Export Seafood to China: Step-by-Step Guide for 2026

Did you know China is expected to consume 38% of the world’s seafood by 2030?

Demand keeps rising, and exporting seafood to China has become one of the strongest opportunities for f&b businesses worldwide. The opportunity is real. The paperwork is not simple.

At GMA, we’ve helped dozens of international food companies register, get listed, and find distributors in the Chinese market. This guide walks through the 2026 version of the process: registration, certification, labeling, and the regulatory overhaul that just changed how seafood clears customs.

Olivier Verot is the founder and CEO of GMA, based in Shanghai since 2012. He has guided seafood and F&B exporters through GACC registration and Chinese distributor negotiations for over a decade, including several companies caught off guard by China’s 2026 customs overhaul.

The Seafood Market in China: Where Things Stand in 2026

China’s fishing industry is not slowing down. The country accounts for roughly one-fifth of the world’s marine catch and remains the largest aquaculture producer on the planet.

It is also one of the biggest buyers of seafood in the world. Imports rose 500% in the 1990s alone. Russia, Ecuador, India, and Canada remain among the main supplier countries.

Per-capita consumption tells the same story. A Chinese consumer ate an average of 11.5 kg of seafood in 1990. That climbed to 25.4 kg by 2004, according to a SeafoodSource report, with 35.9 kg projected for 2020. The curve has kept climbing since.

The growth isn’t just in volume anymore, it’s in what people are buying. Salmon, lobster, and king crab, once occasional luxury purchases, are now a regular category on Chinese e-commerce platforms. Chilled salmon imports grew 46% year over year through 2025, with average prices dipping back under $10 per kilo. Lobster imports hit a record 68,000 tons in 2025, the third straight record year, and kept growing another 7.3% in the first five months of 2026, with Vietnam alone shipping 37 times more lobster to China than it did just three years earlier.

Combined, imports of lobster, chilled salmon, and king crab reached roughly RMB 39.9 billion in 2025, nearly 100 times the 2001 figure, and now make up close to 28% of China’s total seafood import value. That is the segment where margins sit, and where a foreign brand with the right certification can compete on quality instead of price.

Experts still expect China to account for approximately 38% of global seafood consumption by 2030. Between February 2021 and February 2022, the country’s own seafood exports ranged from $550 million to $1.2 billion a month, a reminder that China is both a buyer and a competitor in this market.

Given the size of the opportunity, seafood exporters have every reason to get the registration right the first time. Getting it wrong costs months, not days, as the case further down in this guide shows.

How to Export Seafood to China

There are several steps to complete in the registration process before an entity can export seafood to China. Acquiring an export health certificate specific to the type of seafood product you plan to export is necessary to operate in this market.

In general, these health certificates are for live and non-live fish products. Live fish products are those fit for direct human consumption, while non-live products require additional processing before they can be consumed.

Acquiring these health certificates takes time. Get things right the first time to avoid delays that ripple through your whole launch timeline.

The procedures to begin seafood exports to China vary among the different fishery inspection programs, but generally include the following:

• Step 1: Sign the agreement and confirm the export permit
• Step 2: Register as an exporter with the Certification and Accreditation Administration (CNCA)
• Step 3: Assess your product catalog to see if the desired products are allowed for export to China
• Step 4: Confirm qualifications and identify importer and port of entry
• Step 5: Labelling
• Step 6: Acquire the AQSIQ permit for live products and packaging
• Step 7: Prepare the documentation for CIQ
• Step 8: Inspection declaration and customs clearance

Main documents needed for the inspection:

• Contract
• Invoice
• Bill of lading
• Label in Chinese
• Certificate of origin (only when required)
• Health certificate
• Import permit (only when required)
• Packing list

What Changed in 2026: GACC Decree 280

Here is the part most guides still online haven’t caught up with. On October 14, 2025, China’s General Administration of Customs published Decree No. 280, replacing the Decree 248 framework that had governed overseas food manufacturer registration since 2021. It took effect on June 1, 2026, and if you export seafood, it changes how you register and how your shipments clear.

Three registration pathways now exist instead of one. Aquatic products sit in the list of 17 higher-risk categories that require official recommendation before registration, the same tier as meat and dairy. Companies outside that list can self-apply. A third pathway, list registration, opens up for exporters based in countries with a bilateral agreement with China, which can shorten the process considerably.

Two things catch exporters off guard. First, overseas cold storage facilities that store aquatic products now need their own registration, a requirement that didn’t exist under Decree 248. If your seafood passes through a third-party cold store before shipping, that facility needs to be on the list too, not just your processing plant. Second, from June 1, 2026, every customs declaration must carry a registration number under license category code 519 and a purpose field marked “食用” (for human consumption). A missing or incorrect entry gets the shipment rejected at the border, no exceptions.

The good news for seafood exporters specifically: renewal is automatic at expiry, unlike meat and bird’s nest producers, who must actively submit renewal applications 3 to 12 months before their registration lapses. And if your model is cross-border e-commerce rather than bulk trade, retail parcels shipped through the personal-use import channel (the model behind Tmall Global and JD Worldwide) are regulated differently and don’t require this facility registration at all. That makes CBEC a genuinely faster way to test the Chinese market before committing to full GACC registration.

For the full mechanics of Decree 280, both China Briefing’s exporter guide and CIRS Group’s regulatory breakdown are worth reading before you touch your declaration templates.

Additional Steps to Consider

After registering with the CNCA and preparing your documents, a few extra steps meaningfully raise your odds of approval:

• Register your intellectual property. Before engaging with the Chinese market, check whether your brand name or logo has already been registered by someone else, which happens more often than exporters expect. If not, register it as soon as possible. Owning your own IP in China avoids costly disputes later; see our guide to protecting your brand in China for the process.
• Know the non-permitted products. GACC lists seafood products that are not allowed for export into China. Check their website directly, since the list is updated more often than most exporters realize.
• Confirm standards compliance. China enforces its own safety standards. Before exporting, identify exactly which rules apply to your specific product category.

• Get the labeling right. All seafood products need labels and instructions that comply with Chinese requirements and are written in Chinese. A local partner or distributor can help here, since a mistranslated allergen line is enough to get a shipment held.

CIFER Registration: Who Needs It and How It Works

Since January 2022, all food establishments have needed to register with the China Import Food Enterprise Registration (CIFER) system before exporting to the country. This includes every facility that manufactures, processes, or stores food, cold and dry storage included. Decree 280 restructures how that registration happens, but it doesn’t remove the CIFER requirement itself.

To be eligible, fish and seafood establishments, including their fishing vessels and warehouses, need:

• An account with CIFER, operated by GACC
• A CIFER account certified to submit a registration application
• Individual approval from GACC, plus registration of all products within CIFER

GACC classifies fish and seafood among its high-risk food categories, alongside meat and dairy, while most other foods sit in the low-risk tier. To qualify for CIFER, your facility needs to meet both your own country’s food safety rules and China’s regulatory requirements. One exception: establishments that only export live seafood and fish do not need to be listed in CIFER.

Every listed establishment can be audited at any time, without notice, by GACC, to confirm ongoing compliance.

Exporting Seafood Byproducts to China

Byproducts follow a different track. China requires facilities exporting fish oil, fish meal, and other seafood byproducts to apply Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP), with a system that guarantees recall and tracking.

Since July 2012, fish oil, fish meal, and other aquatic animal proteins exported from the United States to China have needed to meet GACC requirements under Decree 118. That decree requires every manufacturing facility producing feed and feed additives to register with GACC.

Before registering, though, your facility needs SIP approval for fishery byproducts. Approval to export to China only comes once all quarantine and hygiene requirements are met. Once approved, SIP adds the facility to its list of allowed establishments and forwards that list to GACC.

How to Get Byproduct Certification

Export certificates for fishery byproducts can only come from SIP, and only once your facility is approved under the applicable regulatory requirements. Laboratory tests are also run on five randomly selected samples per lot before approval, reviewed by the SIP regional office handling your certification.

• Get the laboratory analysis needed for shipment, verifying that it meets import country regulations, provided by SIP
• Complete the Request for Certification / Fishmeal Exports forms, available online or through the local SIP inspection office
• Forward the completed documents to your certificate provider, along with all third-party laboratory reports

Finding a Seafood Distributor in China

China is one of the fastest-developing markets in the world, which also makes its business environment unpredictable. As an exporter, stay ready to adapt as conditions shift.

The single most important thing you can do to succeed in the Chinese market is build strong relationships. Success here leans heavily on solid networks.

Find a partner you can trust. Companies that export to China benefit both from their partner’s local knowledge and from their existing network. A distribution partner tends to work better if you’re selling fresh fish products. A direct-sell partner can be the better option for frozen or canned seafood.

Digital presence now does part of this work before you ever meet a distributor in person. A WeChat official account that publishes sourcing stories, cold-chain proof points, and certification updates gives a Chinese buyer something to check before replying to your outreach email. A presence on Xiaohongshu, where food importers and restaurant buyers increasingly research suppliers the same way consumers research products, does the same thing from a different angle. It doesn’t replace a trade fair handshake. It makes that handshake land faster, because the distributor already recognizes your name and has seen your compliance paperwork referenced somewhere public.

Ways to find seafood distributors and direct-sell partners in China

• Build a distribution network through lead generation combined with active prospecting. While you or your agency actively reach out to Chinese seafood distributors, keep building your online presence to capture their attention and interest. It opens doors and gives you more negotiating leverage.
• Attend physical networking events in the industry.
• Once you meet a distributor or partner, research them thoroughly before signing anything, to confirm the partnership will actually work for your company.

Case Study: How Petra Got Her Slovenian Seafood Into Two Chinese Provinces

Petra runs a small Slovenian seafood company exporting Adriatic shellfish and smoked fish. In late 2025, she had a distributor in Zhejiang ready to sign, worth roughly €180,000 in first-year orders. Then her CIFER application got rejected, twice, because the cold storage facility she used before shipping wasn’t registered under the new rules taking effect in 2026. The distributor deal stalled, then went cold.

Her first move was hiring a generalist customs broker to sort out the paperwork. It didn’t work. The broker handled general food imports, not the aquatic-specific requirements under GACC’s high-risk category, and missed the cold storage registration a second time.

What worked was sequencing the problem correctly. She switched to a GACC-specialist agent who registered both her processing facility and her cold storage provider together, as one file, instead of treating them as separate steps. Once the certificate came through, she used it as the opening line in her outreach, not a footnote, and paired it with a short WeChat content series on the Adriatic’s clean-water provenance, something Chinese buyers of premium seafood specifically ask about. The certificate gave her credibility. The content gave buyers a reason to care.

Registration cleared in seven weeks. Petra signed with two regional distributors, one in Zhejiang, one in Guangdong, and shipped her first container within the quarter. The opening order came in about 40% higher than the deal that had originally fallen through, because both distributors negotiated from a position of already trusting the paperwork.

Need Help Exporting Your Seafood to China?

Contact us to talk through your registration and distribution options.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a Chinese business license to export seafood to China?

No. You register your overseas facility with GACC through CIFER and export as a foreign entity. Your Chinese distributor or importer handles the domestic side, including the license needed to bring goods through customs and sell locally. You don’t need a China-registered company to start exporting.

How long does GACC registration take in 2026?

Plan for 6 to 10 weeks under Decree 280 when your paperwork is complete on the first submission, including cold storage registration if you use a third-party facility. Missing documents, especially the newly required cold storage listing, can push that past 4 months, as the case study above shows.

Can I test the Chinese market before completing full GACC registration?

Yes. Cross-border e-commerce retail imports, the model behind Tmall Global and JD Worldwide, are regulated as personal-use goods rather than commercial cargo, and don’t require GACC facility registration. It’s a genuine way to validate demand before committing to the full process, though volumes are capped per order and per buyer.

What seafood products can’t be exported to China?

GACC maintains a list of species and product types barred from import, which changes more often than most exporters check. Products from unlisted or unapproved source countries, and species covered under international conservation agreements, are consistently excluded. Always verify your specific product against the current list before shipping, not before signing your distributor contract.

Does Decree 280 affect companies that already have GACC registration?

Existing valid registrations carry over automatically, no reapplication needed. But you do need to update your customs declaration templates before June 1, 2026, to include the registration number and the purpose field, or your shipments get rejected at the border regardless of how long you’ve been registered.

How do I find a trustworthy seafood distributor in China?

Combine active prospecting with a visible digital presence, on WeChat and increasingly Xiaohongshu, so distributors can verify you before you even speak. Attend industry trade fairs where possible, and always check a distributor’s track record and existing client base before signing. A partner who already moves premium seafood in your target province is worth more than one offering the lowest commission.

GMA has spent over a decade getting F&B and seafood brands through Chinese customs and in front of the right distributors. If you’re staring at CIFER paperwork or a stalled distributor conversation, reach out to our team. We handle the registration sequencing, the WeChat and Xiaohongshu presence that builds buyer trust, and the introductions that turn a compliance certificate into a signed contract.