Published 28 July 2026 · Reviewed by Out2China Team
Quick answer
Use this checklist to turn provider claims into evidence. Verify the named Chinese employing entity, payroll and statutory contribution controls, contract ownership, termination process, data handling, local service contacts, pricing assumptions, and exit terms. Ask every shortlisted provider the same 42 questions and record the document or sample that supports each answer. Treat entity or payroll-control failures as structural rejection points; clarify negotiable service gaps separately. The downloadable workbook lets HR, legal, finance, and procurement reviewers work from one evidence record.
Download the editable workbook
All 42 questions as a spreadsheet, with columns for evidence, owner, status and risk rating. No sign-up, no email required.
Every EOR provider you talk to will tell you they are compliant. None of them will fail their own sales call. So the useful question is never "are you compliant?", it's "show me". This checklist is the show-me list: 42 questions across 14 areas, each with the evidence you should request and the reason it matters, so the answers you collect are documents rather than adjectives.
We built it from the buyer's side of the table, using the checks we would run on ourselves. Use it before you sign anything. It works equally on global platforms and local Chinese firms, including us. If you are still at the stage of deciding what matters and why, start with our guide to choosing a China EOR provider, then come back here to collect the evidence.
How to use this checklist
Send the workbook to your shortlisted providers, or work through it on calls. Every question has an "Evidence to request" column on purpose: an answer without a document is a promise, and promises do not survive labour arbitration.
Three practical rules. Give providers a deadline (48 to 72 hours is fair; the documents should already exist). Accept redacted samples, since client confidentiality is legitimate and redaction solves it. And record everything in the workbook, because the point is comparability: the same 42 questions, side by side, across every vendor.
Rate each answer pass, clarify, or reject. More than three "clarify" ratings in the legal and payroll modules usually means you are early in that provider's learning curve. You do not want to fund it.
Module 1: Buyer requirements and scope
Before interrogating vendors, fix your own facts. Four questions to answer internally:
#
Question
Evidence
Why it matters
1
How many hires, in which cities, starting when?
Your hiring plan
City choice drives statutory rates and provider capability; vague scope invites vague quotes
2
Local employees, foreign employees, or both?
Role list
Foreign hires need work permit sponsorship, a different service and timeline
3
What will these roles actually do in China?
JD drafts
Sales and revenue-generating activity can raise permanent establishment questions your tax adviser should see early
4
Who inside your company owns this vendor relationship?
A name
Orphaned vendor relationships are where payroll errors go unnoticed
Module 2: Legal entity and contracting party
#
Question
Evidence to request
Why it matters
5
Which Chinese legal entity will sign our employees' labour contracts?
Full registered name + Unified Social Credit Code
You verify it free at gsxt.gov.cn; refusal to name the entity ends the conversation
6
Is that entity yours, or a partner's?
Ownership statement; partner name if applicable
Partner-delivered EOR means your employment sits with a firm you have not vetted; vet them
7
How long has the entity operated, and with what paid-in capital?
Registration record
A six-month-old shell holding your payroll is a continuity risk, whatever the brand above it
8
Which entity do we contract with, and under which governing law?
Draft MSA
Your recourse lives here; offshore contracting entity + Chinese employing entity is workable but should be understood
Module 3: Employment and licence evidence
#
Question
Evidence to request
Why it matters
9
What licence or filing covers your HR services?
Human Resources Service Licence / filing record
China's Interim Regulations on the Human Resources Market require permits for job intermediary services and filings for other HR services
10
Is any part of the arrangement labour dispatch?
Labour Dispatch Operation Permit, if applicable
Dispatch is a separately licensed model: RMB 2m minimum capital, temporary/auxiliary/substitute roles only, 10% workforce cap. If a provider runs your hires as dispatch without saying so, that is a structural misrepresentation
11
Show a redacted labour contract template, bilingual.
Template
Arbitration runs on the Chinese text; you should know what your employees sign
12
Has the entity faced labour arbitration in the past three years?
Statement + public record check
Some disputes are normal at scale; a pattern, or a lie about it, is not
Module 4: Payroll, IIT and funding controls
#
Question
Evidence to request
Why it matters
13
Walk through your monthly payroll calendar.
Written calendar: cutoff, approval, pay date, filing date
IIT must be withheld and remitted by the 15th of the following month; a provider without a written calendar is improvising
14
Who funds payroll first, you or us?
Funding terms in MSA
If your wire is late and the provider will not bridge, your employee's salary is late, and unpaid wages are a legal exposure, not a hiccup
15
Show a redacted payslip from a current China client.
Sample payslip
Wage rules require written pay records and employee wage slips; a provider who cannot produce one is not producing them for employees either
16
Show a redacted IIT withholding filing record.
Filing screenshot/receipt
Confirms actual monthly filing practice, not just knowledge of the rule
17
How are off-cycle payments (bonus, reimbursements, final pay) handled and priced?
Rate card
Where surprise fees usually live
Module 5: Social insurance and housing fund
#
Question
Evidence to request
Why it matters
18
Where, exactly, will our employee's social insurance be registered?
City name in writing
Registration belongs in the employee's actual work city; employers must register within 30 days of hire
19
Show the employer cost breakdown for that city at our salary level.
Itemised calculation with current bases and caps
Rates, bases and caps are local; one national percentage is a red flag. Check the numbers against an independent source
20
Show a redacted social insurance payment record.
Contribution receipt
Under-declared bases (paying on a lower salary than real) is a known bad practice that becomes your problem at termination time
21
Is housing fund included, at what ratio?
Same breakdown
Housing fund is mandatory alongside the five insurances and cannot be contracted away, whatever anyone tells you
Module 6: Employment contracts and HR policies
#
Question
Evidence to request
Why it matters
22
When is the written contract signed relative to day one?
Process doc
Written contracts are required within one month of start, on pain of double wages
23
How are probation terms set?
Template clauses
Probation caps follow contract length and one probation per employer, ever; sloppy probation clauses void your easiest exit route
24
Is there an employee handbook, and will our conduct rules be incorporated?
Handbook ToC
Discipline and termination grounds in China lean heavily on properly adopted, acknowledged internal rules
25
How are IP assignment and confidentiality handled?
Template clauses
Default templates are often thin here; if IP matters to you, review before hire one
Module 7: Benefits, expenses and variable pay
#
Question
Evidence to request
Why it matters
26
What supplementary benefits can you administer (commercial insurance, allowances)?
Options list + pricing
Competitive offers in tier-1 cities often need more than statutory minimums
27
How are commissions and bonuses processed and taxed?
Worked example
Variable pay done wrong produces tax surprises for your best salespeople
Fapiao discipline is real; casual expense handling creates tax exposure
Module 8: Employee data and PIPL
#
Question
Evidence to request
Why it matters
29
Where is our employees' payroll data stored, and who can access it from where?
Architecture summary + access list
Employee data includes sensitive personal information under PIPL, with heightened requirements
30
If data leaves China (group HRIS, your dashboards), which legal mechanism or exemption do you rely on?
Written statement
PIPL Art. 38 routes: CAC assessment, certification, or standard contract. The March 2024 rules exempt genuinely necessary HR-management transfers; "necessary" is doing real work in that sentence
31
Which subprocessors touch the data?
Subprocessor list
Your obligations follow the data; you cannot assess what you cannot see
32
What is your breach notification commitment to us?
Contract clause
Hours matter; discover a breach from your employees and you have two problems
Module 9: Onboarding SLA and escalation
#
Question
Evidence to request
Why it matters
33
Standard onboarding timeline for a local hire, step by step?
First response, quote turnaround, contract draft, payroll queries; verbal SLAs are decoration
35
Who is our named contact, where do they sit, and who is the escalation above them?
Names
"The support team" is not an accountability structure
Module 10: Termination, severance and dispute support
#
Question
Evidence to request
Why it matters
36
Walk through your termination process: who advises on grounds, what evidence do you require from us?
Process doc
No at-will employment in China; wrong grounds risk reinstatement or double severance. A provider that terminates on request without challenge is a liability
37
How is severance calculated and who funds it?
Worked example: one month per service year, capped rules applied
Statutory severance (Labour Contract Law Arts. 46-47) should be modelled before you hire, not discovered after
38
If arbitration is filed, what exactly do you do, and is it billed?
Support terms
Disputes go to mandatory arbitration first, on statutory clocks; you want a provider who has been in that room
Module 11: Pricing, deposits and hidden costs
#
Question
Evidence to request
Why it matters
39
Give an all-in year-one quote for one named scenario: same city, same salary, everything included.
Itemised quote
The only fair comparison across vendors; fee-only comparisons reward the best hider
40
Deposits: amount, basis, and written refund conditions?
Deposit terms
A deposit without documented refund conditions is a donation
A provider that will not put a full year-one number in writing is asking you to compare on the one figure it controls. For reference, our own published pricing states the EOR management fee up front — US$298 per employee per month, with salary, employer contributions and recruitment quoted separately.
Module 12: Business continuity and provider exit
#
Question
Evidence to request
Why it matters
41
If we leave you, or you exit the market, what happens to employees, records and data?
Exit clause + handover description
Employment transfers in China can touch severance, seniority and consent questions; a provider with no written answer has never done one, or has and won't say
Module 13: References and evidence room
#
Question
Evidence to request
Why it matters
42
Two client references with China headcount similar to ours, and the evidence pack in one folder.
Calls + folder
Ask references one thing above all: tell me about a month something went wrong
Module 14: Final risk rating
Score the workbook: pass / clarify / reject per question. Then apply judgement where it belongs. Legal-entity and payroll-control failures are structural; do not talk yourself past them because the demo was good or the price was low. Pricing and service-model gaps are negotiable. Data answers that were fluent matter more than data answers that were long.
If two providers finish close, re-run questions 36 to 38 only. Termination support is where close races should be decided, because it is the module you will care about most on the worst day of the relationship.
The editable workbook (CSV/XLSX) with owner, status, evidence-link and risk columns is free to download, no email required. If you would rather pressure-test a completed workbook than fill one alone, we are happy to be one of the vendors scored: request our evidence pack and put us in the comparison.
FAQ
How long should EOR due diligence take? For one or two hires, a focused week: send the workbook, take two calls, verify the entity yourself. For larger teams or regulated industries, two to three weeks with legal review of the MSA and data terms. The checklist compresses the calendar because evidence requests run in parallel instead of surfacing one surprise at a time.
What is the single most important check? Question 5. Name the employing entity, then verify it independently on gsxt.gov.cn. Every other answer hangs off that one, because the entity that signs the labour contract is the entity carrying your employment risk.
Do these questions apply to global EOR platforms too? Especially to them. Platforms often deliver China through local partners, so questions 5 to 12 should be answered about the partner entity, not the brand on the invoice. A good platform will pass them without friction.
Is it rude to ask a vendor for payslips and contribution records? No, and their reaction is data. Redacted samples protect client confidentiality completely. A provider that treats basic evidence requests as an insult is telling you how post-sale conversations will go.
Can we skip due diligence for just one hire? The workload argument cuts the other way: one employee means one entity, one city, one quote to check, an afternoon of work. The downside, mishandled severance or unpaid contributions, is the same species of problem at any headcount. Small hires deserve the checklist most, because nobody else is watching.
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Sources
Labour Contract Law of the People's Republic of China — written contract within one month (Art. 10), probation limits (Art. 19), statutory severance (Arts. 46–47)
Social Insurance Law of the People's Republic of China — employer registration within 30 days of hire (Art. 58), contribution duties (Art. 60)
Individual Income Tax Law — monthly withholding and remittance by the 15th (Art. 14)
Interim Regulations on the Human Resources Market — licence and filing requirements for HR services
Labour dispatch rules — RMB 2m minimum capital, temporary/auxiliary/substitute roles, 10% workforce cap
Personal Information Protection Law Art. 38 and the March 2024 CAC cross-border data provisions
Run this checklist on us
We will send the evidence pack for every module above: entity registration, licence, a redacted payslip and contribution record, the contract template, our payroll calendar and an all-in year-one quote for your scenario. Score us alongside the rest — see how our China EOR service is delivered first if you prefer.
