Minimum paid up for capital for Shanghai WFOE

A good friend of mine just registered a WFOE with 100.000 RMB investment. IT IS POSSIBLE! He got the biz license in february. It's only applicable for Service companies, you can't sell goods with such a WFOE. But as mentioned, a WFOE requires carefull planning and analysis of your biz. Don't just go and register. A WFOE requires also a lot of accounting work. If you just ask for the minimum amount, 100k RMB plus 6k RMB government fees plus whatever the agent takes that you choose.

As for registered capital: Registered capital is the amount that it’s required to run the business until it can break even - the 'registered capital' is a guideline only. If you do looking for a minimum registered capital, for instance RMB 30,000 (which is impossible to establish a WFOE in China) this means you will run out of money pretty soon, which leads to increased costs in reapplying for permission to increase capital, additional licensing fees and renewals of business licenses and so on. The WFOE needs funding via it’s registered capital until it’s about to support itself from it’s own cash flow. However the amount of registered capital is depend upon factors like Scope of Business and Location. In reality local authorities will review the feasibility study report (and check the lease contract) approve the investment on a case-by-case basis; reduced registered capital could be negotiated in some cases. The minimum registered capital guides for various industries according to practice in China, for instance Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen are given below: Consulting WFOE RMB 100,000 ~ RMB 500,000 Service WFOE RMB 100,000 ~ RMB 500,000 Hi-Tech WFOE RMB 100,000 ~ RMB 500,000 Trading WFOE / FICE RMB 500,000 ~ RMB 1 million Catering WFOE RMB 500,000 ~ RMB 1 million Manufacturing WFOE RMB 1 million or USD 140,000 The conclusion provided before might lead people to think that in China, Registered capital less than USD 140K won't get approved or been approved but won't generate profit is misleading. In this thread, the questions is about Minimum paid up for WFOE, not about how much investment that you could break even in China. As for break evenit really depands factors like industry, business plan, office rental, manpower cost etc. You may only break even with investing 1 million bucks for restaurant business in Shanghai; while people may invest 100K RMB begins generate profits during the first 6 months by providing design services. As for manpower investment, people may used up their investment pretty soon.