Late payment statistics: China

The Debitura Collection Risk Score is an editorial comparison index covering 177 countries, built from four public, independently published sources and shown on a 1-10 scale where 10 is the highest collection risk. It displays in four bands: Low below 3.5, Moderate 3.5-4.9, Elevated 5.0-6.4, High 6.5 and above. China’s 5.8 falls in the Elevated band.

Each available component is mapped onto the common 1-10 scale with a fixed linear mapping, and the score is the simple average of whichever components exist. Coface: A1=1.0, A2=2.3, A3=3.6, A4=4.9, B=6.1, C=7.4, D=8.7, E=10.0. Allianz: max(1, score ÷ 10). B-READY: max(1, (100 - the average of the Dispute Resolution and Business Insolvency topic scores) ÷ 10). WJP: max(1, (1 - score) × 10). A country needs at least two of the four to receive a score. For China: (6.1 + 6.6 + 4.7) ÷ 3 = 5.8.

China’s score rests on three of the four components. The World Bank’s B-READY 2025 dataset does not cover China - the country is not among its 101 economies - so the dispute-resolution and business-insolvency component is absent rather than estimated.

This is not a credit rating. The Debitura Collection Risk Score is an editorial comparison index for a statistics and journalism product. It is not a credit rating, not a probability of default, not a measure of any individual company’s creditworthiness, and not legal or financial advice. It is not produced by a regulated rating agency and must not be used as a substitute for one.

The score is an editorial comparison index built from four public, independently published sources. For each country we take whichever of the four are available, map each onto a common 1-10 scale using a fixed linear mapping, and take the simple average. A country needs at least two of the four to receive a score. Scores run 1 to 10, where 10 is the highest collection risk, and display in four bands: Low below 3.5, Moderate 3.5-4.9, Elevated 5.0-6.4, High 6.5 and above.

Mappings: Coface Country Risk Assessment A1=1.0, A2=2.3, A3=3.6, A4=4.9, B=6.1, C=7.4, D=8.7, E=10.0 (160 countries). Allianz Collection Complexity Score max(1, score ÷ 10) (52 economies). World Bank B-READY max(1, (100 - the average of the Dispute Resolution and Business Insolvency topic scores) ÷ 10) (101 economies). WJP Rule of Law Index Civil Justice factor max(1, (1 - score) × 10) (143 countries). China draws on three of the four - B-READY does not cover China.

This is not a credit rating. It is an editorial comparison index for a statistics and journalism product - not a credit rating, not a probability of default, not a measure of any individual company’s creditworthiness, and not legal or financial advice. It is not produced by a regulated rating agency and must not be used as a substitute for one.

Every figure on this page is drawn from one of the seven primary sources listed below, extracted with an exact page, chart or dataset locator, and published only where that locator was verified in the source file itself. Figures from different publishers are reported side by side rather than merged: CRIBIS D&B, Coface, Allianz Trade, Atradius and the World Justice Project each survey or measure different samples with different definitions, and their numbers are not interchangeable.

The headline figures at the top of this page come from CRIBIS D&B’s Q4 2025 settled-payment release (57.4% paid on time) and Coface’s Asia Payment Survey 2025 (payment terms and ultra-long delay trends). China draws on both a dedicated Atradius China barometer and the shared 8-market Atradius Asia statistical appendix, plus a Coface Asia Payment Survey with a full by-economy breakdown across nine markets - richer country-specific coverage than several of the report’s other wave-1 countries.

Known gaps for China. The World Bank’s B-READY 2025 dataset does not cover China, so the country has three of four score components rather than four, and no B-READY court-duration or insolvency-cost figures appear here. Eurostat’s register-based bankruptcy index, used on this report’s European pages, is EU-only and does not cover China; Allianz Trade’s own insolvency count and forecast are used instead. No Atradius International Debt Collection Handbook chapter or equivalent legal-framework source was available for China in this wave of extraction, so this page carries no limitation-period or default-interest figure, and the commercial CTA module uses a collection-complexity figure instead of a legal one - a declared substitution, not an estimate. Xero Small Business Insights does not cover China, so there is no monthly Chinese time-to-pay series of the kind shown on the United States page.

14 August 2026 - first publication of the China country report. 15 figures from 7 primary sources, plus the three Collection Risk Score components that cover China. This page is updated in place; new editions replace the content at this URL rather than creating a new year-specific page.