Parcels turn up on this site in passing and never as a subject. The blind box page quotes a rule barring the sale of express items that can be neither delivered nor returned. The shipping guide tells you to fill in a customs declaration accurately. The food delivery guide notes that a hotel desk usually takes the handover.
Each of those is a consequence of one regime, and the regime is worth knowing before you use it — because in China both ends of a parcel are regulated far more closely than a visitor expects.
The instrument, and it changed in 2025#
The framework is the 快递暂行条例 (kuàidì zàntíng tiáolì, Interim Regulations on Express Delivery), issued as State Council Order No. 697 in March 2018 and in force from 1 May 2018. It has been amended twice: once in 2019, and again by State Council Order No. 806 of 13 April 2025, in force from 1 June 2025.
The 2025 amendment inserted a new principle article near the front and added an entire sixth chapter, 快递包装 (express packaging), running from Article 37 to Article 45. The new article went in as Article 3, so everything from the old Article 3 onwards moved down. Any citation of this regulation by article number written before June 2025 is now out by at least one — the delivery obligation that used to be Article 25 is Article 26. The numbers on this page are those of the consolidated text as amended.
Sitting under it is the 快递市场管理办法 (Measures for the Administration of the Express Delivery Market), Ministry of Transport Order No. 22 of 2023, adopted 8 December 2023 and in force since 1 March 2024. That is where the rules a customer actually meets are written.
The scale is worth one line, from the departments' own explanation of the 2025 amendment: 2024年业务量达1750亿件 — 175 billion parcels in 2024 — and 已连续11年位居世界第一, eleventh consecutive year first in the world.
Handing a parcel over: two checks, and either one can stop you#
One thing the texts read here do not settle: which identity document satisfies the check for a foreign visitor. The rule says identity is verified and registered; it does not enumerate documents. Treat what a particular counter accepts as a practical question rather than one the regulation answers.
What may not go in the box#
The prohibited-items regime is separate again: the 禁止寄递物品管理规定 (jìnzhǐ jìdì wùpǐn guǎnlǐ guīdìng, Provisions on the Administration of Items Prohibited from Delivery), issued jointly by the State Post Bureau, the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of State Security as document 国邮发〔2016〕107号, dated 7 November 2016.
Its Article 3 defines prohibited items in three limbs — things endangering national security or public order, things dangerous to carriage (explosive, flammable, corrosive, toxic, infectious, radioactive), and anything else prohibited by law. Article 5 is the user's obligation, and its third clause is the one that matters:
用户交寄邮件、快件应当遵守法律、行政法规以及国务院和国务院有关部门关于禁寄物品的规定，不得交寄禁寄物品，不得在邮件、快件内夹带禁寄物品，不得将禁寄物品匿报或者谎报为其他物品交寄。
You may not send a prohibited item, may not conceal one inside another consignment, and may not misdescribe one as something else. The last limb is why the contents check is not a formality: describing a thing wrongly is itself the breach.
The guidance catalogue attached to the rule runs to nineteen top-level categories. Most are the expected dangerous goods, but four are worth a traveller's attention because they are not: illegal publications, printed matter and audiovisual material; counterfeit and intellectual-property-infringing goods; endangered wildlife and products made from it; and items prohibited from entering or leaving the country. That last category is the one that makes posting a poor route around an export rule — the point the shipping guide already makes about antiques and outbound mail.
Receiving one: the delivery is to you, not to a cupboard#
Article 26 of the regulation sets the default:
经营快递业务的企业应当将快件投递到约定的收件地址、收件人或者收件人指定的代收人，并告知收件人或者代收人当面验收。收件人或者代收人有权当面验收。
Delivery is to the agreed address, the recipient, or an agent the recipient designates; the company must tell them to inspect it in person, and they have the right to do so.
That designated-agent limb is the legal basis for the arrangement a visitor usually ends up using. A hotel front desk holding your parcel is not a workaround — it is a person the article names.
Delay, loss and damage: the split that decides what you get#
When nobody can be found#
Article 27 handles the parcel that cannot be delivered. It goes back to the sender, or is dealt with as the sender directs; cross-border items go through customs and inspection formalities. And then the limb that this site has already quoted from the other side:
快件无法投递又无法退回的，依照下列规定处理：（一）属于信件，自确认无法退回之日起超过6个月无人认领的，由经营快递业务的企业在所在地邮政管理部门的监督下销毁；（二）属于信件以外其他快件的，经营快递业务的企业应当登记，并按照国务院邮政管理部门的规定处理；（三）属于进境快件的，交由海关依法处理。
A letter that has been unclaimed for more than six months from the day it was confirmed unreturnable is destroyed by the company under the supervision of the local postal administration. Anything else is registered and handled as the postal authority directs, and an inbound cross-border item goes to customs.
That is the pipeline behind the rule that undeliverable express parcels may not be sold as blind boxes: the regulation already says where they go, and it is not into a mystery box.
The 2025 chapter nobody outside the trade noticed#
The new Chapter VI opens at Article 37:
快递包装应当符合寄递生产作业的要求，节约使用资源，避免过度包装，防止污染环境。
Packaging must suit the operation, use resources sparingly, avoid excessive packaging and prevent environmental pollution.
The departments' joint explanation of the amendment describes the chapter as covering design, production, use, recovery and disposal together. It quotes the duty on operators as 优化快递包装方式和包装结构设计，节约使用包装物 — optimising packaging method and structural design and economising on materials, while keeping the parcel safe — and names two directions of travel: reporting on the use and recovery of 一次性塑料制品, single-use plastics, and promoting 商品原装直发，减少寄递环节的二次包装, shipping goods in their original packaging so that a second layer is not added in transit.
Where a standard is written for any of this, whether it is a GB or a GB/T decides whether it binds, exactly as elsewhere in Chinese product regulation. As a visitor you will meet the chapter as a change in the boxes rather than as a rule you obey.
In practice#
- Take identity to the counter. Real-name posting is not a policy of one operator; it is a rule the company breaks if it accepts your parcel without it.
- Do not seal the box before you arrive. The contents are inspected and marked, and refusing inspection means the parcel is not accepted at all.
- Describe the contents accurately. A mismatch between what you said and what the inspection finds is a ground for refusal, and misdescribing a prohibited item is a breach in its own right.
- Posting is not a route around an export restriction. Items barred from leaving the country are one of the nineteen prohibited categories — the antiques and wildlife rules are the ones that catch visitors.
- Nominate the hotel desk deliberately. The regulation lets you designate an agent to receive and inspect, which is exactly what a front desk is doing.
- Declare a value if the contents matter. It moves you from a general-law claim to a contractual one, and you are told the rules before you fill in the waybill.
- You do not have to accept a locker. Consent is required by two separate instruments, and delivering without it is a finable breach — unless the sender chose the locker as the address.
- Hong Kong and Macau are outside all of this. Both are separate customs territories with their own legal systems, so none of the instruments above governs a parcel sent within or from either — which is the same architecture that puts them outside every other national rule on this site.
Checked for newer, and what I could not read#
The 快递暂行条例 was read in its consolidated form on the State Council Gazette, which prints Order No. 806 and the amended regulation together and carries the header recording both the 2019 and the 2025 amendments. Articles 26, 27, 28 and 32 were then cross-checked character for character against the State Council's policy database copy of the pre-2025 text, where they appear as Articles 25, 26, 27 and 31 — the wording is identical and only the numbering moved. The amending decision itself was additionally read on the Ministry of Ecology and Environment's republication.
The 快递市场管理办法 was read on the Ministry of Transport's own site, the issuing authority, and Articles 26, 28, 32 and 54 come from there. I did not obtain a second official host for it, so those four articles rest on one source, albeit the authoritative one. The 智能快件箱寄递服务管理办法 was read twice, on the State Council's policy database and on the Ministry of Commerce's legal database, and the second reading is what surfaced the sender-nominated-locker exception that the first retrieval had not returned.
The 禁止寄递物品管理规定 was read on the State Council Gazette. The State Post Bureau's own copies, national and provincial, returned 403 from this environment on every attempt, so that instrument and its nineteen-category catalogue also rest on a single host.
Two things this page does not give. It gives no prices, weights or delivery times for any operator, because those are commercial terms rather than regulated ones and change without notice. And it says nothing about which document a foreign passport holder must produce for real-name posting, because the rules read here require identity to be verified and registered without specifying the document.
Frequently asked questions#
Do I need ID to send a parcel in China?#
Yes. The 2023 Measures require the company to verify and register the sender's identity, and provide that where the sender refuses to give identity information, or gives false information, the company must not accept the item. The rule binds the operator, so it is not something a counter can waive for you.
Will they open my parcel in China?#
Yes, before accepting it. The regulation requires the company to inspect the contents and apply an inspection mark, and if you refuse inspection it must not take the parcel. The Measures add that the item name is registered and that a mismatch between what you declared and what was found is itself a ground for refusal.
Can a courier leave my parcel in a locker in China?#
Not without your consent. The 2019 smart-locker Measures require the recipient's agreement, and since 1 March 2024 the market Measures extend that to service points and to confirming receipt on your behalf. The exception is where the sender nominated the locker as the delivery address when posting.
What happens if a parcel is lost in China?#
It depends on whether it was declared for value. A declared-value parcel is compensated under the declared-value rules agreed with the company; an undeclared one falls to be compensated under general civil law. You are told the declared-value rules before you complete the waybill, so the choice is made at the counter.
What cannot be sent by courier in China?#
The joint 2016 rules list nineteen categories, from weapons and explosives through toxic and radioactive materials to illegal publications, counterfeit goods, endangered wildlife products and anything barred from crossing the border. Concealing such an item, or describing it as something else, is expressly prohibited.
When did China's express delivery regulation change?#
On 1 June 2025, when State Council Order No. 806 took effect. It added a principle article as Article 3 and a new sixth chapter on packaging, Articles 37 to 45, shifting the numbering of everything from the old Article 3 onwards — so a pre-2025 citation of this regulation by article number is now out by at least one.