In connection with the recent World Intellectual Property Day, the General Administration of Customs of China (GACC) released the 2025 Report on China Customs Intellectual Property Protection. The report is rich in content, fully reflects the proactive stance of China Customs toward IP protection, and presents a comprehensive set of statistics. The key highlights are summarized below.

2025 was the final year of China’s 14th Five-Year Plan. Throughout the year, China Customs maintained strong deterrence against infringement, deepened enforcement in key areas, refined its collaborative governance mechanisms, and continued to enhance Customs IP protection.

In 2025, China Customs implemented 53,400 IP protection measures in total, seizing 38,700 batches and 86.42 million pieces of import/export goods suspected of infringement. Rights holders from 57 countries and regions used Customs protection to safeguard their interests.

Customs recordal continued to expand in scope in 2025, with more rights holders choosing to enforce their rights through Customs. On the user registration side, 5,431 new recordal users were added during the year, up 20.26% year-on-year. In terms of recordal applications, China Customs received 35,220 applications during the year—the first time the figure has exceeded 30,000—and approved 27,553, including 19,930 from domestic rights holders (up 24.38% year-on-year). On the general guarantee front, 162 general guarantee applications from rights holders were approved, up 14.89% year-on-year.

Customs IP enforcement covers multiple categories of IP rights—including trademarks, patents, and copyrights—with trademark protection remaining the leading category. In 2025, China Customs seized 38,400 batches and 80.0032 million pieces of goods suspected of trademark infringement, and 15 batches and 116,300 pieces of goods suspected of patent infringement. Notably, copyright protection has shown clear momentum: 3,415 copyright recordal applications were approved during the year (up 28.7% year-on-year), and seizures of suspected copyright-infringing goods reached 710 batches and 6.3002 million pieces, up 61.36% and 26.06% year-on-year respectively. This trend closely reflects China Customs’ active support for the “going global” of Chinese culture and its strengthened protection of copyrights in the trendy toy and cultural-creative product sectors.

In terms of enforcement stages, the export stage remained the primary focus, and ex officio protection remained the principal enforcement mode. In 2025, seizures at the export stage totaled 38,300 batches and 85.8193 million pieces, confirming the export stage as the main front of Customs IP enforcement. At the same time, enforcement at the import stage continued to gain effectiveness: in the cross-border e-commerce import segment, China Customs seized 242 batches and 318,900 pieces of suspected infringing goods—year-on-year increases of 2.6 times and 13.4 times respectively—driving a 14.81% increase in nationwide import-stage seizure batches and underscoring the growing role of emerging channels. Cargo-channel seizures totaled 4,205 batches, up 10.72% year-on-year, of which 4,084 batches and 83.7196 million pieces were seized through ex officio protection, accounting for 97.12% of cargo-channel batches and 99.83% of quantities respectively. In addition, pursuant to the Benchmarks for Discretion in Administrative Penalties of the Customs of the People’s Republic of China (III), China Customs declined to impose administrative penalties on 3,178 batches and 29,100 pieces involving minor or first-time infringement, illustrating an enforcement approach that balances sanction with education.

As internet-driven business formats continue to evolve, enforcement in market procurement trade, cross-border e-commerce, and related segments has continued to grow. In 2025, China Customs seized 1,542 batches and 37.8889 million pieces of suspected infringing goods exported through market procurement trade—year-on-year increases of 27.8% and 48.4% respectively, accounting for 36.67% and 45.18% of cargo-channel enforcement. Cross-border e-commerce seizures totaled 24,600 batches, broadly in line with 2024, and remained the channel with the highest number of seizure batches.

In 2025, customs offices in eastern coastal regions—including Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Ningbo, Xiamen, and Fuzhou—jointly seized 27,500 batches and 84.2757 million pieces of suspected infringing goods, accounting for 71.10% and 97.51% of national totals respectively. Border-area customs offices, including those in Nanning and Kunming, seized 1,187 batches and 1.8691 million pieces. Customs offices in central and western regions—including Zhengzhou, Wuhan, and Changsha—seized 10,000 batches and 275,100 pieces. Customs offices in Hohhot, Gongbei, and Chongqing each saw seizure batches more than triple year-on-year, while customs offices in Manzhouli, Chengdu, and Urumqi reported substantial increases in seizure volume compared with 2024. Coordinated regional protection has improved across the board, and enforcement is becoming more evenly distributed across regions.

In 2025, ranked by seizure batches, the top three categories of seized goods remained apparel and footwear, leather goods and luggage, and electronics and electrical appliances, with 19,000, 8,000, and 3,000 batches respectively. Ranked by seizure quantity, the top three categories were tobacco products, sports equipment, and apparel and footwear, with 18.49 million, 15.04 million, and 11.42 million pieces respectively. Of particular note, seizures of tobacco products surged 3.1 times year-on-year. Overall, the composition of seized infringing goods remained stable, with a clear concentration in key categories.

Beyond these statistics, the report introduced several major special enforcement campaigns, including the “Long Teng 2025” Operation (now in its ninth consecutive year of nationwide deployment by GACC), the “Special Action on IP Protection in the Cross-border E-commerce Channel (2025)”, and the “Special Action on Customs IP Protection in the Trendy Toy Industry (2025)”, reinforcing the crackdown on infringement across multiple channels and sectors. The trendy toy campaign is a new initiative launched in 2025, focusing on toys, blind boxes, figurines, and animation-related merchandise. During the year, China Customs seized over a thousand batches and several million pieces of infringing trendy-toy products—with Pop Mart-related products as a prominent example—helping rights holders avoid more than RMB 100 million in economic losses, and reflecting China Customs’ strong support for original design and the cultural and creative industries. The report also addresses the rollout of key smart IP initiatives, the deepening of inter-customs cooperation mechanisms, and the expansion of international enforcement cooperation.

The report further emphasizes that protecting the rights and interests of foreign-invested enterprises remains a key priority for China Customs. In implementing the 2025 Action Plan for Stabilizing Foreign Investment, China Customs encourages foreign-invested enterprises to apply for Customs IP recordal and upholds the principle of equal protection for domestic and foreign-invested enterprises. For foreign-invested enterprises that frequently encounter infringement at the import/export stage, China Customs has established rapid-response mechanisms and tailored enforcement solutions to safeguard their lawful rights and interests, stabilize foreign investors’ expectations, and reinforce their confidence in investing in China.

Based on our reading of the report, as 2025 marks the final year of the 14th Five-Year Plan, China Customs has achieved notable results in IP protection. Particular highlights include copyright protection, supervision of new business formats, the development of smart enforcement, and protection of emerging industries such as trendy toys—creating a safer, more open, and more efficient trade environment for businesses worldwide. Chang Tsi has long been dedicated to Customs IP protection. Going forward, we will further strengthen our coordination and collaboration with customs authorities across China and, drawing on our extensive practical experience, provide more professional and efficient support to our clients in border IP protection.