SINOSURE.
Trade Credit for Importers

The cost of Sinosure credit insurance typically ranges from 0.5% to 1.5% of the invoice value for shipments with a 90-day deferred payment term.

The exact rate depends on several factors, including:

• transaction amount
• buyer’s country risk
• financial profile of the buyer
• size of the supplier’s insurance policy

Who Pays for Sinosure Insurance?

The Chinese supplier pays the Sinosure insurance premium, as the policyholder.

Depending on the commercial agreement, the supplier may either absorb this cost or include it in the price of the goods.

Many large exporters — particularly companies from priority industries, state-owned enterprises, or exporters with large annual policies — may have VIP or subsidized Sinosure policies. In such cases, the effective insurance cost may be around 0.3%–0.5% of the invoice value for a 90-day payment term.

To access 90–120 day trade credit terms from Chinese suppliers, an importer must first be registered within the official Sinosure credit information database - Sinorating. This process, known as onboarding, ensures your company is visible to underwriters and eligible for credit insurance coverage.

What is Sinorating?

Sinorating is the specialized credit information arm of Sinosure. It is responsible for collecting, verifying, and consolidating data on international buyers. Essentially, Sinorating acts as an internal global credit bureau that provides Sinosure’s underwriters with the standardized information they need to approve credit limits and insure deferred payment transactions.

The key role of Sinorating

Sinosure insures transactions for buyers across more than 200 countries, each with different accounting standards and legal frameworks. For an underwriter in China, analyzing raw, non-standardized financial data from various regions is highly inefficient.

Sinorating bridges this gap by converting diverse global data into a unified format. This allows underwriters to make informed decisions quickly, ensuring that companies from different jurisdictions are evaluated on a level playing field.

The Onboarding Process: Data Collection

To create a comprehensive profile, Sinorating collects several key layers of information:

• Corporate Identity: Registration details, active business status, and shareholder/management structures.
• Risk Compliance: Checks against international sanction lists, legal disputes, and court records.
• Trade History: Analysis of current import volumes, existing supplier relationships, and customer base.
• Financial Transparency: Submission of the company's financial statements for the last two fiscal years.

The Result: Sinosure ID and Credit Rating

Once the data collection is complete, Sinorating issues a Sinorating Credit Report. This report includes:

1. Sinosure ID: A unique identification number assigned to your company.
2. Credit Rating: An internal score based on your financial indicators and trade history.

This report is stored in the central Sinosure database. When a Chinese supplier applies for a credit limit for your orders, the underwriter pulls this standardized report to determine the maximum amount of credit that can be safely approved for your company.

Expert Insight: The presence of complete and accurate financial data is the single most important factor for success. In most cases, if a credit report lacks the last two years of financial statements, the application for a credit limit will face an automatic rejection.

To purchase goods from Chinese suppliers on deferred payment terms, the importing company must obtain a Sinosure credit limit.

A Sinosure credit limit represents the maximum amount of trade credit that Sinosure is willing to insure for transactions between a specific Chinese supplier and an overseas buyer.

What is a Sinosure Credit Limit?

A Sinosure credit limit is an electronic approval issued by Sinosure after assessing the creditworthiness of a buyer.

The credit limit is issued as a PDF document available in the supplier’s Sinosure account and contains the main parameters of the insured transaction.

A typical credit limit includes:

• name of the Chinese supplier (policyholder)
• name of the buyer, company registration details, address, and Sinosure ID
• approved credit limit amount
• approved payment tenor, typically between 30 and 180 days (the most common term is 90 days)
• policy number of the supplier
• identification details of the buyer within the Sinosure system

This document confirms that Sinosure is willing to insure shipments from that supplier to the buyer up to the approved amount.

How the credit limit approval process works

The process of approving a credit limit is called a credit investigation. Only a Chinese exporter that holds a Sinosure insurance policy can submit an application for a credit investigation. The supplier submits the application through its Sinosure online account.

If the buyer is already registered in the Sinorating database, the supplier only needs to enter the buyer’s Sinosure ID, and the buyer’s information will load automatically.

The supplier may optionally upload supporting documents such as:

• the sales contract with the buyer
• proforma invoice or purchase order
• information about previous shipments

However, these documents are not always required.
Once the application is submitted, the Sinosure underwriting department begins the credit investigation.

The underwriter checks whether a valid Sinorating credit report already exists for the buyer. The report must normally be no older than three months. If the report is outdated or if the buyer is not yet in the database, Sinosure initiates a credit information collection process.

After the credit report is available, the underwriter evaluates the buyer’s financial condition and calculates the credit limit that can be approved.

According to Sinosure data published in recent annual reports, a significant portion of credit decisions is now processed automatically using internal risk models and AI systems.
However, some decisions are still reviewed and approved by a human underwriter.

Because of both automated and manual evaluation, it is important that Sinosure has complete and accurate information about the buyer.

The credit investigation normally takes up to 21 days, although decisions may be issued faster for financially strong companies or take longer in more complex cases.

After the investigation is completed, Sinosure issues the credit limit document, which becomes available in the supplier’s Sinosure account.

Key Features of Sinosure Credit Limits

There are several important characteristics of Sinosure credit limits that buyers and suppliers should understand:

• Credit limits are issued for a specific supplier. If a buyer works with multiple Chinese suppliers, each supplier must apply for and reserve its own credit limit.
• The total exposure depends on the buyer’s financial capacity. Sinosure evaluates the buyer’s financial position and determines the overall credit capacity, often referred to as the cumulative credit limit.
• Credit limits are reserved for a limited period. Once approved, a credit limit is typically reserved for the supplier for 120 days. If the supplier does not use the limit during this period, it may be released and become available for other suppliers.
• Credit capacity may be fully reserved by other suppliers. If the buyer’s total credit capacity is already reserved by existing suppliers, Sinosure may inform new applicants that the buyer’s credit capacity is currently exhausted.
• Credit limits are revolving. Once the buyer pays for previous shipments, the credit capacity becomes available again and can be reused for new deliveries.
• Credit limits can be increased. If the buyer builds a positive payment history or significantly improves its financial position, suppliers may apply to increase the credit limit.