth exceeding 180 Tbps, and supports HTTP/3 over QUIC, per Alibaba Cloud’s CDN product page. Tencent Cloud CDN states it operates 2,300 cache nodes across mainland China deployed with China Mobile, China Unicom, China Telecom, and smaller ISPs, plus 900 nodes in more than 70 countries, with combined bandwidth over 400 Tbps, per Tencent Cloud’s CDN page. Both figures come from the vendors’ own product pages and are not independently benchmarked.
The practical difference is coverage inside the firewall and peering with all three state carriers. Alibaba Cloud CDN integrates with OSS for origin storage and reports cache hit ratios above 95% for media workloads. Tencent’s strength is media and gaming delivery and integration with the WeChat ecosystem, so Tencent Cloud is the lower-friction choice if your China presence runs on WeChat mini-programs. Huawei Cloud CDN is the third domestic option, based on Huawei’s telecommunications network reach.
International CDNs work through local partners. Cloudflare’s China Network runs on data centers operated by JD Cloud and requires a valid ICP filing or license for each apex domain you onboard. It is sold as a separate subscription on the Enterprise plan, and not every Cloudflare product is available inside it. IPv6 is mandatory for all internet-facing services in mainland China, and Cloudflare enables it automatically. EC Innovations also lists AWS CloudFront, Azure CDN, and KeyCDN as options for international sites, with the caveat that mainland points of presence still require the ICP number.
| CDN | Mainland presence (vendor-stated) | ICP number required |
|---|---|---|
| Alibaba Cloud CDN | 3,200+ nodes worldwide, 70+ countries, 180+ Tbps | Yes |
| Tencent Cloud CDN | 2,300 cache nodes in China, 900 nodes abroad, 400 Tbps | Yes |
| Cloudflare China Network | Data centers in China operated by JD Cloud | Yes, per apex domain |
Mainland CDN delivery requires an ICP number, so a CDN complements the filing rather than replaces it. It speeds up a site that is already authorized to host.
Performance Optimization Inside the Firewall
Performance work in China starts with removing dependencies that fail. Google services, Facebook plugins, YouTube embeds, and many Western CDNs and cloud services are blocked or unreliable, and each one your page loads adds a failed request. EC Innovations recommends replacing Google Maps with Baidu Maps or Amap, hosting fonts locally instead of using Google Fonts, swapping Google Analytics for Baidu Tongji, and replacing YouTube embeds with Youku, Tencent Video, or Bilibili. reCAPTCHA should be replaced with a local CAPTCHA or SMS verification.
Mobile is the baseline, not a nice-to-have. EC Innovations cites China’s 1.123 billion internet users, of whom 99.4% access the web primarily through mobile devices. The average user abandons a page that takes longer than 5 seconds to load, and the target should be under 3 seconds.
Latency has structural causes. Limited peering between China’s three major ISPs and international networks creates congestion, the firewall’s inspection adds processing delay, and geographic distance compounds both. Test from multiple Chinese cities and on more than one mobile network rather than relying on a single measurement.
For Baidu visibility, local hosting and a .cn domain both help. Simplified Chinese is effectively required: EC Innovations reports that over 83% of Baidu’s top-ranking pages use Simplified Chinese. Registering both a .cn for the China site and a .com for international audiences is the common pattern, since it lets you run separate infrastructure and compliance approaches for each. For a detailed explanation of how traffic is filtered initially, see our analysis of how the Great Firewall works.
Compliance Does Not End at Filing
If the site collects personal data, the Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL) and Data Security Law apply on top of the ICP regime. EC Innovations notes that personal data collected from Chinese users is expected to be stored on servers within China. An ICP number makes your site legal to host; it does not ensure your data handling complies with regulations. For the transfer mechanisms and thresholds, see our guide to China’s cross-border data rules.
This affects the hosting decision. A site that stores Chinese users’ personal data on an offshore origin, even one accelerated by a mainland CDN, creates a data-residency problem separate from the filing. The recommended setup is a mainland origin with local storage, a domestic CDN in front of it, and any cross-border data movement handled through an approved mechanism. Our guide to cloud storage in China explains how the major providers organize that.
A Checklist for Launching
- Confirm whether the site is informational (filing) or transactional (license), and confirm your entity structure meets the ownership rule for the license.
- Select a mainland provider and start the filing through its console.
- Expect 4 to 8 weeks for filing, 2 to 3 months for the license, and budget for the provider’s processing fee.
- Display the ICP number in the footer once approved.
- Enable a mainland CDN and integrate it with your origin storage.
- Replace every blocked third-party resource with a domestic equivalent.
- Host fonts and critical assets locally.
- Test load time from multiple Chinese cities and ISPs, targeting under 3 seconds.
- Document where Chinese users’ personal data is stored and how it is transferred.
The order of steps is important. Entity structure determines which credential you can obtain, the credential determines which provider can host you, and the CDN builds on both. Companies that reverse that order often have to rebuild their China setup after launch.
Related Reading
More in-depth coverage from this blog on closely related topics:
Sources and References
Sources cited while researching and writing this article:
Victor Zhao
Cross-border business consultant with deep expertise in China's technology landscape and regulatory environment.