The General Administration of Market Regulation solicits comments from the public on the “Compliance Guide for Online Trading Platform Charging Conduct”

Zhitong Finance App learned that in order to regulate the collection of commissions, commissions, membership fees, technical service fees, information service fees, marketing and promotion fees from online trading platforms, protect the legitimate rights and interests of operators within the platform, and promote the healthy and orderly development of the platform economy, the General Administration of Market Regulation recently researched and drafted the “Online Trading Platform Charging Compliance Guide (Draft for Comments)” and solicited comments from the public. The relevant responsible comrades from the Price Supervision and Competition Bureau of the General Administration of Market Supervision and Competition answered questions from reporters on the “Guidelines”. The “Guidelines” make it clear that platforms should rationally formulate fee standards, improve institutional mechanisms such as fee rules and fee disclosure, strictly implement promises to reduce fees and exempt fees, carefully evaluate the need to collect security deposits, carry out promotion services in accordance with the principle of equality and voluntariness, and guarantee the right of operators within the platform to know and choose. At the same time, eight types of unreasonable charging behavior have been clarified, such as repeated charges, only charging no service, and transferring expenses that should be borne by the platform itself.

The original text is as follows:

The General Administration of Market Regulation's announcement to publicly solicit comments on the “Online Trading Platform Charging Compliance Guide (Draft for Comments)” is to regulate the charging behavior of online trading platforms, protect the legitimate rights and interests of operators, and promote the healthy and orderly development of the platform economy. According to the “Price Law of the People's Republic of China” and “E-Commerce Law of the People's Republic of China” and other laws and regulations, the General Administration of Market Regulation has drafted and formed the “Internet Trading Platform Charging Compliance Guide (Draft for Comments)”, which is now being publicly solicited for comments. The deadline for feedback is June 3, 2025. The public can submit comments through the following channels and methods:

1. Go to the General Administration of Market Regulation website (URL: https://www.samr.gov.cn)，通过首页“互动”栏目中的“征集调查”提出意见建议.

2. Send comments and suggestions by email to: jjsc@samr.gov.cn. Please indicate “Compliance Guide on Online Trading Platform Charging Conduct (Draft for Comments)” in the subject line of the email.

3. Send it by letter to the Price Supervision and Competition Bureau of the General Administration of Market Supervision, No. 9 Madian East Road, Haidian District, Beijing (postal code: 100088), and please indicate the words “Compliance Guide for Online Trading Platform Charging Conduct (Draft for Comments)” on the envelope.

Online trading platform charging behavior compliance guide

(Draft for Solicitation of Comments)

In order to regulate and guide the charging behavior of online trading platform operators, protect the legitimate rights and interests of operators, and promote the sustainable and healthy development of the platform economy, this guide is formulated in accordance with the “Price Law of the People's Republic of China” and “E-Commerce Law of the People's Republic of China” and other laws and regulations.

Article 1 An online trading platform operator (hereinafter referred to as a platform) referred to in this guide refers to a legal person or unincorporated organization that provides services such as network business premises, transaction matching, and information publication for both parties or parties to a transaction in an online transaction activity, so that both parties or multiple parties can independently carry out online trading activities.

An operator within a platform referred to in this guide refers to a natural person, legal person, or unincorporated organization that sells products or provides services through an online trading platform.

Platform fees referred to in this guide refer to fees charged by the platform for providing services to operators within the platform, including but not limited to commissions, bonuses, registration fees, processing fees, membership fees, technical service fees, information service fees, marketing and promotion fees, advertising fees, etc. For related acts such as collecting security deposits on the platform, please refer to this guide.

Article 2. The platform follows the principles of fairness, legality, honesty and credit based on its own operating costs, service agreements, transaction rules, trading habits, etc., fully considers the operating conditions of the operators within the platform, and reasonably formulates fee standards in accordance with relevant laws, regulations and regulations.

Article 3 encourages platforms to adopt flexible and diverse pricing strategies within the scope of legality, rationality, and mutual benefit in accordance with the service characteristics formed by their own technological innovation and business model innovation, to reduce the burden on operators within the platform and promote the common development of the platform and operators within the platform.

Article 4 encourages platforms to provide concessional services to operators within the platform, increase preferential fee support for small and medium-sized merchants, and support their survival and development.

Article 5. In the event of natural disasters, public health emergencies, etc., platforms are encouraged to take the initiative to assume social responsibility and adopt support policies such as reducing commissions and lowering fees.

Article 6 The platform shall implement the main responsibility for compliance management in accordance with relevant regulations, incorporate the platform's fee compliance into the platform's internal compliance organization construction, compliance risk management system, compliance risk management, compliance training, etc., and enhance the platform's charging compliance management capabilities.

Article 7. The platform shall, in accordance with relevant regulations, strengthen the construction of a platform fee compliance management organization compatible with its business scale and operating model, and be staffed with personnel familiar with the platform's fee compliance management.

Article 8. The platform shall promptly transform the requirements of laws, regulations and regulatory regulations relating to platform fees into the platform's internal compliance system.

The platform should establish a dynamic update mechanism to promptly revise and improve the platform fee compliance management system in accordance with changes in laws, regulations and regulatory requirements to ensure the adaptability and effectiveness of the compliance management system.

Article 9. The platform shall establish a risk identification and evaluation mechanism for unreasonable charging behavior to promptly identify and handle charging compliance risks in the platform's operating activities based on the business environment, business characteristics, feedback from operators within the platform, and public opinion exposure issues.

Encourage platforms to use data technology to enhance the monitoring and analysis of the risk of unreasonable charges on platforms, and enhance the ability to effectively identify the risk of unreasonable charges on platforms.

Article 10. The platform shall strengthen the establishment of a pre-compliance review mechanism to prevent the risk of unreasonable charges. Before introducing or amending platform charging rules or organizing the implementation of business activities involving platform fees, compliance management organizations or personnel within the platform shall review the compliance situation involving platform charges.

The platform is encouraged to embed the compliance review process in its internal office information management system to effectively ensure that compliance management organizations or personnel carry out independent review work.

Article 11 The platform shall establish compliance training mechanisms to prevent the risk of unreasonable charges, train relevant personnel, especially those responsible in the platform enterprise, and enhance compliance awareness and ability to prevent the risk of unreasonable charges.

Article 12 encourages platforms to create a culture of law-abiding, honest, transparent and fair fee compliance. Enhance the awareness of relevant personnel, especially those responsible for platform companies, on fee compliance and self-discipline, and promote the healthy and sustainable development of the platform.

Article 13 encourages platforms to establish a fee compliance reporting mechanism or include fee compliance matters in the overall compliance report. Encourage platforms to report fee compliance to market supervisory authorities.

Article 14 The platform shall prominently publicize the contents of the platform service agreement, transaction rule information, such as the platform's fee items, rules, standards, etc., or the link logo of the above information to the operator or other billing object within the platform to ensure that the operator or other billing object within the platform can easily and completely read and download it.

The billing items should correspond to the content of the service, and uniform elements such as names and content descriptions should be used for the same fee items. Fee rules should be simple, clear, and easy to understand. The fee standard shall be accurate, clear and easy to calculate. Where different fee standards are applied according to different transaction conditions, the transaction conditions and corresponding fee standards shall be indicated.

Where the platform charges fees to operators within the platform based on providing services such as network business sites, transaction matching, and information publication, etc., it shall provide the operator within the platform with details of charges such as specific fee items, standards, and amounts.

Article 15 When revising the content or transaction rules of the platform service agreement, such as fee items, rules, standards, etc., the platform shall solicit public comments in a prominent place on the homepage, publicize the content and reasons for the proposed revisions, and take reasonable measures to ensure that all parties concerned can fully express their opinions in a timely manner. The publicity period should be no less than 7 days.

If the operator within the platform does not accept the revised content and requests withdrawal from the platform, the platform shall not block it. The platform and the operator within the platform shall bear relevant responsibilities in accordance with the agreement before the revision.

Article 16. Platform revisions involving the content of platform service agreements, such as fee items, rules, standards, etc., shall be kept in full all historical versions for the three years prior to the effective date of the revised version to ensure that operators or other billing recipients within the platform can easily and completely view and download them.

Article 17 The platform shall follow the principle of equality and voluntariness when carrying out publicity, promotion, etc., and operators within the platform shall not be forced or disguised to participate and charge fees.

Article 18. The platform shall clearly publicize the items, rules, and standards for collecting marketing and promotion fees to ensure that operators within the platform can accurately check the fees.

Where the platform uses clicks, displays, conversions, etc. as the billing criteria for marketing and promotion fees, it shall publicize the calculation method of the fee in a simple and easy-to-understand manner and provide specific details to the operators within the platform.

Article 19. When the platform organizes operators within the platform to carry out preferential promotion activities, it shall clarify in advance the method and proportion of the preferential subsidies between the platform and the operators within the platform. Without agreement with the operators within the platform, promotional fees shall not be temporarily charged to the operators within the platform.

Article 20 The platform shall strictly fulfill the promises made to operators within the platform to reduce revenue and free use of fees.

Where the platform provides free services in the early stages, the rules must not be changed at will to collect fees without publicly soliciting comments in a prominent place on the homepage in accordance with the law and reminding the operators within the platform in a prominent manner. Except as otherwise provided by laws and regulations.

Article 21. The platform shall carefully assess the need to collect security deposits from operators within the platform based on operational needs and transaction risks. After assessment, a security deposit shall not be charged if it is not sufficiently necessary.

The platform is encouraged to rationally use operators' credit underwriting and other methods to ensure that consumers' rights and interests are protected while reducing the financial burden on operators within the platform to pay security deposits.

Article 22 Where there is a real need to collect a security deposit from an operator within the platform based on consumer rights protection, etc., the platform shall reasonably determine the security deposit collection criteria and collection method. It may be collected once, or it may be gradually withdrawn within the quota according to a certain proportion of operating income until the full amount is withdrawn.

Where the platform and the operator within the platform agree on the legal fruits of the security deposit, they are obtained in accordance with the agreement; if there is no agreement or the agreement is unclear, they are obtained in accordance with trading practices.

The platform shall clarify the methods and procedures for the refund of the security deposit, ensure the closed operation of the security deposit, strictly prohibit the misappropriation of the security deposit in any form, and must not set unreasonable conditions for the deposit refund.

Article 23. The platform shall strictly abide by the “Price Law of the People's Republic of China”, “E-Commerce Law of the People's Republic of China” and other relevant laws and regulations, and must not make the following unreasonable charges:

(1) Recurring charges;

(2) There is only a charge for no service, and there are few services;

(3) Transfer of expenses that should be borne by the platform itself;

(4) Charging fees from operators within the platform for providing their basic operating data;

(5) Force or disguise operators within the platform to purchase services or participate in promotions or promotional activities and charge fees;

(6) Using unreasonable security deposits or other forms of disguised charges or raising the charging standards;

(7) Providing the same goods or services, and discriminating on prices against operators within the platform with the same trading conditions;

(8) Charging other unreasonable fees.

Unreasonable expenses in item (8) of the preceding paragraph can be judged by combining relevant factors such as costs, market supply and demand conditions, industry attributes, and fees on similar platforms.

Article 24 If an operator within the platform believes that the platform's fees exceed a reasonable level, they may report and submit relevant materials to the platform. The platform shall respond promptly and actively consult with the operators within the platform.

The platform should conduct research and evaluation on issues reported by operators within the platform, and revise and improve unreasonable fee rules in a timely manner.

Article 25 The platform shall cooperate with the supervision and inspection of market supervisory authorities to promptly and truthfully provide the required data and information as required.

In the process of carrying out supervision and inspection in accordance with the law, the market supervisory authority may request the platform to provide relevant fee information, the calculation basis and calculation process for determining the fee standard, and explain the rationality of the charges.

Article 26 encourages industry associations and chambers of commerce to strengthen industry self-discipline, establish communication and consultation mechanisms with platforms according to law and regulations, assist market supervisory authorities, regulate platform charging behavior, guide platforms to increase support for operators within the platform, and better protect the legitimate rights and interests of operators within the platform, especially small and medium-sized enterprises and merchants.

Article 27. This guide provides general guidelines on compliance with platform charging behavior. Where laws, regulations, or policy documents have specific provisions on platform charging behavior, follow those regulations.

Article 28 The State Administration of Market Supervision and Administration is responsible for interpreting these guidelines.

Relevant responsible comrades from the Price Supervision and Competition Bureau of the General Administration of Market Regulation answered questions from reporters on the “Compliance Guide for Online Trading Platform Charging Conduct (Draft for Comments)”

Question 1: What are the main considerations of the General Administration of Market Regulation in formulating the “Guidelines” for platform fees?

A: In recent years, China's platform economy has developed rapidly and played an important role in promoting consumption, expanding employment, and promoting innovation. The Party Central Committee and the State Council attach great importance to standardizing the healthy and sustainable development of the platform economy. Currently, China's platform economy involves tens of millions of network operators, many people with flexible employment, and more than 900 million online consumers, empowering the real economy from all walks of life and becoming an ecosystem with wide coverage, strong inclusiveness, and a high degree of openness. The healthy development of the platform economy is not only the healthy development of platform enterprises, but also the continuous prosperity of the entire ecosystem. In the process of carrying out operating services, platform companies will collect commissions, bonuses, membership fees, technical service fees, information service fees, marketing and promotion fees, etc. from operators within the platform. These expenses form the basic source of platform revenue. At the same time, the platform's merchants also reported that the platform has problems such as many types of fees, complicated calculation methods, and opaque platform fees. Many platform companies have gradually improved their compliance management mechanisms in the process of development, but in terms of charging behavior, their internal compliance management systems are not perfect enough, resulting in insufficient prevention and control of the charging risk of platform companies.

Article 7 of the “Price Law of the People's Republic of China” stipulates that operators shall follow the principles of fairness, legality, and honest credit when setting prices. Section 35 of the “Electronic Commerce Law of the People's Republic of China” stipulates that platforms shall not charge unreasonable fees to operators within the platform. In order to guide platform enterprises to strengthen compliance management of charging behavior and further promote the fairness, legality and integrity of platform fees, we have drafted the “Guidelines”, which indicate that the platform follows the principles of fairness, legality, honesty and credit according to its own operating costs, based on factors such as service agreements, transaction rules, trading habits, etc., fully considers the operating conditions of operators within the platform, reasonably formulates fee standards in accordance with relevant laws and regulations, and clarifies the basic factors and basic requirements to regulate platform charging behavior.

Q2: What are the main contents of the Guide?

A: The “Guide” consists of 28 articles. The main content includes 5 aspects: the first is to clarify the principles that platform fees should be followed. Platform fees should follow the principles of fairness, legality, and honest credit, and comprehensively consider operating costs and operating conditions of operators within the platform based on factors such as service agreements, transaction rules, and trading habits. The second is to promote a reduction in the burden on operators within the platform. Encourage the platform to adopt flexible and diverse pricing strategies within the scope of legality, rationality and mutual benefit, provide concessions or relief support to operators within the platform, especially small and medium-sized merchants, take the initiative to assume social responsibility, and reduce the operating burden on operators within the platform. The third is to strengthen platform compliance and self-discipline. The platform is required to implement the main responsibility for compliance management in accordance with relevant regulations, improve the compliance management organization, equip compliance management personnel, establish mechanisms such as identifying and evaluating the risk of unreasonable charges and prior compliance reviews to prevent charging risks, and enhance the platform's charging compliance management capabilities. The fourth is to regulate platform charging behavior. Clarify that the platform should rationally formulate fee standards, improve institutional mechanisms such as fee rules and fee disclosure, strictly implement promises to reduce fees and exempt fees, carefully evaluate the need to collect security deposits, carry out promotion services in accordance with the principle of equality and voluntariness, and guarantee the right of operators within the platform to know and choose. At the same time, eight types of unreasonable charging behavior have been clarified, such as repeated charges, only charging no service, and transferring expenses that should be borne by the platform itself. The fifth is to strengthen supervision and implementation. The platform is required to provide timely feedback on the charging concerns of operators within the platform, actively cooperate with supervision and inspection, strengthen industry self-discipline, and participate fairly in market competition.

Question 3: What are the requirements of the “Guidelines” for platform companies to establish fee compliance systems?

A: The “Guide” sets out clear requirements on how platform companies can establish fee compliance systems. After the “Guidelines” are introduced, the platform shall implement the main responsibility for compliance management and incorporate platform fee compliance into internal compliance organization construction, compliance management systems, compliance risk management, compliance training, etc. The first is to improve the compliance management organization and equip compliance management personnel. The second is to promptly transform the requirements of laws, regulations and regulatory regulations relating to platform fees into the platform's internal compliance system, and establish a dynamic update mechanism to ensure the adaptability and effectiveness of the compliance management system. The third is to establish a risk identification and assessment mechanism for unreasonable charging behavior to promptly identify and handle charging compliance risks in platform operations. Fourth, strengthen the establishment of a pre-compliance review mechanism to prevent the risk of unreasonable charges. Before introducing or revising platform charging rules or organizing the implementation of business activities involving platform fees, compliance management organizations or personnel within the platform review the compliance situation involving platform charges. The fifth is to establish compliance training mechanisms to prevent the risk of unreasonable charges, train relevant personnel, especially those responsible in platform companies, and raise compliance awareness and ability to prevent the risk of unreasonable charges. The sixth is to create a culture of fee compliance and enhance the sense of compliance and self-discipline of relevant personnel, especially those responsible for platform companies, in charge of fee compliance.

Question 4: What are the requirements of the “Guidelines” to enhance the openness and transparency of platform fees?

A: The “Guidelines” set out a number of provisions to enhance the openness and transparency of platform fees, mainly including:

The first is to clarify the obligation to publicize the platform's fee rules. The platform shall prominently display the content of the platform's fee items, rules, standards, etc. agreement content, rule information, or link logo to the operator or other billing target within the platform. When collecting marketing and promotion fees, the platform shall clearly publicize the items, rules, and standards of the fee to ensure that operators within the platform can accurately check the fees.

Second, make it clear that revising the rules must be publicly solicited for comments in accordance with the law. If the platform revises the content of the platform service agreement or transaction rules, such as fee items, rules, standards, etc., it shall solicit public comments in a prominent place on the homepage. The publicity period is not less than 7 days. The platform should conduct research and evaluation on issues reported by operators within the platform, and revise and improve unreasonable fee rules in a timely manner.

The third is to clarify the storage time for historical versions of the charging rules. Platform revisions involve the content of the platform service agreement, such as fee items, rules, standards, etc., and all historical versions for the three years prior to the effective date of the revised version shall be kept in full to ensure that operators or other payers within the platform can easily and completely read and download them.

Question 5: The “Guidelines” clearly stipulate what unreasonable fees must the platform not charge operators within the platform?

A: After preliminary research and discussion, we sorted out the hot public opinion situation of platform charges and the concentrated issues reported by operators within the platform. In the “Guide”, we refined the unreasonable charges on the platform into various specific situations, clearly stipulating that the platform must not charge repeated charges to the operators within the platform, only charges no service or few services, and transfer the costs that should be borne by the platform itself, and charges the operators within the platform for providing their basic operating data. Force or disguise the operators within the platform to purchase services or participate in promotions or promotions and charge fees, using unreasonable forms of security deposits, etc. Fee standards, price discrimination against platform operators with the same trading conditions for providing the same products or services, etc. From an overall perspective, determining whether platform fees are unreasonable can be judged by combining relevant factors such as costs, market supply and demand conditions, industry attributes, and fees on similar platforms.

Q6: How will the future publication of the “Guide” have a positive impact on the platform economy?

A: Overall, the publication of the “Guidelines” marks the further improvement of China's platform economy supervision policy system. The “Guidelines” are problem-oriented and put forward specific requirements for correcting issues such as opaque and unreasonable platform fees. At the same time, it also emphasizes self-regulation and self-supervision of platform enterprises, enhances the initiative of platform enterprises to implement their main responsibility for compliance management, and promotes the formation of a governance pattern combining government supervision and corporate self-discipline. The “Guidelines” clearly stipulate the protection of the legitimate rights and interests of operators within the platform, such as the right to know and choose, encourage platforms to take various measures to reduce the burden on operators, provide concessions or relief support, and provide timely feedback on concerns of operators within the platform regarding fees. In the future, with the implementation of the “Guidelines”, it will help platform enterprises optimize fee compliance, promote the healthy development of the industry, and build a good ecosystem where operators within the platform coexist harmoniously.

This article was selected from the official website of the “General Administration of Market Supervision and Administration”. Zhitong Finance Editor: Jiang Yuanhua.