I. General Requirements

We will unswervingly adhere to the guiding principles of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, thoroughly implement the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Party as well as the Second and Third Plenary Sessions of the 20th Central Committee, uphold and strengthen the Party’s leadership, stick to the general working principle of seeking progress while maintaining stability, fully, accurately, and comprehensively implement the new development philosophy, and uphold the principles of government guidance, market-driven approaches, and joint social participation. We will promote an ethos of integrity, ensure the seamless integration of public credit information and market credit information, ensure that credit-based rewards and punishments are both reasonable and lawful, and build a social credit system that covers all types of entities, features unified institutional rules, and is jointly constructed, shared, and utilized by all parties. We will deepen the integration of the social credit system into every aspect and link of economic and social development, providing strong support for accelerating the construction of a nationwide unified large market, safeguarding a fair and orderly competitive market environment, and promoting high-quality development.

II. Build a social credit system that covers all types of entities.

(1) Deepen the development of government integrity. Improve the mechanism for government’s commitment to and fulfillment of contractual obligations, conduct evaluations of government integrity, refine the criteria for identifying instances of government dishonesty and the corresponding punitive measures, and ensure that any instances of dishonesty by the government and its departments (including subordinate units) in areas such as public resource transactions, investment promotion, talent recruitment, public-private partnerships, industrial support, investment and financing, and fees levied on enterprises are recorded in credit records as required, thereby restricting their eligibility to apply for various types of fiscal funds and projects, pilot programs, and awards or honors. Effectively leverage the role of the list of entities with abnormal records for public institutions, and enhance their level of self-discipline and integrity. Strengthen integrity management and education for public officials.

(2) Strengthen the building of creditworthiness among business entities. Enhance credit management for business entities, support them in perfecting compliance operating systems and controlling credit risks, and guide them to operate with integrity and honor their commitments. Based on a comprehensive public credit evaluation, establish a holistic credit assessment system for enterprises. While ensuring the confidentiality and security of sensitive information, strengthen the disclosure of credit status for state-owned enterprises. Encourage business entities to proactively provide credit information to credit service agencies and continuously improve their credit records.

(3) Accelerate the development of credit systems for social organizations. Strengthen the management, sharing, and public disclosure of credit information for social organizations, enhance credit supervision over these organizations, encourage them to practice self-discipline and integrity, and improve their internal governance standards. The competent authorities and business supervisors in various sectors should promote industry associations and chambers of commerce to strengthen their integrity-building efforts, guide them in conducting credit evaluations and other related activities in accordance with laws and regulations, and leverage their roles in guiding members’ behavior, setting rules and constraints, and safeguarding members’ rights and interests.

(4) Promote the orderly development of natural person credit building. Establish and improve natural person credit records in accordance with laws and regulations. Accelerate the development of credit management systems for key professional groups, including those working in the fields of law, finance, accounting, auditing, healthcare, education, domestic services, construction engineering, ecological environment, and platform economy, as well as individuals who have obtained national vocational qualifications. Localities and departments with appropriate conditions may conduct credit assessments of natural persons and use these assessments as a reference for formulating incentive policies for trustworthy entities. It is strictly prohibited to include non-credit information or personal private information in credit assessments.

(5) Fully strengthen credit-building within the judicial and law enforcement system. Enhance the building of judicial credibility in courts and procuratorates, and improve the overall credibility of the judiciary. Increase the degree of judicial transparency in accordance with the law, thereby safeguarding the public’s right to know. Strengthen credit-building among judicial and law enforcement personnel, establishing systems for recording their credit histories and requiring them to make credit commitments. Raise the cost of illegal and dishonest behavior in false litigation. Strictly enforce procedures for identifying persons who fail to comply with court orders, and optimize related punitive measures against those found to be失信.

III. Strengthen the Data Foundation of the Social Credit System

(6) Establish comprehensive, complete, and accurate credit records. Strictly define the scope of public credit information. Competent authorities in various industries shall, in accordance with laws, administrative regulations, local regulations, or policy documents issued by the Party Central Committee and the State Council, identify public credit information within their respective fields and compile industry-specific credit records. Among these, information pertaining to untrustworthiness shall be categorized and clearly labeled according to the severity of the untrustworthiness. Implement unified catalog management for public credit information, and the National Development and Reform Commission shall compile and maintain complete credit records for relevant entities.

(7) Strengthen the collection and sharing of credit information. Enhance the “central hub” function of the National Credit Information Sharing Platform for the collection and sharing of credit information, adhering to the principle of data sharing as the norm and non-sharing only as the exception. Unify the collection of credit information across all sectors and, in accordance with regulations and based on demand, provide credit information services to relevant departments. Conduct regular assessments of the quality and effectiveness of collection and sharing efforts. Promote deep integration and data sharing between the National Credit Information Sharing Platform and industry-specific credit information systems. Study and explore the enhanced application of technologies such as blockchain in credit information management, while ensuring the protection of legitimate rights and interests of credit subjects and information security, thereby raising the level of sharing of commercial contract information, industrial chain information, and transaction information.

(8) Establish a unified public credit information disclosure system. Develop uniform standards and rules for the public disclosure of credit information. The “Credit China” website will centrally disclose various types of public credit information; in principle, industry authorities will no longer disclose public credit information outside their respective areas of responsibility. The “Credit China” website will provide public access to credit information query services based on the principle of public welfare. For public credit information already disclosed on the “Credit China” website, credit service agencies shall ensure that the credit information they use is identical to the disclosed content and that its validity period matches exactly.

(9) Promote the orderly opening and circulation of public credit information. Develop management measures for the authorized operation of public credit information, supporting qualified operating entities to carry out the development of public credit information resources, product operations, and technical services based on authorization. Strictly prohibit the unauthorized or excessive use of public credit information. Establish standardized access criteria for the circulation of public credit information. Encourage business entities to provide public-interest services by leveraging public credit information in strict compliance with laws and regulations. Explore establishing a mechanism for the fair sharing of value and benefits derived from public credit information, and safeguard the property rights and interests of public credit information assets in accordance with laws and regulations. Encourage inter-regional sharing of public credit information, mutual recognition of credit ratings, and coordinated implementation of credit rewards and penalties.

(10) Strengthen the protection of credit information security. Establish a mechanism for tracing and accountability for credit information security management, clearly defining the security responsibilities at each stage of the information transmission chain. Strictly implement security protection responsibilities and standardize procedures for handling credit information. Enhance the management level of security for credit information infrastructure. Establish and improve an emergency response mechanism for credit information security.

IV. Improve the mechanisms for rewarding trustworthiness and punishing untrustworthiness.

(11) Strengthen incentives for trustworthy behavior. Establish a comprehensive policy environment for credit incentives, providing convenience or preferential treatment to entities that uphold their commitments in public services. Encourage platform enterprises to make good use of big data resources to offer targeted, market-oriented, and socially recognized incentives to trustworthy entities. Support financial institutions in deeply exploring the value of credit information and continuously enhancing the ease with which trustworthy entities can access financing.

(12) Implement sanctions against dishonesty in accordance with laws and regulations. Standardize the formulation of sanctions against dishonesty, and reasonably determine the scope and intensity of such sanctions in compliance with laws and regulations. The establishment of sanctions against dishonesty and the designation of lists of seriously dishonest entities must be based on laws, administrative regulations, local regulations, or policy documents issued by the Party Central Committee and the State Council. Among these, any measures that reduce the rights or increase the obligations of credit subjects must be grounded in laws, administrative regulations, or local regulations. The competent authorities in respective industries shall, through departmental rules, clearly specify the conditions and procedures for inclusion in and removal from the list of seriously dishonest entities. Those listed as seriously dishonest entities shall, in accordance with laws and regulations, be subject to restrictions or prohibitions when applying for government funding, enjoying tax incentives, participating in public resource transactions, issuing stocks and bonds, being nominated for awards and honors, undergoing civil service recruitment, selection, transfer, or appointment, or engaging in open recruitment at public institutions. A list of seriously dishonest entities shall be added in the real estate market, the internet sector, the human resources market, and the medium- and long-term energy contract sector. Sanctions against dishonesty and the list of seriously dishonest entities shall be managed uniformly through a standardized checklist system.

(13) Improve the unified credit repair system. Establish and refine a credit repair system that is standardized, coordinated, shared, scientific, and highly efficient, and encourage entities with poor credit records to proactively correct their untrustworthy behavior. The National Development and Reform Commission will take the lead in unifying channels for publicizing and repairing credit information, optimizing credit repair rules, and strengthening coordination among judicial authorities, industry regulators, credit service agencies, and other relevant parties. For credit entities that have completed repair, their untrustworthy information shall be promptly removed from public disclosure, they shall be delisted from relevant lists of untrustworthy entities, and any related punitive measures imposed for their untrustworthiness shall be lifted in accordance with laws and regulations.

V. Improve the regulatory and governance mechanisms based on credit.

(14) Implement tiered and categorized regulation based on credit ratings. The National Development and Reform Commission will take the lead in refining the credit rating system. Competent authorities in various regions and industries will, building on the comprehensive public credit evaluation, establish and improve their own credit rating mechanisms tailored to their respective regions and sectors. Based on the evaluation results, they will optimize regulatory approaches and adopt differentiated regulatory measures for different types of credit entities.

(15) Establish and improve the credit commitment system. Implement the credit commitment system in areas such as administrative approvals, certification matters, and credit restoration. When handling matters subject to the credit commitment system, if an applicant’s submitted documents are incomplete but their credit standing is good and they provide a written commitment to submit the missing documents within the prescribed time limit, the application should be accepted first. Establish a mechanism for tracking and monitoring the fulfillment of credit commitments. Encourage credit entities to proactively make credit commitments to the public.

(16) Promote the in-depth application of credit reports. Encourage the full-scale use of credit reports in public management areas such as market access, administrative approvals, government procurement, investment promotion, and qualification reviews. Vigorously promote the substitution of specialized credit reports for certificates verifying the absence or presence of illegal or non-compliant records. Encourage the use of credit reports in market transactions including bidding and tendering, financing and credit granting, and commercial dealings.

(17) Strengthen regulatory oversight of the government’s performance in contract signing and guidance on contract signing. Intensify monitoring and verification of contract performance, and promptly aggregate information on the performance of contracts signed by the government and contracts guided by the government to the National Credit Information Sharing Platform. The National Development and Reform Commission will incorporate verified contract performance data into the credit records of relevant entities, thereby effectively enhancing the level of contract compliance.

(18) Promote credit empowerment in grassroots governance. Strengthen the construction of rural credit systems, enhance the collection and sharing of agricultural-related credit information, clarify responsibilities for data collection, optimize and streamline collection indicators and evaluation rules, and improve the level of credit assessment for farmers and new types of agricultural business entities. Promote credit empowerment in community governance and support the development of credit-based industrial parks and commercial districts.

(19) Improve the legal and regulatory framework of the social credit system. Enhance the unified social credit code system, further clarify the departments responsible for assigning codes to various entities, and establish sound mechanisms for sharing and verifying code assignment data. Develop nationally unified standards for credit information management. Promote the enactment of a Social Credit Construction Law and encourage the incorporation of credit rules into relevant specialized laws and regulations. Strengthen comprehensive assessments prior to the introduction of credit policies to prevent the overgeneralization and abuse of credit management measures.

6. Enhance the market-oriented and socialized level of the social credit system.

(20) Vigorously foster the credit services market. Innovate business models in areas such as credit evaluation, credit rating, credit scoring, credit reporting, credit verification, credit management, credit consulting, and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) assessment, thereby effectively supporting the development of a credit-based economy. Standardize the participation of credit service providers in the construction of the social credit system. Support the financial credit information foundational database in legally collecting credit information from the financial sector and providing more convenient and high-quality basic credit reporting services. Optimize the layout of the personal credit reporting market and increase the supply of personal credit products and services. Enhance and refine the corporate credit reporting market, and explore the development of specialized corporate credit reporting agencies focusing on niche segments. Strengthen credit reporting supervision comprehensively to promote the standardized and healthy development of the credit reporting industry.

(21) Deepen the promotion of credit-based financing and credit transactions. Relying on the nationwide integrated financing and credit service platform network, expand the scope of credit information collection and sharing according to actual application needs, refine the enterprise financing enhancement system based on credit information, effectively increase the proportion of credit loans for small, medium, and micro-sized enterprises, and support qualified credit rating agencies to participate in the operation of the financing and credit service platform. Encourage credit service institutions to collect information on the performance of commercial contracts in accordance with laws and regulations, and support the orderly promotion of credit sales models such as open account sales, installment payments, and financial leasing. Strengthen information disclosure on commercial bills and improve the credit constraint mechanism in the bill market. Legally and regulatively include business entities that maliciously evade or default on debts into the list of seriously untrustworthy entities.

(22) Strengthen credit-building in the platform economy. Enhance the sharing of public credit information and operational data from platform enterprises, and guide platform enterprises to establish credit management systems within their platforms as well as joint mechanisms for restraining untrustworthy behavior across platforms. Implement differentiated management and services based on the credit standing of merchants on the platform, offering greater preferential treatment and convenience to operators who comply with the law and act with integrity, while imposing restrictions on operators who violate laws and breach trust within the framework of platform rules. Strengthen credit supervision over online streamers, self-media, multi-channel distribution service providers of online content (MCN agencies), and other similar entities.

(23) Promote high-level opening-up. On the premise of ensuring security, advance the cross-border flow of credit information data in accordance with laws and regulations, conduct cross-border credit cooperation in an orderly manner, and promote mutual recognition of credit products such as credit ratings and credit reports across borders. Support domestic credit service providers in engaging in independent and impartial third-party credit service cooperation with countries jointly building the “Belt and Road” initiative and BRICS nations. Strengthen international credit reporting exchanges and actively foster credit reporting agencies that are internationally competitive and influential. Promote the internationalization of domestic credit rating agencies.

7. Strengthen organization and implementation.

All regions and relevant departments shall, under the centralized and unified leadership of the Party Central Committee, earnestly implement these guidelines in light of their specific circumstances, thereby establishing a working pattern characterized by coordinated efforts from top to bottom, clear division of responsibilities, and joint management. The National Development and Reform Commission and the People's Bank of China shall strengthen overall coordination; all relevant departments must earnestly fulfill their responsibilities for credit-building within their respective areas, thus pooling their efforts and achieving synergy. We should systematically advance the establishment of demonstration zones for the construction of the national social credit system and establish sound mechanisms for post-evaluation of these demonstration zones. We will continue to conduct city-level credit monitoring. We will promote a culture of integrity, popularize education on integrity, intensify public exposure of serious acts of dishonesty in accordance with laws and regulations, and support news media in carrying out publicity on integrity and exercising public oversight. We will fully leverage the leading role of exemplary individuals who uphold integrity, continuously organize activities such as the “Integrity Star” campaign and the “Integrity Promotes Business Month,” and foster a positive social ethos of honoring commitments and keeping promises. We will promptly summarize and disseminate best practices and exemplary experiences. For major issues, we will promptly seek instructions and report to the Party Central Committee and the State Council in accordance with established procedures.