How do you tell a real vape factory from a trading company?
Written from the exporter-to-factory analysis in research/sources-china.md, which ranks these three sources together as its third pick.
Last checked 11 October 2026
Why is calling a trading desk a factory the main error?
The exporter named on a shipping document is usually a trading company, and sometimes an offshore entity with no staff at all. It shares no identifier with the plant that built the goods. So the first question on an exporter-to-factory link is not which factory, it is whether either end of the link manufactures anything, and the registry record alone will not tell you, because business scope is self-declared and routinely lists manufacturing a company does not do.
That is why the three records below are chosen for what they imply rather than for what they contain. A discharge permit is issued because something is emitted at an address. A safety-standardisation listing exists because an inspector classified a workplace. A social-insurance headcount is a number the company pays contributions against. None of them is a manufacturing register, and all three are harder to fake than a business scope.
In this dataset the same discipline is visible in the confidence level on each link, and in the share of relationships that are confirmed rather than inferred, see the confidence mix.
What do the three records show?
| Record | The field that matters | What it establishes |
|---|---|---|
| 全国排污许可证管理信息平台 | 单位名称, 许可证编号, 行业类别, 有效期, 发证日期 | A regulator accepts that this entity emits something at an address, in a named industry category |
| 深圳市应急管理局 安全生产标准化企业名单 | 区域 / 街道 / 企业名称 / 所属行业 | An inspected workplace on a specific sub-district, with an industry tag, including 烟草 and 轻工 |
| GSXT 年报, 单位参保人数 | Social-insurance headcount, assets, liabilities, revenue, tax paid | Payroll scale, which is the cheapest discriminator between three workers and three hundred |
The discharge-permit platform is a national replacement for the three municipal environmental-impact bureaus this dataset's source registry currently relies on: one searchable registry instead of three city portals, updated roughly ten days after each approval. That is a real consolidation, and the research flags it as the cheapest thing to validate before leaning on it.
How does this show up on a factory page?
Every factory profile on this site states a declared annual capacity, a headcount and a registered capital, and names the filing each one came from. Capacity in particular is a filing figure, installed output as stated to an environmental bureau, not a measurement of what shipped, and the pages say so where they print it. Across the 0 factories in this dataset the figure that most often decides whether a link is publishable is not capacity but whether a production record exists at all.
Worked examples are easiest to read on a profile. Two factories with no production licence on file are linked below, alongside one that holds one, so the difference in what the records support is visible rather than described.
What does a production record not prove?
That the plant built the device in front of you. A discharge permit and a safety listing establish that a company manufactures something at an address; neither says what, for whom, or under which brand. The step from there to a named product still needs a certification filing, a patent or trademark recordation, or a customs record, and until one of those exists, the honest record is a classification, not a link.
It also does not survive time without a date. A permit has a validity window, a safety list is batch-numbered and republished roughly twice a year, and an annual report covers one filing year. Each of those is a dated observation, which is why every relationship in this dataset carries a first-seen and last-seen date alongside its confidence.
The checks, in order
Each step is a record you can pull yourself. None of them involves looking at packaging.
- 01Search the national discharge-permit platform by company name
A pollutant-discharge permit means a regulator accepts that the entity emits something at a stated address. The list view carries the permit number, industry category, validity window and issue date.
#step-1 - 02Check the municipal safety-standardisation batch lists
Shenzhen's Emergency Management Bureau publishes industrial-and-trade enterprise lists as batch PDFs with district, sub-district, company name and industry tag. A listing puts a company on a specific street with an industry classification.
#step-2 - 03Read the social-insurance headcount from the annual report
The enterprise registry's annual report carries 单位参保人数 alongside assets, liabilities and revenue. Three insured employees and three hundred are the difference between a trading desk and a plant.
#step-3 - 04Corroborate with a qualification listing
High-tech enterprise certification and specialised-SME rosters are tax and R&D qualifications a pure trading company does not hold. Their presence supports a manufacturer classification; their absence proves nothing on its own.
#step-4 - 05Record the classification and what it rests on
Write down which record carried the classification and when it was checked. Where no production record was found, record that as an absence in the records rather than as a conclusion about the company.
#step-5
Questions people ask
- Does a Chinese company's business scope prove it manufactures?
- No. Business scope in the enterprise registry is self-declared and routinely lists manufacturing activity a company does not carry out. A pollutant-discharge permit, a safety-standardisation listing or a social-insurance headcount are records that only exist because something physical happens at an address.
- What is the cheapest single check?
- Social-insurance headcount from the enterprise registry's annual report. It is one number, it is filed annually between January and June, and it separates a three-person trading desk from a several-hundred-worker plant without any inference.
Sources
Every register, statute, agency or document the claims above rest on. Reachability notes are measurements taken from a United States vantage point and describe our access, not the standing of the source.
- 全国排污许可证管理信息平台（公开端）List view fields verified; detail-record products, process and capacity unconfirmed
- 深圳市应急管理局 工贸行业安全生产标准化企业名单Batch PDFs; verified sample rows include a disposable-vape OEM and a firm classified 烟草
- 国家企业信用信息公示系统, 年报单位参保人数, 资产总额, 负债总额, 营业总收入, 利润总额; page-by-page only
- 广东省科技厅 高新技术企业认定公示Three publicity batches a year with attached company lists; a qualification a shell does not hold
Where this guide came from
Written from these passes of the internal source research, so a claim on this page can be traced back to the pass that produced it.
- research/sources-china.md, Answers to the three questions, §1, third pick
- research/sources-china.md, Explicit gaps, item 1, permit.mee.gov.cn capacity claim