The advice on this site is to leave jade alone unless you know the market, and nothing below changes it. The mark-ups in tourist-facing jade shops are the largest in Chinese retail, and no document protects you from paying five times what a thing is worth.
But "you cannot tell what it is" and "you cannot tell what it is worth" are two different claims, and only the second one is true. What the stone is has been settled by a national standard for decades, and a legitimate piece comes with a certificate that answers it in one line.
The standard that names the stone#
GB/T 16552, Gems — Nomenclature, is the national standard that governs what a piece of jewellery may be called. The current edition was published on 14 October 2017 and has been in force since 1 May 2018, replacing the 2010 edition. A companion standard, GB/T 16553, covers how the testing is done.
The point of it is narrow and useful: it stops a shop calling something by a flattering name. Vague labels like 玉 (yù, jade) or 宝石 (bǎoshí, gemstone) on a certificate are a warning sign precisely because the standard requires a specific name instead.
The five verdicts#
For 翡翠 (fěicuì, jadeite) — the green stone almost every tourist means by "jade" — a laboratory's conclusion is one of five, and they are not shades of the same thing:
| Conclusion | What it means |
|---|---|
| 天然翡翠 (tiānrán fěicuì) | Natural. Nothing done to it but cutting and polishing |
| 翡翠（处理） (fěicuì chǔlǐ) | Treated — dyed, bleached, filled or coated |
| 拼合翡翠 (pīnhé fěicuì) | Assembled from two or more pieces |
| 合成翡翠 (héchéng fěicuì) | Synthetic — man-made, chemically similar |
| 仿翡翠 (fǎng fěicuì) | Imitation, which may simply be glass |
The word doing the work is 处理 (chǔlǐ, treatment). A stone that has been worked on cannot be sold under the plain name; the treatment has to appear in the name itself. That single rule is why the certificate is worth reading rather than pocketing.
The trade's A, B and C grades say the same thing#
The trade uses its own vocabulary, and you will hear it in any market. It maps onto the standard exactly:
- A货 (A huò) — untreated, which is the standard's natural jadeite.
- B货 (B huò) — bleached, waxed or filled.
- C货 (C huò) — dyed.
- B+C货 — both.
A seller who says "A货" and hands you a certificate reading treated has told you two contradictory things, and the certificate is the one that means something. Note also that the slang is a scale of processing, not of quality: an A-grade stone can be poor jadeite, and nothing in the letter tells you how good the material is.
The two boxes to look at#
Certificates are dense and mostly in Chinese, and you only need two fields.
检验结论 (jiǎnyàn jiélùn, conclusion) — one of the five verdicts above.
备注 (bèizhù, remarks) — where the treatment method is written out when there is one. Market regulators specifically tell consumers to read this box and look for the words for treatment, dyeing and filling.
Everything else on the sheet — weight, refractive index, density — is the laboratory showing its work.
The certificate can be fake, and there is a lookup#
This is the part almost no English-language guidance mentions, and it is the one that turns the whole thing from advice into a check you can actually perform.
A testing body issuing reports to the public must hold CMA accreditation from the market regulator, and the mark belongs on the report. Regulators have published enforcement cases against traders who forged exactly that mark with image-editing software, so the mark alone is not proof.
What is verifiable is the report number. China's certification regulator runs a report-number lookup covering inspection reports issued since 2016; entering a number returns the name and address of the institution that issued it, its accreditation certificate and the date the report was written. It is reachable from the market regulator's own site under its public services, and from the certification regulator's site. A number that returns nothing, or returns a different laboratory from the one printed on the paper, is the answer.
Two smaller checks that cost nothing: a certificate should carry the issuing body's name, address, seal and a unique report number, and a handwritten one is worth nothing at all.
What none of this tells you#
Here is the honest limit, and it is why the rest of the site's advice stands unchanged.
The standard governs identity, not value. A certificate reading natural jadeite confirms the stone is untreated jadeite. It says nothing about colour, translucency, workmanship or price, and those are where the money is. You can hold a genuine certificate for a genuine stone and still have paid four times a fair price.
So the certificate answers the question "am I being lied to about the material?" and the bargaining and mark-up problem is a separate question that it leaves entirely untouched. That is also why buying at a stop arranged by a guide remains the worst way to do it — the structural commission there is not something any document fixes.
Gold and silver have their own standard#
Precious metal is governed separately by GB 11887, a mandatory standard on the fineness of precious-metal alloys and how they must be designated, in force since 1 May 2013. So the same principle applies one shelf over: what a gold or silver piece may be called is fixed by standard rather than by the counter, and a laboratory report on it is verifiable the same way.
If it goes wrong#
- Ask for the certificate before you pay, not after. A shop that produces one only on request, or not at all, has answered you.
- Photograph the certificate and the receipt together. You will want the report number later and it is easier to read on a phone than in a shop.
- Re-test it. Accredited laboratories test walk-in items; a piece bought as natural and returning treated is a documented misdescription rather than a difference of opinion.
- Complain to the market regulator on 12315, the consumer line, which is the body that accredits the laboratories in the first place.
- Keep the paperwork if you are claiming the tax rebate, since a jade purchase large enough to be worth refunding is exactly the size where the certificate matters most.
Frequently asked questions#
Is jade sold in China real?#
Often, but "real" is the wrong question. National standard GB/T 16552 requires a laboratory conclusion naming the piece as natural, treated, assembled, synthetic or imitation, so the answer is printed on the certificate rather than left to judgement. Treated jadeite is legally sold — it simply may not be sold as natural.
What does A货 mean for Chinese jade?#
It is trade slang for untreated jadeite, matching the standard's natural jadeite conclusion. B货 has been bleached, waxed or filled, C货 has been dyed, and B+C货 both. The letters describe processing, not quality, so an untreated stone can still be poor material.
How do I check a Chinese jade certificate is genuine?#
Use the report number. China's certification regulator runs a lookup covering reports issued since 2016 that returns the issuing laboratory's name, address, accreditation and the date. Check that against the paper in your hand, and treat a handwritten certificate or one with no report number as worthless.
Does a jade certificate mean I paid a fair price?#
No, and this is the trap. The standard fixes the name of the material and nothing else — not colour, quality or value. A genuine certificate on a genuine stone is entirely compatible with a tourist mark-up, which is why the advice to avoid buying jade on a guided shopping stop still applies.
Should I buy jade in China at all?#
Only if you already know the market or you are buying something inexpensive that you simply like. The certificate protects you from being lied to about the material; it does not protect you from the price, and pricing is where jade separates visitors from their money.