Buying from China when you are not in the UK

Half of the work does not change at all

Most of what makes a China order succeed or fail happens before anything moves, and none of it depends on where you are. Whether the supplier is a factory or a trading company, whether the specification is written in measurements or in adjectives, whether the samples were approved and kept, whether the goods were inspected before they were paid for, and whether the payment terms leave you exposed: those questions have the same answers for a buyer in Cairo as for one in Cambridge.

So the guides on this site that deal with that half apply to you unchanged. Start with factory versus trading company, writing a product spec, minimum orders and sampling, quality inspection, paying Chinese suppliers and avoiding sourcing scams. Nothing in them is UK-specific.

The Incoterms guide matters more to you than to a UK buyer, not less, because the term you agree decides exactly where our responsibility ends and yours begins. Read it before you ask anyone for a price, so that the prices you collect are comparable.

The other half changes completely, and our tools will not help you

Everything downstream of the ship is national. Your duty rate, your import taxes, which standards apply, what documents your customs authority wants and whether the goods may enter at all are set by your country, and no two are alike.

That is why the calculators on this site carry a UK label rather than a global one. The duty calculator reads the UK Trade Tariff, the compliance finder lists UK regimes such as UKCA and WEEE, and the anti-dumping checker looks up UK measures. If you are importing somewhere else, those numbers are not merely approximate for you, they are the wrong numbers. Use them for what they are: a worked example of how a landed cost is built up, not a figure for your own order.

For your own figures you need two things we cannot be: your national tariff, and a customs broker licensed in your country. Get the broker involved before you order rather than after the goods arrive, because most of what they can help with has a deadline that falls before shipping.

The thing that has to be done in China, before the goods leave

This is the rule that surprises people, and it is the reason a first shipment gets stuck. A large number of countries do not inspect imports at their own border alone. They require that the goods, the shipment or the factory be certified or registered in the country of export first, and the certificate travels with the consignment as a clearance document. If it was not obtained before the goods sailed, the goods arrive without it, and the problem is no longer a paperwork problem.

It also changes what you are buying. Where the requirement attaches to the factory rather than to the product, your choice of supplier is constrained before price is discussed at all: a cheaper factory that is not on the register cannot ship to you commercially, whatever it quotes. That is a sourcing decision, and it is the main reason to have someone working on your behalf at the China end.

Four examples of the pattern are below. They differ in what the certificate attaches to, which is the detail that decides how early you have to act. None of this is advice on your own import law, and the schemes change; confirm the current scope with the authority itself or with your broker before you rely on it.

Egypt is worked through in detail, including its factory register and the ACID number that has to reach the exporter's documents before the vessel sails, in the guide to importing from China to Egypt.

Saudi Arabia is the instructive contrast, because it runs on the opposite principle: the certificates belong to the importer rather than the factory, so supplier choice stays open. It is worked through in the guide to importing from China to Saudi Arabia.

The United Arab Emirates adds a third pattern: the certificate sits with the importer as in Saudi Arabia, but only a UAE-licensed entity may apply for one, so the first question is who the importer of record will be. It is worked through in the guide to importing from China to the UAE.

Nigeria is a fourth pattern again, and the most demanding of the China end: the upstream Product Certificate belongs to the exporter and is what allows the importer's Form M to be opened, so the chain runs through China first. It is worked through in the guide to importing from China to Nigeria.

Turkey is the exception that proves the rule: nothing has to be certified in China, because the control happens at import through a risk-based system, and the technical bar is CE compliance by way of the EU customs union. It is worked through in the guide to importing from China to Turkey.

South Africa is the market where the timeline, not the paperwork, is the obstacle: a Letter of Authority must exist before importation and NRCS states evaluation takes up to 120 working days. It is worked through in the guide to importing from China to South Africa.

Algeria is gated by a bank rather than a regulator: the import is domiciled at least 30 days before shipment with the money provisioned, so the commercial terms freeze a month early. It is worked through in the guide to importing from China to Algeria.

Kenya runs a comparable scheme to Nigeria's but publishes an arrival-end remedy Nigeria does not have, which turns a cliff into a cost. It is worked through in the guide to importing from China to Kenya.

Morocco is the only market here that lets the buyer choose the control point, inspecting in the dispatch country or certifying at the Moroccan border instead. It is worked through in the guide to importing from China to Morocco.

Ghana is the case for checking a widely repeated claim against the regulator itself: the pre-export certificate most guides describe could not be verified, while the Standards Authority publishes conformity assessment at the point of entry. It is worked through in the guide to importing from China to Ghana.

Ethiopia is gated by the bank like Algeria, and its rules move fastest of all: the national bank's own listing shows the foreign exchange directive amended twice in 2026. It is worked through in the guide to importing from China to Ethiopia.

Kazakhstan is the one market where conformity scales across five countries at once, and the one where a UK party's own sanctions obligations have to be settled before the sourcing question. It is worked through in the guide to importing from China to Kazakhstan.

Mexico is the market gated by the tax authority: whether a buyer can import at all turns on their tax registration, electronic signature and tax mailbox rather than on the goods. It is worked through in the guide to importing from China to Mexico.

Indonesia is the market where the penalty turns on the declaration rather than on the goods: declare a restricted item honestly and you can re-export it, fail to declare it and the state keeps it. It is worked through in the guide to importing from China to Indonesia.

Bangladesh is the case for checking the date on official guidance: its trade portal's procedure pages still cite an Import Policy Order that expired in 2018, while the Ministry of Commerce lists one issued in August 2026. It is worked through in the guide to importing from China to Bangladesh.

Tanzania puts the certificate duty on the exporter and appoints only two inspection firms, neither Chinese, where Kenya appoints six including a Chinese body. It is worked through in the guide to importing from China to Tanzania.

Peru sorts imports by value before anything else, at a threshold measured on the goods alone rather than on the landed total, which is easy to get backwards. It is worked through in the guide to importing from China to Peru.

Money moves differently too

Paying a Chinese supplier from outside the UK can be straightforward or can be the hardest part of the order, and which one it is has little to do with the supplier. Some countries operate foreign-exchange controls, restrict what may be paid in advance, or require imports above a threshold to be settled by letter of credit through a local bank.

Find that out from your own bank before you agree terms, not after. A supplier who has agreed a deposit and a balance against copy documents will not necessarily accept a letter of credit instead, and the letter of credit has its own cost and its own paperwork discipline: the bank pays against documents that match, not against goods that are right. Our payment guide covers the mechanics of each method.

Build the exchange-rate exposure into the price too. Most China trade is quoted in US dollars, so if you sell in a currency that moves against the dollar, your cost is not fixed on the day you order. On a long production cycle that is a real exposure rather than a rounding error.

What we can actually do for you, and what we cannot

Our depth is the United Kingdom, and we say so rather than claiming a global specialism we do not have. The UK guides and tools on this site exist because we work that market daily, and we have not built the same depth for every country we can ship to.

What we do anywhere is the China half: finding and vetting the factory, checking it against a registration requirement such as the ones above where one applies, negotiating, sampling, inspecting before payment, and getting the goods packed and loaded. For a buyer outside the UK we can always quote a price to your own destination port, and ex-works or a price to a Chinese port is there instead if your own freight forwarder is handling the sea leg. Door-to-door delivery with a landed price is available for some destinations and not for others; ask, and we will tell you plainly which one yours is rather than quoting first and discovering later.

What we do not do is advise on your country's import law or act as your customs broker. Where a scheme requires a certificate to be issued in China, we can work with the factory and the appointed inspection agent to get it done before the goods ship, which is the part that has to happen at our end. The clearance at your end is yours, and it goes better with a local broker appointed early. If that division of labour suits you, tell us what you need and say which country the goods are going to in the first message, because it changes the answer to almost everything else.

Every country we ship to is listed on the destination countries page, which says for each one whether we have read its import regime from a primary source or not. The honest half of that list is the larger half, and it is marked as such.