Insights | 14 November 2026
Suing in a Chinese court: five steps for foreign nationals
The five practical steps of a civil claim in China as a foreign claimant — defendant, jurisdiction, authority, evidence, enforcement.
Insights · 14 November 2026 · approx. 9 minutes
You are a foreign national. Someone owes you money in China, or has injured you, or has walked away from a contract. You are not in China, or you are but not for long. Can you actually sue in a Chinese court — and is it worth it?
The honest answer is: often yes, and it is more predictable than most people expect, but the path has fixed steps and fixed formalities. This article sets out the five steps as they apply in practice, based on the law of the People’s Republic of China as at the date above. It is general information, not legal advice.
- 01
1 — Identify the right defendant, and what you can prove
The claim is not against ‘the company I dealt with’ but against the exact legal person or individual registered in China. Their registered name (Chinese), their unified social credit code or identity number, and their registered address decide where you can sue and whether a judgment can bite.
Before anything else, collect what you already have: the contract, invoices, payment records, the chat or e-mail history, and the identity of the people you dealt with. A claim of the right size against the right defendant beats a larger claim against nobody.
- 02
2 — Check jurisdiction and the time limit
Civil Procedure Law rules determine the competent court — usually the place of the defendant’s domicile, with special rules for contracts (place of performance), torts, real property and more. Foreign-related cases have their own jurisdiction rules, and in practice some courts allocate them to specialised divisions.
The general limitation period for civil claims is ordinarily three years from when you knew or should have known of the infringement and the person responsible. Some claims — for example certain labor claims that must first go to arbitration — have much shorter periods. If your claim is old, check the clock before anything else: it decides everything.
- 03
3 — Prepare your authority: the power of attorney
Where a foreign national without a residence in China appoints a PRC lawyer from abroad, Article 275 of the Civil Procedure Law requires the power of attorney sent from outside China to be notarised in the country where it is made and then legalised by the Chinese embassy or consulate — or to comply with treaty formalities.
Since the Hague Apostille Convention took effect for China on 7 November 2023, documents from convention states carry an apostille from that state’s authority instead of consular legalisation. One notary appointment in your own country is usually enough; the lawyer confirms the exact form of words before you spend money on it.
- 04
4 — Get the evidence into admissible shape
Documents formed outside China that the court will rely on may need notarisation, apostille and certified Chinese translation. Evidence formed inside China — WeChat records, bank transfers, recordings — has its own authentication requirements: original devices, complete chat threads, transaction records from the bank rather than screenshots.
Practical tip: assemble the evidence map first (what fact each document proves), then formalise. Formalising a document you end up not needing is wasted cost; a missing document at trial cannot be fixed later.
- 05
5 — File, preserve, try, enforce
With authority and evidence ready: the claim is filed with the competent court, the court fee is calculated on the amount claimed (modest by international standards), and asset preservation can be sought to freeze the defendant’s funds pending judgment — often decisive for eventual recovery.
Hearings are conducted in Chinese; your lawyer files and appears for you, and in many cases you never need to travel. After first instance there may be an appeal. A judgment in your favour is, in the end, a claim on the defendant’s assets — the enforcement phase is where patience and accurate asset information pay.
What it costs, and how long it takes
Court fees for civil claims scale with the amount claimed and are substantially lower than in many jurisdictions; the losing party ordinarily bears them. Translation, notarisation and travel are the common surprises for foreign claimants.
- First-instance civil cases commonly take several months from filing to judgment, subject to case complexity and the court’s schedule
- Foreign-related cases may take longer where service abroad or evidence formalities are involved
- Enforcement is a separate phase with its own timetable — its success depends on the defendant’s assets, not on your judgment
Most viable claims die not in court but before filing: the defendant cannot be identified, the time limit has run, or the evidence was never preserved. A one-hour written assessment of those three questions, before you spend anything, is the cheapest legal work you will ever buy.
Have a claim in China and want it assessed first?
Send who the parties are, what happened, when, and what documents exist. Written English or Chinese. I will tell you whether it is within my practice — and where it stands on the clock.