China’s Foreign Investment Negative List in 2026: Sector Opening, Encouraged Catalogue and Market Access in Practice

2026-09-20 Negative List / 负面清单, Policy Updates / 政策动态

• China’s national foreign-investment negative list stands at 29 items and the free-trade-zone version at 27 items, with all manufacturing access restrictions eliminated — including the removal of the “publication printing must be Chinese-controlled” and “prohibition on Chinese medicine decoction-piece processing technology” limits.
  全国版外资准入负面清单为 29 条，自由贸易试验区版为 27 条，制造业领域外资准入限制措施已全部清零——包括取消”出版物印刷须由中方控股”与”禁止投资中药饮片炮制技术”等限制。

• The 15th Five-Year Plan commits to expanding market access with services as the focus, promoting the orderly opening of telecom, internet, education, culture and healthcare, and piloting value-added telecom, biotechnology and wholly foreign-owned hospital regimes.
  “十五五”规划纲要以服务业为重点扩大市场准入，推动电信、互联网、教育、文化、医疗等领域有序扩大开放，稳妥实施增值电信、生物技术、外商独资医院等开放试点。

• At the September 2026 NDRC roundtable with multinational firms, authorities signalled continued services opening, higher investment convenience, optimised cross-border data flows, the profit-reinvestment tax preference, and a push to make foreign firms both “admitted and operable” by clearing inconsistent local rules and unblocking post-access bottlenecks.
  在 2026 年 9 月国家发展改革委与跨国企业高层圆桌会上，主管部门释放持续扩大服务业开放、提升投资便利度、优化数据跨境流动、落实利润再投资税收优惠，并通过清理不符文件、打通准营堵点落实外资企业”准入又准营”的信号。

• The negative list answers “can you enter”; the Catalogue of Encouraged Industries (2025 edition, NDRC and MOFCOM Order No. 37, effective 1 February 2026) answers “what support you get once in” — the two instruments are applied in combination, not in isolation.
  负面清单管”能不能进”，《鼓励外商投资产业目录（2025 年版）》（国家发展改革委、商务部第 37 号令，2026 年 2 月 1 日施行）管”进了有什么支持”，二者叠加使用而非各自孤立。

• The binding constraint is shifting from access to operation permission: sector licences, product registration, government procurement and standards participation now do much of the screening, so pre-investment screening must pair the list check with a catalogue and a post-access bottleneck map.
  约束重心正从准入转向准营：行业许可、产品注册、政府采购与标准参与承担了大部分筛选，故投资前筛查须将清单核查与鼓励目录、准营堵点地图并列推进。

• Practical steps: screen the business scope against the current list and the FTZ list, use standardised business-scope wording, distinguish filing from approval, and pre-empt post-access blockages in licensing, procurement and standards.
  实操步骤：将经营范围对照现行全国与自贸试验区清单，使用规范经营范围表述，区分备案制与核准制，并预先应对许可、政府采购、标准制定等准营堵点。

China’s Foreign Investment Negative List in 2026: Sector Opening, Encouraged Catalogue and Market Access in Practice | 2026 年中国外资准入负面清单：行业开放、鼓励目录与准入实操

Overview

The foreign-investment negative list is the gateway instrument of China’s market-access system: outside the listed items, foreign investors are treated on a par with domestic ones under the pre-establishment national-treatment-plus-negative-list regime. In 2026 the list is stable in length but active in meaning — 29 national items, 27 in the free-trade zones, manufacturing fully cleared — with the year’s policy energy directed at services and at the post-access journey where licences and standards do the screening. This article maps the list landscape, the 15th Five-Year Plan, the September 2026 NDRC roundtable signals, and how the list interacts with the Catalogue of Encouraged Industries (2025 edition), then sets out a screening method and common post-access bottlenecks.

The current negative-list landscape

The operative national negative list is the 2024 edition (NDRC and MOFCOM Order No. 23), in force since 1 November 2024, with 29 items — the shortest in the instrument’s history. Through 2026 no new national edition has been published. The free-trade-zone negative list stands at 27 items. Manufacturing access restrictions have been fully “zeroed out”: compared with the 2021 edition, the 2024 national list deleted the last two manufacturing limits — “publication printing must be Chinese-controlled” and “prohibition on investment in the application of Chinese medicine decoction-piece processing techniques such as steaming, frying, roasting and calcining, and in the production of products with confidential traditional Chinese medicine prescriptions” — leaving manufacturing without foreign-access restrictions.

What remains concentrates on a narrow set of security- and sensitivity-related sectors: news and publishing, culture, education, telecom, mining and agricultural breeding. Strategically, the list is now a stable floor; the next movement is expected in services, via pilots and mechanism-building rather than a single full revision.

The 15th Five-Year Plan deployment

The 15th Five-Year Plan outline frames the opening agenda. It commits to expanding market access with services as the priority and opening more fields, attracting foreign investment. It names telecom, internet, education, culture and healthcare as the sectors for orderly further opening, and it tasks the authorities with piloting value-added telecom, biotechnology and wholly foreign-owned hospital regimes, while advancing comprehensive pilots and demonstrations of services-sector opening. The plan’s logic is that, with manufacturing largely open, the marginal liberalisation that matters to foreign investors sits in services and in the operating environment after entry.

The September 2026 NDRC roundtable: the post-access signal

On 10–11 September 2026, the NDRC held a high-level roundtable with multinational firms in Beijing under the theme of embracing the 15th Five-Year Plan. The signals most relevant to market access were concrete and forward-looking.

On opening: officials stated that during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, on the basis of fully assessing existing pilots, China will continue to promote the orderly opening of telecom, internet, education, culture and healthcare, and prudently implement pilots in value-added telecom, biotechnology and wholly foreign-owned hospitals; it will steadily expand financial-market connectivity, optimise the qualified foreign-investor regime and broaden investable products, and orderly advance eligible enterprises’ cross-border two-way direct financing.

On the business environment: officials pledged to further raise the convenience of foreign investment, optimise cross-border data-flow management, and implement the tax preference for overseas investors’ direct investment with distributed profits. On the core post-access agenda, the NDRC’s foreign-investment department stated that a key task is to deliver foreign firms being “both admitted and operable” — supervising local governments to continuously clear documents and rules inconsistent with the Foreign Investment Law, unblocking the bottlenecks that foreign firms hit after admission, and prudently advancing value-added-telecom, biotechnology and foreign-invested-hospital pilots in relevant localities. It also committed to introducing optimisation measures and fully implementing national treatment for foreign firms.

The takeaway for investors is that the 2026 agenda is less about shrinking the list’s item count and more about making the remaining items operable, and about removing the local rules and licensing frictions that sit behind the list.

Negative list meets encouraged catalogue: a combined method

The negative list and the Catalogue of Encouraged Industries answer different questions. The negative list sets the ceiling — what is prohibited or capped. The Catalogue of Encouraged Industries (2025 edition, NDRC and MOFCOM Order No. 37, effective 1 February 2026) sets the floor of support — what is encouraged and what benefits follow. The 2025 catalogue has 1,679 entries in total: a national catalogue of 619 entries and a regional catalogue of 1,060 entries for central-west, northeast and Hainan, guiding foreign investment into advanced manufacturing, modern services, high-tech, energy conservation and environmental protection, and into central-west and northeast regions.

The method applies the two in combination. Step one: confirm the target sector is not on the negative list (or, if capped, design a compliant ownership structure). Step two: check whether the sector or a sub-item appears in the encouraged catalogue — if so, the project may qualify for import, land and tax support at national and local levels. Step three: note that encouragement does not override the list — a sector can be both encouraged and, in a specific sub-activity, still restricted, so the two must be read together. The Action Plan for Stabilising and Optimizing Foreign Investment (Shangzi Fa [2026] No. 97) is the operational bridge: it opens services pilots and steers support to encouraged activities, so the list, the catalogue and the action plan should be consulted together.

Pre-investment screening in practice

1. Screen the business scope against the list. Map the proposed activity to the 29-item national list and, if entering a pilot zone, to the 27-item FTZ list; confirm whether the activity is prohibited, capped (e.g., equity ratio) or free.
2. Use standardised business-scope wording. Register the business scope with the standardised expressions from the national business-scope registration system; vague or non-standard wording is a frequent cause of downstream licensing friction.
3. Distinguish filing from approval. Most post-access items are record-filing (备案); a smaller set requires administrative approval (核准) or a sector licence. Identify which applies before committing capital, because approval items carry a harder gate than filing.
4. Read the encouraged catalogue in parallel. Check the national and regional catalogues for the sector; if present, build the incentive case (imports, land, tax) into the investment model from day one.
5. Draw a post-access bottleneck map. List the licences, product registrations, procurement qualifications and standards bodies the venture will need, and assess each as a gate before signing.

Common post-access bottlenecks and responses

The “admitted but not operable” problem recurs in three places. First, licensing: a cleared entry still needs the sector licence (medical, telecom or education), with its own timetable — start it with incorporation. Second, government procurement and subsidies: eligibility often turns on domestic standards, local presence and compliance records; assemble evidence early. Third, standards: the ability to sell may depend on conformity with mandatory and recommended standards and on a voice in standard-setting; track the technical committees and conformity pathways.

Treat the negative list as the first checkbox, not the last. Pair it with the encouraged catalogue for support and with a candid post-access map for execution.

Sources

• 中国政府网《中国”十五五”规划，为世界提供新机遇》: https://www.gov.cn/yaowen/liebiao/202609/content_7081427.htm
• 中国政府网 政策解读《2024 年版全国外资准入负面清单发布 制造业领域外资准入限制措施”清零”》（29 条、制造业清零、出版物印刷与中药饮片条目取消）: https://www.gov.cn/zhengce/202409/content_6973149.htm
• 国家发展改革委 答记者问《外商投资准入特别管理措施（负面清单）（2024 年版）》（全国版 29 条、自贸试验区版 27 条、制造业清零）: https://www.ndrc.gov.cn/xxgk/jd/jd/202409/t20240907_1392877.html
• 国家发展改革委《鼓励外商投资产业目录（2025 年版）》解读（第 37 号令，2026 年 2 月 1 日施行，总条目 1679 条）: https://www.ndrc.gov.cn/xxgk/jd/jd/202512/t20251224_1402574.html
• 中国新闻网《苹果、霍尼韦尔、康宁等在华美企面对面提问国家发改委》（2026 年 9 月圆桌会、”准入又准营”、清理不符文件、打通准营堵点）: https://www.chinanews.com.cn/cj/2026/09-10/10694229.shtml
• 商务部《利用外资固稳促优行动方案》（商资发〔2026〕97 号）: https://www.mofcom.gov.cn/zcfb/wgtzgl/art/2026/art_0cfe31a63f9c4bd3869517bc10908c10.html
• 国家发展改革委: https://www.ndrc.gov.cn/
• 商务部: https://www.mofcom.gov.cn/

2026 年中国外资准入负面清单：行业开放、鼓励目录与准入实操

概述

外资准入负面清单是中国市场准入体系的闸口工具：清单之外，外国投资者在准入前国民待遇加负面清单管理体制下与内资一视同仁。2026 年清单篇幅稳定但意涵活跃——全国版 29 条、自贸试验区版 27 条、制造业限制全部清零，政策能量投向”准入到准营”这段由行业许可与标准承担实质筛选的旅程。本文勾勒现行清单格局、”十五五”部署、2026 年 9 月发改委圆桌会信号，并说明负面清单如何与《鼓励外商投资产业目录（2025 年版）》衔接，最后给出投资前筛查方法与常见准营堵点。

现行负面清单格局

现行有效的全国版清单是 2024 年版（国家发展改革委、商务部第 23 号令），自 2024 年 11 月 1 日起施行，共 29 条——为制度设立以来最短版本。2026 年全年尚未发布新版全国清单。自由贸易试验区版清单为 27 条。制造业准入限制已全面”清零”：相比 2021 年版，2024 年全国版删除了制造业仅剩的两条限制——”出版物印刷须由中方控股”与”禁止投资中药饮片的蒸、炒、炙、煅等炮制技术的应用及中成药保密处方产品的生产”——制造业已无外资准入限制。

清单剩余条目集中于少数安全与敏感领域：新闻出版、文化、教育、电信、采矿、农业育种等。战略上清单已成”稳定的地板”，下一步动作预计出现在服务业，通过试点与机制建设推进，而非一次全盘修订。

“十五五”规划部署

“十五五”规划纲要框定了开放议程。它以服务业为重点扩大市场准入、拓展开放领域，吸引外资；点名电信、互联网、教育、文化、医疗为有序扩大开放的领域，并部署稳妥实施增值电信、生物技术、外商独资医院等开放试点，推进服务业扩大开放综合试点示范。其逻辑是：制造业基本放开后，对外国投资者真正重要的边际开放落在服务业与进入后的经营环境。

2026 年 9 月发改委圆桌会：准营端信号

2026 年 9 月 10 日至 11 日，国家发展改革委以”拥抱’十五五'”为主题在北京召开与跨国企业高层圆桌会。与准入最相关的信号具体且前瞻。

开放方面：有关负责人表示，”十五五”时期将在充分评估现有试点基础上，持续推动电信、互联网、教育、文化、医疗等领域有序扩大开放，稳妥实施增值电信、生物技术、外商独资医院等开放试点；稳慎拓展金融市场互联互通，优化合格境外投资者制度、扩大可投资品种范围，有序推进符合条件的企业跨境双向直接融资。

营商环境方面：将进一步提升外商投资便利度、优化数据跨境流动管理、落实境外投资者以分配利润直接投资税收优惠政策。在准营核心议程上，国家发展改革委外资司表示，外资领域一项重点工作就是落实好外资企业”准入又准营”——督导各地持续清理与外商投资法不符的文件法规，打通外资企业准营的堵点卡点，同时稳妥推动有关地方开展增值电信、生物技术、外商投资医院等试点，并推动出台优化措施、全面落实外资企业国民待遇。

对投资者的要义是：2026 年议程的重点不在于压缩清单条数，而在于让剩余条目”可运营”，并清除清单背后的地方文件与许可摩擦。

负面清单衔接鼓励目录：叠加方法

负面清单与鼓励目录回答不同问题。负面清单设定上限——什么禁止或受限；鼓励目录（2025 年版，国家发展改革委、商务部第 37 号令，2026 年 2 月 1 日施行）设定支持的底线——什么受鼓励、进入后享有什么利好。2025 年版鼓励目录共 1679 条：全国目录 619 条，中西部等地区外商投资优势产业目录 1060 条，引导外资投向先进制造业、现代服务业、高新技术、节能环保及中西部、东北地区。

方法是二者叠加使用。第一步：确认目标行业不在负面清单上（若受限，则设计合规的股权结构）。第二步：核查该行业或其具体条目是否出现在鼓励目录——若在，项目可适用进口、用地、税收等支持政策。第三步：注意鼓励不凌驾于限制，某一行业可同时”受鼓励”又在某项具体活动上”仍受限”，故二者须对照阅读，不能假定互斥。《利用外资固稳促优行动方案》（商务部、国家发展改革委、财政部印发，商资发〔2026〕97 号，经国务院同意）是操作桥梁：既开放服务业试点，又将支持导向鼓励类活动，故清单、目录与行动方案应一并查阅。

投资前筛查实操

1. 对照清单筛查经营范围。将拟议活动映射到 29 条全国版清单；进入试点区域的，再对照 27 条自贸试验区版；确认属于禁止、受限（如股比）或自由。
2. 使用规范经营范围表述。通过全国统一经营范围规范表述系统登记经营范围；表述模糊或非标准，是下游许可摩擦的常见诱因。
3. 区分备案制与核准制。多数准营事项为备案；少数须行政审批或行业许可。注资前识别适用类别，因核准事项门槛硬于备案。
4. 并行查阅鼓励目录。核查全国与地区目录是否含该行业；若含，自第一天起将进口、用地、税收等激励纳入投资模型。
5. 绘制准营堵点地图。列出企业将需要的许可、产品注册、采购资质与标准机构，在签约前将每一项评估为关卡。

常见准营堵点与应对

“准入不准营”集中出现在三处。其一，许可：清单已放行的项目仍需行业许可（如医疗、电信、教育牌照），且许可申请自有时间表与实质要求——应与设立并行启动。其二，政府采购与补贴：资格常取决于是否符合国内标准、本地存在与合规记录，尽早备齐证据包。其三，标准参与：能否销售可能取决于是否符合强制性与推荐性标准、能否参与标准制定，跟踪相关技术委员会与合格评定路径。

建设性姿态是把负面清单当作第一个勾选项而非最后一个，与鼓励目录搭配获支持、与准营地图搭配落地执行。2026 年 9 月信号表明，通过外资企业圆桌会与一站式窗口提出准营堵点问题，是被认可的渠道。

来源

• 中国政府网《中国”十五五”规划，为世界提供新机遇》：https://www.gov.cn/yaowen/liebiao/202609/content_7081427.htm
• 中国政府网 政策解读《2024 年版全国外资准入负面清单发布 制造业领域外资准入限制措施”清零”》（29 条、制造业清零、出版物印刷与中药饮片条目取消）：https://www.gov.cn/zhengce/202409/content_6973149.htm
• 国家发展改革委 答记者问《外商投资准入特别管理措施（负面清单）（2024 年版）》（全国版 29 条、自贸试验区版 27 条、制造业清零）：https://www.ndrc.gov.cn/xxgk/jd/jd/202409/t20240907_1392877.html
• 国家发展改革委《鼓励外商投资产业目录（2025 年版）》解读（第 37 号令，2026 年 2 月 1 日施行，总条目 1679 条）：https://www.ndrc.gov.cn/xxgk/jd/jd/202512/t20251224_1402574.html
• 中国新闻网《苹果、霍尼韦尔、康宁等在华美企面对面提问国家发改委》（2026 年 9 月圆桌会、”准入又准营”、清理不符文件、打通准营堵点）：https://www.chinanews.com.cn/cj/2026/09-10/10694229.shtml
• 商务部《利用外资固稳促优行动方案》（商资发〔2026〕97 号）：https://www.mofcom.gov.cn/zcfb/wgtzgl/art/2026/art_0cfe31a63f9c4bd3869517bc10908c10.html
• 国家发展改革委：https://www.ndrc.gov.cn/
• 商务部：https://www.mofcom.gov.cn/