Announcement of the State Administration for Market Regulation, Central Social Work Department, and Ministry of Civil Affairs on the Release of the "Compliance Guidelines for Charging Behaviors of Industry Associations and Chambers of Commerce"
No. 32 of 2024
In order to strengthen the supervision of fees charged by industry associations and chambers of commerce, and guide them to carry out activities in accordance with the law and regulations, the State Administration for Market Regulation, together with the Central Ministry of Social Work and the Ministry of Civil Affairs, has formulated the "Compliance Guidelines for Fees Charging Behavior of Industry Associations and Chambers of Commerce", which is now announced.
State Administration for Market Regulation, Central Social Work Department, Ministry of Civil Affairs
July 30, 2024
Compliance Guidelines for Fee Collection Practices of Industry Associations and Chambers of Commerce
Chapter 1 General Provisions
Article 1: In order to further regulate the charging behavior of industry associations and chambers of commerce, guide them to carry out activities, provide services and charge fees in accordance with the law and regulations, and in accordance with relevant policies and regulations such as the Price Law of the People's Republic of China, the Administrative Penalty Regulations for Price Violations, the Regulations on the Registration and Management of Social Organizations, and the Regulations on Optimizing the Business Environment, this guide is formulated.
Article 2: This guide aims to optimize the fair competition market environment, safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of industry association and chamber of commerce members and other business entities, and promote the standardized and healthy development of industry association and chamber of commerce.
Article 3 the term "trade association chamber of commerce" as mentioned in these guidelines refers to a social organization legal person registered with the civil affairs department whose member is a unit engaged in economic activities of the same nature, a person in the same industry or an economic organization in the same region, and whose name is suffixed with the words "trade association", "association" and "chamber of commerce.
Article 4 The fees charged by trade associations and chambers of commerce as mentioned in these Guidelines mainly refer to membership fees, administrative fees, operating service fees and other fees.
Article 5 all kinds of charging business carried out by trade associations and chambers of commerce shall conform to the business scope stipulated in the articles of association, perform the procedures stipulated in the articles of association, and adhere to the basic principles of compliance with the law, openness and transparency, equality and voluntariness.
Compliance with the law means that the charging behavior should follow the requirements of laws, regulations and relevant policies.
Open and transparent means to fully protect the right to know of members and other service objects, and to publicize the charging items and standards.
Equal and voluntary, refers to the provision of services on a voluntary basis, may not be compulsory or disguised compulsory services and fees.
Article 6 The market supervision, social work, civil affairs and other departments, as well as various business competent units, industry management departments, and relevant functional departments, shall, in accordance with the division of responsibilities, conduct comprehensive supervision of the charging behavior of industry associations and chambers of commerce.
Article 7 Trade associations and chambers of commerce shall establish a problem feedback mechanism and seriously carry out self-examination and self-correction of the charging problems reflected by their members. Business entities and individuals can also make complaints and reports through the national 12315 platform and the complaint reporting platform of social organizations at all levels.
Article 8 The industry association and chamber of commerce shall actively cooperate with the supervision and inspection of the regulatory authorities, and provide the account books, documents, vouchers, documents and other materials necessary for the inspection in a timely, accurate and complete manner.
Article 9 Industry associations and chambers of commerce shall establish and improve a charging compliance system, understand relevant charging policies, regulate charging items and charging behaviors, ensure compliance with the requirements of this Guide, and prevent illegal charging behaviors.
Article 10 For charges with high standards, large surpluses, and strong social response, industry associations and chambers of commerce are encouraged to comprehensively consider service costs, member operating conditions, affordability, industry development level and other factors to reasonably formulate charging standards to reduce high charges.
Article 11 The industry association and chamber of commerce shall publicize the charging items, charging nature, service content, charging standards and basis of the association's chamber of commerce in the eye-catching location of the residence, service venue, portal website, WeChat official account, etc., so as to facilitate the public to obtain or understand.
Article 12 Trade associations and chambers of commerce shall fully protect the service object's right to know the charges, perform the obligation of notification before charging, shall not charge fees in addition to the marked fees to provide services, shall not charge any unmarked fees, and shall not use false or misleading price means to lure the service object to trade with it.
Chapter II Membership Fee
Article 13 As a legal person of a social organization, the industry association chamber of commerce may collect membership fees from individual members and unit members on an annual basis to ensure the normal operation of the industry association chamber of commerce and provide basic services for its members. The basic service items included in the membership fee guarantee of the trade association chamber of commerce shall not be charged to the members separately.
Article 14 The trade association chamber of commerce shall, in accordance with the business scope, work cost and other factors stipulated in the articles of association, and in combination with the actual situation of the industry and members, reasonably determine the standard and grade of membership fee, and the same grade of membership fee shall not be subdivided into different charging standards.
Article 15 When the trade association chamber of commerce formulates or revises the membership fee standard, it shall convene a general meeting of members or a representative meeting of members, attended by more than 2/3 of the members or representatives of the members present, and approved by a vote of more than 1/2 of the members or representatives of the members present, and the voting shall be conducted by secret ballot. The resolution shall be made public to all members within 30 days from the date of adoption of the resolution on the standard membership fee.
The amount of the standard membership fee should be clear and no floating membership fee should be applied.
Article 16 The membership fees of trade associations and chambers of commerce shall be accounted for on a special basis, and receipts for membership fees of social organizations printed (supervised) by the Ministry of Finance or provincial finance departments shall be used in accordance with the regulations. In addition to membership fees, other charges shall not use the social group membership fee receipts.
Article 17 The trade association chamber of commerce shall announce the income and expenditure of membership dues to its members every year, regularly accept the examination of the general assembly or the representative assembly of members, and fill in the income of membership dues during the annual inspection of the trade association chamber of commerce.
Article 18 Trade associations and chambers of commerce shall not force or in disguised form force business entities or individuals to join and collect membership fees, and shall not prevent members from withdrawing from the membership. Where laws and regulations provide otherwise, such provisions shall prevail.
Article 19 The headquarters and branch (representative) offices of trade associations and chambers of commerce shall not repeatedly collect membership fees from multiple heads of the same member. The branch (representative) institution of the chamber of commerce of the trade association shall not separately formulate the standard of membership fee.
Trade associations and chambers of commerce shall not collect membership fees from non-member business entities or individuals. It is not allowed to absorb members and collect membership fees through other organizations or individuals by means of "fee return", "drawing" and "share.
Chapter III Administrative Fees
Article 20 The fees collected by industry associations and chambers of commerce on behalf of government functions in accordance with laws, administrative regulations, etc., shall be included in the management of administrative fees. The items and standards of administrative fees shall be subject to strict examination and approval procedures. Trade associations and chambers of commerce shall strictly follow the charging policy documents of the development and reform and financial departments, and shall not increase charging items or raise charging standards without authorization.
Article 21 When the trade association chamber of commerce collects administrative fees, it shall use the administrative fee bills of the financial department's unified supervision (printing) system according to the financial affiliation.
Article 22 the trade association chamber of Commerce accepts the entrustment of the administrative organ to carry out relevant work, takes the service matters of the trade association chamber of Commerce as the precondition of administrative act, and the administrative organ gives the trade association chamber of Commerce the right of recommendation, suggestion and supervision, and the relevant work expenses shall be borne by the administrative organ.
Trade associations and chambers of commerce shall disclose to the public the matters authorized or entrusted by administrative organs, as well as the relevant procedures, examination standards, processing time limits, funds allocated by administrative organs, and so on, and it is strictly forbidden to take the opportunity to collect fees from business entities.
Article 23 Compulsory statutory training conducted by trade associations and chambers of commerce authorized or entrusted by administrative agencies shall adopt the method of government purchase of services and be guaranteed by financial funds. If it is necessary to collect fees, they shall be managed as administrative fees.
Article 24 Trade associations and chambers of commerce shall not charge any fees other than examination fees and appraisal fees if they undertake the work of accreditation of relevant professional qualifications in accordance with the requirements. Trade associations and chambers of commerce that hold vocational qualification examinations shall not organize examination-related training and collect fees.
Chapter IV Business Service Charges
Article 25 Industry associations and chambers of commerce shall, in accordance with the relevant provisions of laws and regulations on operators and the principles of voluntariness, compensation, and consistency of quality and price, carry out information consultation, training, evaluation, exhibition, sales of newspapers and periodicals and other services within the business scope specified in the articles of association. Industry associations and chambers of commerce are equivalent to operators, and their fees are subject to market-adjusted prices as operating service fees.
Trade associations and chambers of commerce shall implement the principle of non-profit, and the income shall be used for the development and services of trade associations and chambers of commerce, and shall not be distributed among managers or members.
Article 26 When industry associations and chambers of commerce formulate or modify operating service charging standards, they shall take reasonable measures to ensure that all parties concerned can fully express their opinions, and coordinate the protection of the rights and interests of members and service objects. The charging items and standards shall be disclosed to the public.
The business service fees charged by the industry association chamber of commerce with a certain monopoly and mandatory shall be determined in accordance with the principles of legality and reasonableness, cost compensation, and slight surplus, and shall be voted by the member (representative) assembly or the board of directors by secret ballot. Approved.
Article 27 Trade associations and chambers of commerce shall not subcontract their own business service activities or entrust individuals or organizations that have direct interests with the heads of trade associations and chambers of commerce or the heads of branches (representatives) to implement them. Operating service charges shall be incorporated into the accounts of trade associations and chambers of commerce, and shall not be appropriated, privately divided or misappropriated by interested individuals or business entities.
Article 28 Except as otherwise provided by laws and regulations, trade associations and chambers of commerce shall not force or disguise to force business entities to participate in appraisal, compliance, commendation, training, assessment, examination and similar activities, and shall not use the aforementioned compulsory or disguised compulsory activities. The business entity charges or charges in disguise.
Article 29 Trade associations and chambers of commerce shall not use administrative power, administrative influence and other compulsory services and collect fees. The relevant methods include but are not limited:
(I) force business entities or individuals to accept paid services from trade associations and chambers of commerce by issuing documents jointly with administrative organs or by means of minutes of meetings of administrative organs;
The (II) takes advantage of the matters entrusted by the administrative organ to collect the fees related to the entrusted matters from the business entity;
It is (III) through the administrative organs to set up administrative examination and approval, administrative licensing matters preconditions and other ways to force business entities to accept services and charge fees.
(IV) charges for non-public data and information obtained by undertaking administrative entrustment matters.
Article 30 Industry associations and chambers of commerce shall not fabricate or disseminate information on price increases in the industry, upstream and downstream industries, and rising information on the production and operation costs of the industry, so as to directly or indirectly promote the price of goods or services in the industry to rise too fast or too high.
Article 31 The Chamber of Commerce of a trade association shall not organize or guide its members or other operators in the industry to hoard a large number of commodities with tight market supply and abnormal price fluctuations in addition to producing for their own use, beyond the normal storage quantity or storage cycle.
Article 32 Industry associations and chambers of commerce shall create an open and fair market environment for business entities in the same industry, fully respect the independent pricing power of operators in the industry, and shall not organize operators in the industry through meetings, forums, notices, rules, etc. Collusion with each other to manipulate market prices.
Article 33 The e-government platform developed and constructed by industry associations and chambers of commerce entrusted by administrative agencies is a window for administrative agencies to provide public services to the society, and should be open to business entities, individuals and society free of charge. The relevant construction, operation, maintenance and other expenses shall be borne by the administrative organs, and the trade associations and chambers of commerce shall not charge any fees to the users of the e-government platform in the name of technical maintenance fees, service fees, electronic media costs, etc.
Article 34 Trade associations and chambers of commerce shall equally participate in the market competition of intermediary services for administrative examination and approval. Trade associations and chambers of commerce that have not been decoupled from the administrative authorities shall not carry out intermediary services related to the administrative examination and approval of the competent business units.
Industry associations and chambers of commerce accept the entrustment of administrative agencies to carry out administrative examination and approval technical services, and the relevant expenses shall be borne by the administrative agencies and shall not be passed on to the business entities.
Article 35 when conducting consulting services, trade associations and chambers of commerce shall stipulate the service time, content, standards and results in the form of contracts, provide professional, targeted and personalized services in accordance with the requirements of the service objects, and keep service records. It is not allowed to charge only for no service or less service, and it is not allowed to provide non-original content that is highly homogeneous and highly similar to public information.
Article 36 In carrying out training activities, trade associations and chambers of commerce shall, in accordance with the principles of making up for costs, having a slight surplus and voluntary participation, closely follow the actual business work and the needs of the trainees, formulate training programs, ensure the quality of training, reasonably formulate charging standards, and match the quality and price of training services and fees.
第三十七条 行业协会商会开展专业技术人员继续教育，以修习学时维持证书有效性的，应当明确认可学时的其他方式，不得要求经营主体或个人只接受行业协会商会自身举办的继续教育，不得独家经营、过高收费。
行业协会商会开展继续教育活动，应当在通知公告中向社会公开继续教育的范围、内容、收费项目及标准等情况。
利用现代信息技术开展远程教育，要以培训成本为基础，合理确定收费标准，降低培训对象负担。
第三十八条 行业协会商会举办会展、展览、展销活动应当以促进行业发展、扩大会员影响力、提供对接平台或销售渠道等为目的，不得借助行业影响力或自身优势地位强制收取展位费、宣传推广费等，不得借机举办评比达标表彰活动变相收费。
第三十九条 行业协会商会销售刊物、报纸、书籍等，应根据出版成本、市场需求和当地经济发展水平等因素合理定价，不得以知识产权为名或借助行业影响力等过高定价，不得强制会员付费订购。
编印的内部资料不得刊登广告，不得以工本费、会员费、版面费、服务费等形式收取费用，不得标价、销售或征订发行。
第四十条 行业协会商会以“主办单位”“协办单位”“支持单位”“指导单位”“承办单位”“参与单位”等方式合作开展研讨会论坛活动，要切实履行相关职责，加强活动全过程和重要环节监管，不得仅以挂名方式参与并收取费用。
第四十一条 行业协会商会将自身业务活动委托其他单位承办或者协办的，应当加强指导和监督，不得仅以转包形式赚取差价，不得以任何形式向承办方或协办方收取费用。
第四十二条 行业协会商会组织编制行业标准、团体标准等，所需费用应由行业协会商会承担。参加编制的企事业单位自愿交费的，行业协会商会应当明示收费标准和经费使用情况，所收经费应专款用于标准编制工作，且总额不得高于标准编制实际使用经费。不得以参编费、署名费等方式挂名收费，不得以给予标准号为名收取管理费。
第四十三条 行业协会商会开展资格考评、等级评定、信用评价等活动，应当以实质性考核、检测、鉴定、认证等结果、数据为依据，真实、客观进行评价，不得开展无实质性服务的“买证卖证”活动。
行业协会商会委托第三方机构辅助提供部分服务的，应当严格把关第三方服务质量，不得只收费而规避主体责任。
第四十四条 行业协会商会设立、调整或者变更评比达标表彰项目，应当按照《社会组织评比达标表彰活动管理办法》履行审批程序。
行业协会商会举办评比达标表彰活动应当自行承担全部费用，不得以任何形式向参评单位和个人收取费用，不得在评选前后直接或变相收取各种相关费用，不得将活动委托营利机构主办或承办。
第四十五条 行业协会商会不得向其所属分支机构、代表机构、办事机构收取或变相收取管理费用。
第五章 其他收费
第四十六条 行业协会商会接受捐赠和赞助，应当以自愿为原则，签订协议，约定双方权利义务等。不得以捐赠、赞助名义强行摊派或进行利益输送等不当牟利活动。
第四十七条 行业协会商会开展自律管理，向会员收取自律保证金、押金等，应当专账管理，相关资产及其利息属于会员所有，不得挪作他用。行业协会商会应制定自律管理办法，约定保证金、押金等扣除方式。会员退会或按照约定应当返还时，相关费用应当全额退还。
第六章 违规处理
第四十八条 行业协会商会违反相关规定收取会费的，由民政部门依法依规处理。
第四十九条 行业协会商会违反相关规定收取行政事业性收费的，由市场监管部门按照法律、行政法规、地方性法规以及党中央、国务院有关文件等依法依规处理。
第五十条 行业协会商会违反相关规定收取经营服务性收费的，由市场监管部门按照《中华人民共和国价格法》《价格违法行为行政处罚规定》《优化营商环境条例》以及地方性法规等依法依规处理。
行业协会商会经营服务性收费行为违反其他法律法规的，依据相关规定承担相应的法律责任。
第五十一条 行业协会商会违反相关规定收取其他费用的，由相关部门依照职权依法依规处理。
第五十二条 市场监管部门在行业协会商会收费监督检查中发现党员干部、公职人员涉嫌违纪和职务违法犯罪问题线索的，及时移送有管辖权的纪检监察机关处理。
第七章 附则
第五十三条 名称以“同业公会”“联合会”“促进会”“学会”“研究会”为后缀，在民政部门登记的社会团体的收费行为，参照本指南。
第五十四条 本指南仅对行业协会商会收费行为合规作出一般性指引，不具强制性。法律法规规章、政策性文件对行业协会商会收费有专门规定的，从其规定。
