As we enter 2026, my country’s cross-border trade facilitation reform has once again accelerated comprehensively. Multiple policies on foreign exchange settlement, tax incentives, and investment and financing services have been intensively implemented. The intensity, accuracy, and coverage of support for foreign trade companies have all reached record highs. This is a dividend year that foreign traders must seize.
Recalling the preliminary reform paving the way, in December 2023, the country has expanded the cross-border trade investment and financing facilitation pilot to seven provinces and cities including Shanghai and Jiangsu, and implemented 9 innovative measures such as foreign exchange receipts and payments net settlement, simplifying the cross-border fund collection and payment process for enterprises, and easing the capital turnover pressure of enterprises.
In 2025, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange will issue another new policy and release 9 measures in 3 aspects to continue to optimize cross-border trade balance services and reduce the burden and increase efficiency of foreign trade enterprises.
Entering 2026, policy upgrades will be fully intensified.
At the beginning of the year, 25 cross-border trade facilitation measures were replicated and promoted nationwide to comprehensively optimize the foreign trade business environment from multiple dimensions such as logistics smoothness, cultivation of new business formats, smart supervision, and benefits for enterprises and people.
The foreign exchange field continues to expand high-level opening-up pilots, focusing on new cross-border e-commerce formats, enriching cross-border financial service scenarios, improving corporate exchange rate risk management services, and helping small and medium-sized enterprises avoid the risk of exchange rate fluctuations.
Special tax policies have been implemented simultaneously to effectively reduce costs and increase efficiency for enterprises.
In February 2026, the Ministry of Finance, the General Administration of Customs, and the State Administration of Taxation jointly issued new regulations to clarify the preferential tax policies for cross-border e-commerce export returns from 2026 to 2027, accurately solving the industry pain points of high tax costs for returns and replenishments by foreign trade companies.
At the same time, the cross-border e-commerce 9610 invoice-free tax exemption policy continues, completely solving the problems of missing input invoices and cumbersome declarations for small and medium-sized cross-border sellers.
In March, the National Cross-Border Trade Facilitation Special Action expanded again, adding 20 new pilot cities, bringing the total number of pilots to 45. It simultaneously launched 29 innovative measures in 5 major categories, expanded the scope of the “first inspection, then shipment” pilot for export LCL, and greatly improved the efficiency of export customs clearance of small-value cross-border parcels.
At the same time, financial protection continues to increase. China Export and Credit Insurance Corporation has supported trade investment of more than 8 trillion US dollars, driving banks to provide 4.8 trillion yuan in policy financing; Focus Technology’s new voyage plan continues to be implemented, fully empowering foreign trade companies to go overseas digitally.
The continuous promotion and upgrading of these policies have injected strong impetus into the development of my country’s cross-border trade.
The optimization of foreign exchange policies makes companies more comfortable in capital settlement and risk management; preferential tax policies directly reduce the operating costs of companies and enhance their competitiveness.
With the continuous increase of pilot cities and the continuous introduction of innovative measures, the customs clearance efficiency of cross-border trade will be further improved, providing more favorable conditions for enterprises to explore international markets.
For the majority of foreign trade companies, 2026 is undoubtedly a year full of opportunities. They should seize these policy dividends, actively expand overseas markets, and achieve their own development and growth.
