Almost every foreign founder asks the same two questions before engaging an agent in China: "How much will this cost?" and "How long will it take?" The honest answer is that neither question has a single number. A WFOE in Guangzhou and a WFOE in Foshan, in different industries, with or without a physical address, with or without foreign staff, do not cost the same and do not take the same time. The same is true of work permits, bookkeeping, audit and every other service on this site.
This page does not publish a price list or a fixed timeline. Instead, it explains how fees are built up and where time is actually spent, so that you can budget and plan before you request a quote — and so that the quote you receive is one you can interrogate rather than simply accept.
Any professional service fee in China can be broken into three layers. Understanding the layers lets you see which parts are fixed, which are variable, and which are not the agent's revenue at all.
| Layer | What it covers | Who sets it, and how it moves |
|---|---|---|
| Government fees | Registration fees, business registration certificate fees, work permit fees, residence permit fees, annual report fees, stamp duty on capital and share transfers. | Set by statute or by the receiving authority. Generally fixed for a given service, but can change with policy. These are pass-through costs, not agent revenue. |
| Professional service fees | Document preparation and review, application drafting, window coordination, follow-up, compliance advice, and the agent's time across the engagement. | Set by the agent based on scope, complexity, urgency and risk. This is the layer that varies most between providers and between engagements. |
| Third-party costs | Notarisation and legalisation (apostille or consular), certified translation, registered address or virtual office, bank account opening support, courier, and any pre-approval consultancy. | Set by the notary, translator, landlord, bank or courier. The agent coordinates but does not control the price. These are usually billed at cost or with a disclosed handling margin. |
When you receive a quote, ask which layer each line belongs to. A quote that mixes government fees and professional fees into one lump sum makes it impossible to tell what is statutory and what is the agent's fee — and that is usually deliberate.
Time works the same way. Any service timeline has three stages, and only one of them is fully within the agent's control.
| Stage | What happens | Who controls it, and what can go wrong |
|---|---|---|
| Statutory deadlines | Deadlines fixed by law, such as the window for applying for a residence permit after entry, or the annual filing period for the annual report. | Fixed by statute and not negotiable. Missing one creates a compliance problem that is usually more expensive to fix than the original service. |
| Authority processing time | The time the receiving authority takes to review and issue. Window service standards are published, but actual processing time moves with workload, staffing and policy changes. | Partly predictable, partly not. Seasonal peaks, new policy roll-outs and district-level workload all affect it. An agent cannot shorten it, only avoid adding to it. |
| Client preparation time | Time for you to gather documents, sign, notarise, legalise and courier. This is the stage most often underestimated. | Fully within your control, but depends on your home jurisdiction. Notarisation and apostille alone can take weeks, and errors in the documents restart the clock. |
The practical implication: when a provider quotes "two weeks", ask which two weeks. If they mean the authority processing stage only, the real elapsed time from your decision to a usable company may be several times longer once client preparation and post-licence steps are counted.
The table below lists, for each major service, the variables that move the fee and the variables that move the timeline. These are the questions to answer before requesting a quote — and the questions a good quote should address.
| Service | What moves the fee | What moves the timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Company registration (WFOE / JV / RO / Partnership) | Entity type; city and district; business scope (whether pre-approval is required); whether a physical address is needed; registered capital and whether it triggers additional filing; number of shareholders and their jurisdictions. | Whether the business scope needs pre-approval; completeness and legalisation of investor documents; district window workload; whether the registered address is already compliant (Foshan in particular requires pre-recording). |
| Work permit and residence permit | Category (A / B / C); whether the applicant is inside or outside China; whether dependants are included; whether the employer is already set up; document legalisation requirements in the applicant's home country. | Medical examination scheduling; accommodation registration; work permit approval; residence permit appointment availability. The statutory window for the residence permit application after entry is not negotiable. |
| Bookkeeping and tax filing | Volume of transactions; number of invoices issued and received; whether payroll and social insurance are included; number of employees; whether the company has cross-border transactions or VAT refund claims. | Monthly filing deadlines are fixed. The variable is how quickly the client provides documents each month. Late client documents are the single most common cause of filing pressure. |
| Annual statutory audit | Company size and complexity; whether the books are already in order; number of bank accounts; related-party transactions; whether the auditor needs to visit the premises. | Quality of the underlying bookkeeping; completeness of supporting documents; auditor workload in the annual peak season. An audit on clean books is a different engagement from an audit that reconstructs the year. |
| Registered address / virtual office | City and district; whether the address must be a physical office; whether the landlord has completed the required recording (mandatory in Foshan); whether mail handling and reception are included. | Landlord readiness to provide the lease and title documents; whether the address is already recorded in the relevant database. An unrecorded address can add weeks to the registration. |
| Company amendment, share transfer, deregistration | Type of change; whether tax clearance is required; whether there are outstanding liabilities or unresolved filings; whether the change triggers a re-approval in a restricted sector. | The tax clearance stage is usually the longest and the least predictable. Deregistration timelines depend heavily on whether prior filings are complete. |
Even with a complete document set, timelines move. The four reasons below are structural, not accidental, and a realistic plan should assume they will occur.
Because the fee and the timeline depend on facts that only you can supply, the quote process is a short exchange of information rather than a published price. The process is:
When you receive quotes from more than one provider, the numbers are rarely directly comparable. Four questions separate a structured quote from a headline number:
The pages linked below give the scope and the process for each service. Reading them before requesting a quote will make the quote shorter, more accurate, and easier to compare.
To receive a fee range and a staged timeline, send us the following: entity type, city and district, business scope, whether a physical address is required, whether foreign staff will be employed and in which category, whether dependants are included, and your target start date. If you already have a quote from another provider, we can also review it against the three-layer structure above.
Founded in 2005, Finerise Consultants has long been engaged in foreign investment services, corporate registration management, tax and accounting agency, intellectual property agency, and foreigner work permit, residence permit and visa services. Based in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, we provide full-process agency support to employers and foreign talent, guided by the principles of compliance and efficiency.
Brilliance Consultants International Limited
Guangzhou Finerise Management & Consultants Co., Ltd.
Guangzhou Finerise Intellectual Property Service Co., Ltd
Guangzhou Finerise Management & Consultants Co., Ltd. Foshan Branch
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