How to pay a freelancer in China from abroad

Yes, through a licensed money-transfer service, as a payment for services. The catch is that its limits count every such payment the freelancer receives, from you and from everyone else. Those limits, and the ones a wire runs into, are set out below in two lanes: what happens on each payment, and what adds up over a year. This is chapter 4 of the handbook on hiring a freelancer in China.

The threshold ladder

Each limit was read at its source on October 18, 2026. Providers change their limits; the source link is the authority.

The USD 50,000 is a paperwork threshold, not a cap on what a freelancer can earn. SAFE’s own explanation says exactly that.

The declaration and the conversion are the freelancer’s steps, at their bank. Your part is smaller: pay from an account in your company’s name, and send the papers that explain what the money is for.

To see where a job sits on the ladder, add up a year of payments to the same person, by the same route. Two examples, with amounts we chose for illustration:

Take a monthly retainer of 40,000 CNY, sent to Alipay. Each transfer is under the 50,000 CNY ceiling. But twelve months come to 480,000 CNY. Seven payments add up to 280,000, which leaves 20,000 CNY of room under the Services limit for the eighth. If the freelancer has other foreign clients paying the same way, it comes sooner. Now take USD 6,000 a month by wire. Every payment is over USD 3,000, so each one is declared before the bank credits it. After eight months the freelancer has received USD 48,000; the ninth payment takes them past the USD 50,000 quota, and from then on they convert with documents.

Neither job is blocked. But in both, the freelancer needs to know ahead of time which month the paperwork changes, and so do you, since a payment sitting at the bank is, as far as they are concerned, a late one.

Four routes from your account to theirs

Before the routes, one rule. You pay the freelancer for their work. If the job involves buying goods, pay the factory directly, never through the freelancer: how to hire a freelance sourcing agent in China explains why.

Each route below gets the same four lines, taken from the providers’ and the regulator’s own pages. Fees and exchange-rate margins aren’t quoted: they change often, and each provider shows its own before you send. Before you choose, ask your freelancer three things: which route they already use, the exact name on the receiving account and how much they have received on that route this year.

A licensed remitter to Alipay

• Who can send. On Wise’s route, a business registered in one of the listed countries, which include the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan and many European countries. It must give a business registration number and choose Salary or Services as the purpose.
• What the freelancer needs. Mainland Chinese citizenship and a national ID (or Hong Kong or Macao residence with a Mainland travel permit), an Alipay account, and they must be at least 18. Their name goes in pinyin, exactly as on the ID.
• The limit that bites. 50,000 CNY per transfer, and 300,000 CNY a year for Services, counting every payment the freelancer receives that way, from every provider.
• What can go wrong. The freelancer has 72 hours to link a bank card, or the transfer is canceled and refunded, and 24 hours to send any document Alipay asks for. A freelancer’s fee is a payment for services. Salary has a higher yearly limit on the same route, but choosing it for a fee would misdescribe the payment.

A licensed remitter to a UnionPay card

• Who can send. A business paying an individual in CNY. In Wise’s CNY guide, a business can pay a person through UnionPay or Alipay; a plain transfer to a local bank account is offered only when the recipient is a business, and Weixin only to personal senders.
• What the freelancer needs. A UnionPay card at a bank that is a member of CIPS, China’s cross-border interbank payment system. Which banks are available depends on whether they hold a mainland ID.
• The limit that bites. 33,000 CNY per transaction, on Wise’s figures. Wise’s guide doesn’t say whether this route counts toward the yearly Alipay limits, so don’t assume it gets around them.
• What can go wrong. Local authorities may ask about the purpose of the transfer, which can delay it. A canceled transfer goes back to the sender within three working days.

A wire in foreign currency to the freelancer’s bank

• Who can send. Any business with a bank account abroad.
• What the freelancer needs. An account in China that accepts foreign currency, held in the exact name on your payment instruction. They also file a balance-of-payments declaration for the payment. SAFE’s Ningxia guide says money declared as business income can’t go into a personal savings account; it goes into a personal foreign-exchange settlement account.
• The limit that bites. The USD 50,000 yearly conversion quota. Above it, the freelancer converts with documents that show a real transaction.
• What can go wrong. The bank checks the account number and name against its records, and from USD 3,000 equivalent it waits for the declaration before crediting the money. A name that doesn’t match, or a payment with nothing to explain it, is the kind of thing that starts questions.

PayPal, to an account registered in China

• Who can send. Any business with a PayPal account, paying the freelancer’s PayPal account.
• What the freelancer needs. A PayPal account registered in the Chinese Mainland that can accept payments for services. Under PayPal’s terms for the Chinese Mainland, personal accounts registered after June 30, 2026 can’t request or accept payments other than personal transfers from family and friends, and can’t be changed into business accounts.
• The limit that bites. Holders of business accounts must also open an account with PayPal’s Beijing affiliate, 贝宝支付（北京）有限公司. PayPal says that if they don’t, it may suspend or close the PayPal account after June 30, 2026. PayPal may also set withdrawal limits, shown in the account.
• What can go wrong. PayPal’s agreement says that a payment for goods or services must not be sent as a personal transaction, so don’t pay a fee as a payment to “friends and family.” Withdrawals to a bank in China go through PayPal’s partner banks or licensed foreign-exchange providers, on their own terms. And if your freelancer opened the account recently, ask before you invoice: it may not be able to take your payment at all.

What the freelancer has to show their bank

That is the sending side. The rest happens at the freelancer’s bank.

Limits on the receiving side are the freelancer’s problem as much as yours. If the bank has questions, it asks the freelancer, not you. You can make that easier by sending these with each payment, or before the first one. The list is written so you can forward it.

• The signed services contract, ideally in Chinese and English.
• The invoice or payment notice for this payment.
• Proof of payment from you, the sender.
• For conversion above the USD 50,000 quota, the documents the bank lists for that kind of income. SAFE’s Ningxia guide gives, for consulting services, proof of payment and the agreement or contract, and for income not otherwise listed, the relevant proof and payment vouchers.

It also pays to keep a running total, by route, of what you pay each freelancer in the year, and send it to them in January. They will need the figures for the annual reconciliation, and you will see a limit coming before it stops a payment.

Splitting a payment across several people or several transfers to stay under a limit is prohibited. The People’s Bank of China’s rules on personal foreign exchange bar evading the limits “by splitting or other means.”

Tax: who withholds, and who files

If you came to this page for the tax question, this is the section.

Start with the statute, which takes one sentence. China’s income tax law makes the person receiving the income the taxpayer, and the person paying it the withholding agent.

The implementing regulations add that income from services performed in China is income from China, wherever it is paid (article 3). So a fee you pay from abroad for work done in Shenzhen is, for Chinese tax purposes, Chinese income.

A payer in China that withholds uses a fixed method for labor remuneration (劳务报酬), the category a freelancer’s fee usually falls in. From each payment it deducts costs of 800 yuan, or 20% if the payment is over 4,000 yuan, and withholds on the rest.

Take one payment of 10,000 yuan. The cost deduction is 20%, so 8,000 yuan is taxable, and 20% of that is 1,600 yuan withheld. The freelancer receives 8,400 yuan. On a smaller payment, the flat deduction applies instead: 3,000 yuan less 800 leaves 2,200 taxable, and 440 yuan is withheld. (Our arithmetic, on the table above.) The point for you is simpler: if a payer in China withholds, the freelancer’s take-home is lower than the invoice, and a bid should say which figure it quotes.

When nobody withholds, the law puts the filing on the freelancer. A taxpayer with income and no withholding agent files a return and pays by the 15th of the following month (article 13), and for a resident of China, labor remuneration is part of the income settled in the annual reconciliation, from March 1 to June 30 of the next year (article 11). A company abroad with no tax registration in China can’t normally act as the withholding agent. In practice the freelancer usually declares the income themselves.

The rules for internet platforms changed in 2025. Under State Council Decree 810, platforms report the identity and the previous quarter’s income of the people working through them, within the month after each quarter ends. Since October 1, 2025, they withhold on labor remuneration with a cumulative method, under STA Announcement 2025 No. 16. Whether a given business counts as such a platform is a question for a tax adviser.

None of this says what you, as a foreign payer, owe in your own country, and it doesn’t replace advice on your position. A later page on labor remuneration tax in China goes through the calculation in detail.

Paying through a party in China

There is one more way to pay, and it takes the cross-border step out of the freelancer’s hands. On ChinaTalentDesk, you pay by card or bank transfer in USD, EUR, GBP, SGD or HKD, one milestone at a time, and you sign one contract. Local pay and tax are handled: the freelancer is paid locally in RMB, with income tax withheld. Because the RMB comes from inside China, the cross-border limits above don’t apply to the freelancer.

Each bid states its price per milestone, so you know each payment before the work starts. Reading a bid shows how to compare them, and How it works and Pricing set out the rest.

Next in the handbook: chapter 5, working with a freelancer in China, day to day.

The step before this one is the contract, and it is also what the freelancer shows the bank: chapter 3, contracting a freelancer in China without an entity.

Price the job by milestone and pay each one in your own currency. Start a brief.