The site's advice on prices is consistent and correct: negotiate at a market stall, never in a shop with a price on the label. It is presented as social calibration — the thing you do so as not to look like someone who has misread the country.
The displayed price is more than a convention, though, and knowing that changes what you can do when a bill arrives larger than the sign said.
Displaying the price is an obligation#
明码标价 (míng mǎ biāo jià, clearly marked prices) is a duty on the seller under a national regulation issued by the State Administration for Market Regulation as Order No. 56, promulgated on 14 April 2022 and in force since 1 July 2022. It replaced two much older rules — a 2000 regulation on marking prices and a 2001 regulation banning price fraud — folding both into one instrument.
What has to be shown is specified rather than left to taste:
- Goods must carry the item name, the price, and the unit the price is calculated in. Where the same brand sells at different prices because the item differs, each price has to be labelled to its own item.
- Services must show the service item, what it consists of, and either the price or the method by which the price is calculated.
That second half is the one travellers never think to ask for. A massage, a haircut, a spa treatment or a driver is a service, and "we'll see" is not a lawful answer to what it costs.
The one sentence worth remembering#
Article 8 of the regulation is short, and it is the whole of your practical protection:
经营者在销售商品或者提供服务时，不得在标价之外加价出售商品或者提供服务，不得收取任何未予标明的费用。
A business may not sell above the marked price, and may not collect any fee that was not marked. No service charge that appeared at the end, no "tourist supplement", no per-person minimum invented at the table, no rounding up.
This is why photographing a price board costs nothing and occasionally saves an argument. The board is the offer, and the offer is enforceable.
For anything you consume before you pay#
There is a second rule that fits a specific and familiar situation: you sit down, you consume, and only afterwards does anyone mention money.
Where a service is provided on that basis, the operator must — before settlement — hand the customer an itemised statement listing the service items consumed, their prices, and the total. Not on request. Before you are asked to pay.
Read that against the situation the site warns about most, the tea ceremony that ends in a four-figure bill. The advice there is to ask for the price list before anything is poured, which remains the right move. What the regulation adds is that you were never asking for a favour: an itemised statement before settlement is something the venue owes you, and a venue that will not produce one has already stepped outside the rules before the argument about the total begins.
What counts as price fraud#
The same regulation defines 价格欺诈 (jià gé qī zhà, price fraud) as using false or misleading price methods to induce someone into a transaction, and it enumerates the forms. Several are ordinary retail tricks — invented original prices, fake discounts, refusing to honour a price promise. Two are worth a traveller's attention:
- Luring with a low price and settling at a high one. This is listed as price fraud in its own right, which is a useful thing to know about the scam that operates in exactly that shape.
- Not showing, or visibly downplaying, the price conditions that are against the customer. The small print being small is itself the offence.
The limit, and it is a real one#
Here is what the regulation does not do, because confusing the two would leave you worse off rather than better.
It governs whether the price is honestly stated and honoured. It says nothing about whether the price is fair. A shop by a scenic gate marking a scarf at ten times what it fetches down the road is doing nothing unlawful. It marked its price; you can choose not to pay it.
So the two tools do not overlap. Walking away is the instrument for the price itself, and it works exactly where the site says it does. The regulation is the instrument for the gap between what was marked and what was charged — a different problem, with a different answer, and the one where argument on the spot is actually backed by something.
What to do when a bill does not match the sign#
- Photograph the board, the menu or the label before you commit. It takes a second and it is the evidence.
- Ask for the itemised statement wherever you are consuming first and paying after. It is owed to you rather than granted.
- Pay by card if you feel unsafe, then dispute it. Physical safety comes first and always has.
- Complain to the market regulator, which is what 12315 on the emergency numbers list actually is — the price-enforcement line, not a general grievance number.
- Do not confuse this with theft. If something was taken rather than overcharged, that is a police matter and the order of the steps differs.
Frequently asked questions#
Are shops in China legally required to display prices?#
Yes. A national regulation in force since 1 July 2022 requires businesses to mark prices clearly. Goods must show the item name, price and unit of pricing; services must show the service item, what it includes, and the price or the way the price is worked out.
Can a shop in China charge more than the price on the label?#
No. The regulation states plainly that a business may not sell above the marked price and may not collect any fee that was not marked. A charge that appears only on the bill — a service supplement, a minimum, a rounding — is outside what was displayed.
What should I do if I am overcharged in China?#
Photograph the displayed price, ask for an itemised statement, and raise it with the business first. If that fails, the market regulator's consumer line handles price complaints. If you feel unsafe, pay and dispute afterwards rather than arguing in the room.
Does a tourist shop charging high prices break the law?#
No. Marking a high price is lawful; the rules govern honesty and consistency, not fairness. Your protection against a high price is the decision not to pay it, which is why bargaining and the marked-price rules solve two different problems.
Do restaurants in China have to give an itemised bill?#
Where a service is consumed before it is settled, the operator must provide an itemised statement of what was consumed, the prices and the total before payment. This is the rule that matters most in venues where the total appears only at the end.