Effectively ensuring the safety of people's makeup use, the new regulations for the supervision of imported and exported cosmetics will come into effect on December 1st
As an important component of the beauty and health industry, the cosmetics industry can not only meet people's aspirations for a better life, but also further unleash consumer vitality. On the 11th, it was learned from the press conference of the General Administration of Customs that in order to adhere to the safety bottom line of imported and exported cosmetics and effectively ensure the safety of the general public's use of cosmetics, the General Administration of Customs recently issued the newly revised "Regulations on Inspection, Quarantine, Supervision and Management of Imported and Exported Cosmetics of the People's Republic of China", which will come into effect on December 1st this year.
Li Jinsong, Director of the Import and Export Food Safety Bureau of the General Administration of Customs, stated that this revision has extensively solicited opinions from the public, relevant enterprises, industry associations, and the National Medical Products Administration, while following international rules and notifying the World Trade Organization (WTO). Overall, there are three main characteristics: firstly, strengthening the coordinated supervision of the entire chain and building a solid defense line at the national border; Secondly, deepen institutional reform and innovation, and enhance the level of cross-border trade facilitation; The third is to support the development of new business models and accumulate momentum for sustained reform.
Currently, the import and export of cosmetics has become an important sector of China's import and export trade. By 2025, the total value of imported and exported cosmetics in China will reach 171.61 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2.7%.
In the import and export trade of cosmetics, product safety and compliance are crucial. Li Jinsong stated that after the implementation of the newly revised measures, the national customs will focus on the prevention and control of cosmetic safety risks, continuously strengthen collaborative supervision, enhance coordination with drug supervision and other departments, and promote seamless integration between the safety of imported and exported cosmetics and the domestic regulatory system. At the same time, key processes such as import declaration, on-site inspection, and laboratory testing should be standardized, and strict label compliance verification should be carried out. Unqualified products detected at the port should be returned and destroyed in accordance with laws and regulations, to strengthen the national security defense line.
The research and development of new cosmetics products is an important support for the innovation and iteration of the beauty industry, which cannot be separated from the smooth circulation of samples and exhibits. The newly revised measures optimize the entry supervision process for participating cosmetics, meet the needs of new product exhibitions and displays in the industry, and implement convenient customs clearance policies for imported cosmetics samples and exhibits that meet the requirements, allowing for quick release and significantly shortening the new product launch cycle, allowing consumers to experience international new products in the first time.
Kong Xiaobang, Deputy Director of the Import and Export Food Safety Bureau of the General Administration of Customs, stated that while providing customs clearance convenience, the customs will always strictly adhere to the safety bottom line, strictly manage the entry purpose and quantity of samples and exhibits, clarify the applicable scenarios of samples and exhibits, and require enterprises to establish a complete flow management ledger. After the samples and exhibits are put into trial use, they must be returned and destroyed according to regulations to achieve closed-loop supervision of the entire process, ensuring that they are both "released alive" and "managed well".
In recent years, the international competitiveness of China-Chic Beauty Makeup, which has the element of "Oriental Aesthetics", has become increasingly stronger. perfume, cosmetics and other domestic cosmetics, which integrate traditional spices such as agarwood and osmanthus, and cultural IP such as the Forbidden City and Dunhuang, have become "popular" overseas by virtue of cultural IP and high cost performance.
In order to better help "China-Chic Beauty" go to sea, the newly revised measures cancel the requirements for the registration management of export cosmetics manufacturers, optimize the setting of inspection sites, stipulate that export cosmetics manufacturers should establish a quality management system and ensure continuous and effective operation, and try innovative models such as remote territorial inspection, market procurement place declaration and inspection.
For example, in pilot projects such as Yiwu, the reform of market procurement and export cosmetics procurement declaration and inspection has been carried out, breaking the limitations of traditional production inspection and successfully achieving "one-stop" declaration and integrated customs clearance for beauty product exports. This fundamentally solves the problems of "small quantity and small batch" restrictions and production declaration and inspection, effectively improving the level of customs clearance convenience. According to calculations, each ticket can shorten the customs clearance time for enterprises by 3 to 5 working days, saving about 5000 yuan in costs. On July 31, 2025, the first nationwide market purchase of exported cosmetics was successfully cleared in Yiwu, and the export value has exceeded 420 million yuan since the pilot program began 9 months ago.
Shanghai is an important port for the import and export of cosmetics in China, with its import volume consistently ranking first in the country. By 2025, the import volume of cosmetics in the Shanghai Customs District will reach 40.44 billion yuan, accounting for 35% of the national import volume.
At the press conference, Li Jinsong announced that based on the newly revised measures, the General Administration of Customs and the National Medical Products Administration have jointly agreed to implement the pilot work of electronic labeling for imported cosmetics in Shanghai from the same day.
The so-called cosmetic electronic label refers to a digital label that stores the relevant content of cosmetic Chinese labels through an electronic storage mechanism and generates corresponding QR codes through an information system. It is an integral part of cosmetic labels, and consumers can directly "read" the products in their hands by scanning the code with their smartphones.
Li Jinsong introduced that Shanghai, as a pilot area for electronic labeling of imported cosmetics, can rely on the advantages of highly concentrated business and rich application scenarios to comprehensively test the stability, operational convenience, and regulatory effectiveness of the new model system.
The pilot of electronic labels for imported cosmetics is' reassuring 'and' convenient 'for consumers, and' energy-saving 'and' efficient 'for enterprises, "said Luo Jianghong, Deputy Director of Shanghai Customs. This pilot relies on data sharing and business connectivity between customs and drug regulatory departments, and through joint announcements to standardize declaration elements and intelligent system comparisons, promotes the upgrading of cosmetics supervision from traditional manual verification to digitalization and intelligence, deeply reshaping the regulatory system of tripartite collaboration and risk prevention. In the future, it will gradually be replicated and promoted nationwide.
Li Jinsong stated that the newly revised measures have set a policy transition period of more than six months, providing sufficient time for domestic and foreign enterprises to adapt to the new policies. The next step is for the General Administration of Customs to strengthen collaborative supervision with drug supervision and other departments to ensure higher safety and protect consumers' health rights, and promote innovative development in cosmetics trade with greater convenience.