EN RU
Get a Quote
Insights

How to verify an NMPA registration number

A registration number is a claim until someone checks it. This is how the number is built, what each part tells you, and where to look it up.

What an NMPA registration number is

A medical device placed on the Chinese market either holds a registration certificate or, for the lowest-risk class, a filing record. The number on that document is the identifier that follows the product through a contract, a label and a customs declaration.

It is not a serial number. It is a structured string, and the structure is fixed. Read it in the right order and it tells you who approved the product, which route it was approved under, when it was first registered and which risk class it sits in.

How the number is built

The layout is set out in the Measures for the Administration of Medical Device Registration and Filing. A class II or class III certificate is built from six segments.

Segment 1 — the approving authority

A province name means the certificate was granted by that province, which is the route for a class II device made in China. The character 国 appears on certificates granted at national level.

Segment 2 — the route

准 for a device made in China, 进 for an imported device, and 许 for devices registered in the Hong Kong SAR, the Macao SAR and the Taiwan region.

Segment 3 — the year of first registration

The year the product was first registered. Renewing the certificate does not change it.

Segment 4 — the risk class

A single digit, 2 or 3. This is the segment that separates a class II certificate from a class III one at a glance.

Segment 5 — the classification code

The code that places the product inside the national classification catalogue.

Segment 6 — the serial number

The number assigned on first registration, which also survives renewal.

Two consequences follow. Renewal keeps the original year and serial number, so an older-looking year is not by itself a sign of a lapsed certificate. And if a product changes risk class, it is renumbered rather than amended in place.

Class I devices are filed rather than registered and use a separate numbering layout. Cosmetics carry their own numbering. Neither is an NMPA device registration certificate.

Reading the number on our own certificates

The layout is easier to trust when it can be checked against certificates you can open. Every class II registration in our catalogue follows it.

陕械注准20252140206

Shaanxi • domestic registration • first registered 2025 • class 2

川械注准20252140092

Sichuan • domestic registration • first registered 2025 • class 2

国妆特字20259694

A special-use cosmetic, not a medical device. The 国妆 prefix belongs to cosmetics numbering and is not a device registration.

A patent number is a third document

A ZL number identifies a patent. It says nothing about whether a device may be placed on the market.

The provincial prefix is the segment worth noticing. A class II device made in China is approved at provincial level rather than nationally, and the certificate says so at the front.

Where to look up a number

  • Open the National Medical Products Administration website and go to the medical device enquiry section.
  • Search by certificate number, or by product name and manufacturer.
  • Select the domestic or the imported dataset, so the number is matched against the right register.
  • Compare the holder name and the product name on screen against the document you were handed, character by character.

This is the step that turns a document into evidence. A photographed certificate shows that a certificate exists somewhere. The enquiry shows whether this number is on the register today, and in whose name.

What a check settles, and what it does not

It settles that the number is real, that it is held by a named company, and that it covers a named product.

It does not settle that the goods in your container came from that site, that the batch you received met its specification, or that the certificate holder is the company you are negotiating with.

That last gap is the one buyers fall into. A registration certificate is held by one legal entity, and the company quoting you a price may be a different one. Ask which entity will sign the contract, and check that name against the register before you accept the quotation.

Where to go next