Every market has barriers that make trading harder than it needs to be. China trade barriers are a mix of taxes, quotas, licences, standards, subsidies, and currency management, and they fall into two categories: tariff barriers (TBs), meaning taxes, duties, and fees on a class of imports or exports, and non-tariff barriers (NTBs), meaning everything else: policies, regulations, licensing, and administrative requirements.
China trade barriers are among the most extensively used in the world, which the government justifies as protecting an economy still in transition. What has changed in China trade barriers since the mid-2010s is direction. China’s import barriers on manufactured goods have mostly come down. Its export-side controls, on rare earths, metals, and technology, have gone up. And the barriers that matter most to a company sourcing from China are increasingly the ones its own government imposes on Chinese goods.
China Trade Barriers: Tariffs
A tariff is a tax on a class of imports or exports. After decades of mutual reduction, tariffs on Chinese goods have been rising again since 2018, first through US Section 301 duties, then through the EU’s countervailing duties on Chinese electric vehicles in 2024, and since 2025 through a further layer of US tariffs that has been adjusted repeatedly. As of November 2025 the US fentanyl-related tariff on Chinese goods was cut to 10% and reciprocal tariffs were suspended until 10 November 2026; the Section 301 duties remain. Any importer of Chinese goods needs to research the current rate for their product before pricing it, because the rate can change between order and delivery.
China’s own import tariffs run from zero to over 100%, with the highest rates on cars and luxury goods; the MFN tariff on passenger cars has been 15% since 2018, before additional duties on specific countries. Three charges apply to imports into China: customs duty, VAT (13% on most goods), and, on a defined list of products such as alcohol, tobacco, cosmetics, and jewellery, a consumption tax. The 2026 Tariff Adjustment Plan sets provisional import rates below MFN on 935 tariff lines, mainly advanced components, materials, and medical products, and the full schedule now runs to 8,972 tariff lines (Customs Tariff Commission Announcement 2025 No. 11).
High taxes on imports are the most obvious way to restrict the influx of goods.
China Trade Barriers: Non-Tariff Measures
China’s import quotas on manufactured goods were phased out after WTO accession. What remains is tariff-rate quotas on a short agricultural list, wheat, corn, rice, cotton, sugar, wool, and fertiliser, administered annually by the NDRC and MOFCOM. Within the quota, duty on these goods is now zero; above it, the full tariff applies.
China trade barriers of the quantitative kind now run mainly on exports. Since April 2025 seven medium and heavy rare earths require an export licence under the Export Control Law. In October 2025 MOFCOM extended controls to rare-earth technology and to foreign-made products containing Chinese rare earths (Announcements 2025 No. 57, 61, and 62), then suspended those October measures on 7 November 2025 until 10 November 2026. Steel export licensing was reinstated in January 2026. Mining and smelting volumes for rare earths remain set by annual production quotas from MIIT.
Import licensing in China is narrow and has been since 2005: it covers ozone-depleting substances, hydrofluorocarbons, and a defined list of key mechanical and electronic technology. The other non-tariff barriers a buyer meets are certification, labelling, and registration: CCC certification for electrical goods, mandatory Chinese-language labelling, and, for food, overseas manufacturer registration with China Customs under Decree 248. Other countries impose barriers on Chinese goods in return; the United States no longer uses textile quotas, which ended in 2008, but applies tariffs and, on some products, forced-labour import bans.
Anti-Dumping Duties
Anti-dumping duties are the China trade barriers most often applied by other countries. They are a safeguard permitted by the WTO against imports sold below their home-market price to the detriment of a domestic industry. Dozens of anti-dumping and countervailing measures are in force against Chinese goods in the EU, the United States, India, and elsewhere; steel, aluminium, chemicals, and solar products are long-standing examples, and the EU’s 2024 countervailing duties on Chinese electric vehicles are the most prominent recent one. Duties typically run for five years and are renewable on review, so a product category can carry them for a decade or more.
For a buyer, the practical point is that an anti-dumping duty applies to the product regardless of who imports it. If your product falls in a category under investigation, the duty can be imposed retroactively on goods already in transit. Check the current measure lists in your destination market before committing to a category.
Voluntary Export Restraints
A voluntary export restraint is a limit a government places on its own exports of a category of goods to a particular country, usually under pressure and usually to head off a harsher measure the importing country would otherwise impose. They were common in the 1980s and are rare now, but the mechanism survives in managed-trade arrangements negotiated between governments.
Subsidies as China Trade Barriers
Subsidies are the least visible of China trade barriers. They reduce a domestic producer’s costs, and foreign firms competing in the same market on price cannot match them. Chinese manufacturers benefit from a range of support: reduced corporate tax in special economic zones and high-tech designations, VAT rebates on exports, direct grants, and discounted land and utilities. Export VAT rebates are the one most relevant to a buyer, because they are built into the price a factory quotes and they change: a rebate cut on a product category raises the export price overnight.
The older incentives for foreign-owned exporters, such as the corporate tax reduction for companies exporting over 70% of output, ended in 2008. Subsidies to domestic industry have not; they are the basis of the countervailing-duty cases the EU and US now bring against Chinese products.
China Trade Barriers: Exchange Rate and Capital Controls
China manages the yuan exchange rate against a basket of currencies rather than letting it float, and controls the movement of capital in and out of the country. For a buyer the effect is on pricing: a factory that quotes in US dollars carries the exchange risk and prices it in, and a factory that quotes in yuan passes it to you. Which you prefer depends on where you think the currency is going.
Restrictions on foreign investment have largely been lifted. The 2024 edition of the Negative List for foreign investment, effective 1 November 2024, removed every remaining restriction in manufacturing, so a foreign company can now own a Chinese factory outright. The 29 restrictions that remain are in services: telecoms, media, education, and a few others.
What China Trade Barriers Mean When Sourcing
The China trade barriers that determine what your product costs to land are now mostly outside China: tariffs and anti-dumping duties in your own market. The China trade barriers that determine whether you can get it made on time are inside China: export licensing on inputs your factory needs, and VAT rebate changes that move the quote. Both change with the political weather, and both need checking at the time you place an order, not when you first researched the product. Managing that exposure, from choosing where a product is assembled to structuring the contract, is part of what our product sourcing service does.
