On July 8, 2026, the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) of China launched a Call for Comment on the revised Interim Measures for the Administration of Supervisory Spot Checks on Product Quality. Notably, the draft drops the Interim label, signaling a shift from the provisional framework toward a more permanent and certain spot-check regime. The deadline of the Call for Comment is 7 August 2026.

China's product quality supervision system operates through a framework of pre-market access, in-process supervision, and post-market disposition.

• Pre-market controls include production licensing and compulsory product certification for certain products.

• Post-market measures encompass defective product recalls, enforcement actions against quality violations, and credit constraints.

• In-process supervision is manifested primarily through a spot-check-based inspection system.

Product quality spot checks are a critical regulatory tool for ensuring product quality and safety in the circulation sector and represent a key compliance focus for enterprises.

The Interim Measures were promulgated on 21 November 2019 and took effect on 1 January 2020. According to SAMR's Revision Notes, while they have played an important role in identifying product quality issues and regulating market order, practical implementation has revealed problems including unclear provisions, insufficient capacity to detect issues, incomplete rules for online sampling, cumbersome result disposition procedures, and inadequate utilization of results. SAMR has therefore revised Interim Measures, producing the current draft for comment. 

The draft introduces six key changes:

• Problem-oriented approach to conducting spot checks: The Revision introduces a new principle requiring inspectors to focus on products with frequent quality and safety issues. The definition of supervised inspection is clarified and narrowed to cover products endangering health and safety, key industrial products, and products with reported quality issues. However, it does not mean the products outside these three selection criteria are exempt from spot checks; interested stakeholders should keep the problem-oriented principle in mind. Where sampling reveals products lacking proper labeling, CCC certification, or production licenses, sampling personnel must immediately secure evidence and transfer the case for disposition, enhancing the precision and speed of problem detection and handling.

• Refined online inspection and strengthened platform accountability: Online sampling rules expand from one section to a standalone chapter with detailed record-keeping requirements. This act of inclusion aims to regulate e-commerce industry. For non-conforming products sold via live commerce, the draft mandates disclosure of live-streaming operators and marketing personnel. E-commerce platforms must take necessary measures such as deleting listings, blocking access, or terminating transactions against non-conforming products, with penalties for non-compliance.

• Streamlined rectification and sample management: Under the Interim Measures, the rectification and re-inspection timeline was layered: 60 days to rectify non-conforming products; 75 days for the authority to organize initial re-inspection, and a second re-inspection between 60 and 90 days after public announcement, with suspension and rectification ordered only if the product remained non-conforming.

• The Revision simplifies this to 60 days for initial rectification and initial re-inspection, and 90 days for follow-up re-inspection after announcement; Re-inspection now only targets non-conforming test items rather than the full test item list. Conforming purchased samples may be disposed of via auction, donation, destruction, or research retention after the appeal period expires.

• Strengthened duplicate-inspection constraints: The non-duplication period for the same product is extended from six months to one year. An exemption is added when industry regulators have already conducted annual inspections in the same year. Exceptions are expanded to cover online sampling, follow-up inspections, emergency responses, and special campaigns.

• Re-inspection mechanism and institution roster: SAMR will publish a national roster of re-inspection institutions with required technical capabilities. Re-inspection institutions must not be the same as the original sampling or testing institutions, removing the prior single-institution regional exception.

• Deepened result utilization: The Interim Measures mandates disclosure of specific non-conforming product information and requires sharing results with relevant industry regulators. On top of that, the Revision introduces “non-conformance rate” as the uniform statistical metric for quality analysis.

For foreign stakeholders, this revision addresses identified shortcomings in the existing spot-check mechanism. It also closes regulatory gaps in the management of the now-mature e-commerce sector, enhancing overall regulatory efficiency and fostering a fairer market environment. As the draft remains subject to change until official promulgation, the changes outlined above should be treated as indicative of the system's evolving direction rather than final binding rules. Enterprises are encouraged to study the draft closely and stay abreast of further regulatory developments.