How renting works in China, from listing to deposit

A national rental regulation took effect on 15 September 2025 (State Council Order No. 812, signed 2025-07-16, published 2025-07-21). It covers three things a new tenant meets in the first week: the deposit, the broker’s fee, and where a dispute can go.

Older layers sit under it: the Civil Code’s lease chapter, in force since 2021 (articles 703 to 734); the housing ministry’s rental rules, in force since 1 February 2011 (Order No. 6); and two circulars on rental companies and brokers (2021, 2021-04-15, and 2023, 2023-04-27). Cities publish rent levels by district and housing type (Order 812, art 29; 2011 rules, art 5).

Four channels, and who takes a fee

Channel	What you pay, and to whom	Who may hold your deposit and rent	The failure mode
Broker storefront	Commission to the agency, normally at signing	The landlord, not the broker	Fees that were never posted; a broker offering to pass your rent through its own account
Listing app or site with agents	The same agency commission, same rules	The landlord, not the platform	Bait listings; a poster who is not the owner
Rental company (leases the flat, then sublets it)	Rent, often plus a service fee	A supervised bank account the company has to publish, in cities that run the scheme	You prepay six or twelve months, the company stops paying the owner, you are asked to leave
Direct from an owner	Rent only, no commission	The owner, with no escrow protection	No title check by anyone, unregistered sublets, a deposit with no written return date

A broker must post its charges and may not add anything to the posted price (Order 812, art 26). Before payment it must give you a fee list, which you sign; bundled pricing is banned, and platforms may not force a uniform fee on the agencies on them (MoHURD and SAMR, 2023, 2023-04-27). An agency that does not finish what its service contract promised may not charge a commission, and two agencies on one deal may charge only one (brokerage rules, art 19, in force 2011-04-01).

No national rate exists: the 2023 circular says the parties negotiate, fees should come down, a dearer deal should carry a lower rate, and both sides should share the cost, and that is all of it. One municipality fixes a figure on its own territory: an agency’s commission is generally no more than one month’s rent, and nothing may be charged again when the same parties renew (municipal rental regulation, art 46, in force 2022-09-01; model contract, February 2023). City guidance, not a national cap. On the day, the rule to use is that neither a broker nor a listing platform may collect or pay rent or deposit for anyone (Order 812, arts 25 and 36).

What the lease has to contain

The 2011 rules list what a lease should cover (art 7); the 2025 model lease walks the same ground clause by clause (GF—2025—2614, April 2025).

Clause	Where it comes from	What to check
Parties and title	Order 812, art 9; model lease, arts 1 and 13	The owner shows ID and the title certificate; if a company is letting to you, ask to see its lease with the owner
Term, rent, payment cycle	Civil Code, arts 704 and 705	Start and end dates; the cycle; a residential lease is capped at 20 years, and anything beyond that is void
Deposit	Order 812, art 10	Amount, return date, and the cases where it may be deducted. All three must be written, and outside them the landlord may not deduct without a legitimate reason
Utilities and property fee	2011 rules, art 7(8); model lease, art 7	The model lease is a tick list: water, electricity, gas, heating, property fee, waste, internet, parking. Anything not ticked was not agreed
Repairs	Civil Code, arts 712 and 713	The landlord repairs unless you agreed otherwise; if they refuse, you may repair and bill them, or take a rent cut or a longer term
Subletting	Civil Code, arts 716 and 718	Written consent needed; an owner who knows about a sublet and says nothing for six months is treated as consenting
Early exit	Model lease, art 15	The notice period and the penalty, both left as blanks. Whatever figure goes in the blank is the one that applies
Disputes	Order 812, art 35; model lease, art 19	Court or arbitration is named in the text, and that is the last step rather than the first
Filing	Order 812, art 8	Filing is the owner’s duty and free; if they will not file, you may file it yourself
Space that may be let	Order 812, art 7; 2011 rules, art 8	A kitchen, bathroom, balcony, corridor, basement store or garage may not be let separately as living space, and the smallest unit is the original designed room

The model lease’s annex is worth the bother: a handover sheet listing every appliance, key and meter, with the reading at handover and the date each was paid to.

Deposits, rent cycles, and who holds the money

“押一付三” is one month’s deposit and three months’ rent; “押一付一” is one of each. Both are market habits, and no national rule I found sets either for a private landlord. The national rule attaches supervision to the sizes instead: a company collecting more than three months’ rent at once, or more than one month’s deposit, must route that money through a supervised account (2021 circular, section 3, 2021-04-15). Order 812 makes that account compulsory for companies that sublet (art 19); running it improperly costs 20,000 to 100,000 yuan, or 100,000 to 500,000 if unfixed (art 43). Every one of those figures is written for companies and platforms; one city’s housing centre says personal landlords are outside its scheme (policy Q&A, 2026-04-02). The mechanics are city-level, and they set the clock on your refund.

Where the rule sits	What it requires
One municipality’s escrow measures, issued 2024-07-29, in force 2024-10-01 (link)	The first three months’ rent reaches the company within a day, the rest one month at a time; after you hand back the flat the company has three working days to issue a written refund opinion with deductions itemised; you have three working days to accept or dispute; the balance earns interest at the central bank’s demand-deposit rate while it waits
Another city’s policy explainer, 2026-04-02 (link)	Deposit and any rent beyond three months are held; the explainer states that this is meant to make the three-month cycle the normal one
A city housing authority’s guidance, 2026-03-09 (link)	For a company tenancy: a rent cycle of no more than three months, a deposit of no more than one month, paid into the account the authority published

Pay by transfer so a record exists, and keep the receipt or invoice. Treat a rent loan as a debt: the 2021 circular makes it illegal for a company to induce a tenant into one or to dress it up as a rent discount (section 4, 2021-04-15), and one city’s regulation bans the same inducement (art 37, in force 2022-09-01). The older trick — paying a year up front to a company that pays the owner monthly — is what a city’s consumer warning of 2026-01-20 describes: read a price well below the market as its sign, pay by transfer, ask for a stamped receipt, and complain on 12345 (warning).

Filing the contract

Leases are signed under real names and filed by the owner through the local rental service platform; filing is free, and if the owner will not do it, you can (Order 812, art 8). The 30-day window and a penalty of up to 1,000 yuan for an individual come from the 2011 rules (arts 14 and 23), and failing to file does not make the lease invalid (Civil Code, art 706).

A lease of six months or more must be in writing; without writing it becomes open-ended, and either side may end it with reasonable notice (Civil Code, arts 707 and 730). A foreign tenant registers with the local police within 24 hours of moving in, personally or through the host, online or in person; failing to do it carries a warning and a fine of up to 2,000 yuan (immigration service explainer, 2026-09-21; Exit-Entry Administration Law, art 76). The larger range that circulates, 1,000 to 5,000 yuan, is the penalty on a hotel that fails to report a guest’s registration information.

Utilities and the property fee

The 2011 rules do not decide who pays for water, gas or the property fee; they require the lease to state it (art 7(8)), which is why the model lease hands you a tick list rather than a default (art 7, April 2025). The property fee is owed by the owner under the property service contract; if owner and occupier agree the occupier pays, that governs and the owner stays jointly liable (Property Management Regulation, art 41, Order No. 379 of 2003, third revision 2018-03-19). Water, power, gas, heating and telecom bill the end user, and a company collecting on their behalf may not add a handling fee (art 44).

The account is usually in the owner’s or the property company’s name, so read the meters with the owner into the handover sheet, and ask who holds the electricity card if the meter is prepaid.

Moving out, and the deposit

Ordinary wear from using a flat as agreed is not something you pay for (Civil Code, art 710); you hand the flat back in the state ordinary use would leave it (art 733); deductions are limited to the cases written in the lease (Order 812, art 10).

So the exit is paperwork: agree the date and the notice in writing, walk the flat with the handover sheet in hand, photograph the meters and every room, return the keys against a written receipt, and put an account number for the refund in writing. With a company in an escrow city the refund runs on the clock above, and you can check the balance with your filing number (escrow measures, art 19). With a private owner, the lease’s return date is the only clock there is.

When it goes wrong: the official routes

In order, cheapest first.

Put it in writing and keep the messages: Order 812 wants negotiation first on deposits, repairs and move-outs (art 35).
Apply to the people’s mediation committee at the street or town office; one city’s guideline lists it as the first outside step (guideline, 2020-12-10), and by law it costs nothing (People’s Mediation Law, art 4).
Call 12345, the government service line, which routes the complaint to the relevant department or the street office for mediation if both sides agree. Where a rental company is the landlord, 12315 takes a consumer complaint instead; that route is closed to tenants of a private owner (both from the same guideline; a city warning pointing tenants to 12345, 2026-01-20).
Report it to the housing authority, which Order 812 makes responsible for inspecting rental activity and handling violations (art 31).
Where escrow exists, an unresolved refund opinion goes to the local brokers’ association for mediation (escrow measures, art 11).
Arbitration or a civil suit, both named in Order 812 (art 35); the model lease has you name the court or commission before signing (art 19).
Call the police if water, power or gas is cut to push you out, or if you are threatened. Order 812 bans forcing a tenant out by violence, threats or other illegal means (art 12), and a city guideline says to dial the police in exactly that case (link). The same goes for a company that takes the money and disappears.

The penalties are what make the channels more than decoration. A false or misleading listing costs a company or broker 20,000 to 100,000 yuan (art 42); collecting your rent or deposit as a broker draws the same range (art 44); letting a converted corridor as living space brings a warning, then 20,000 to 100,000 yuan for a company or 2,000 to 10,000 for an individual (art 39).

Where these rules come from

Every figure here was re-read against the page it cites on 2026-10-11. The article numbers come from the State Council’s gazette copy of Order 812 (full text), read end to end; the circulars, the Civil Code articles and the 2011 rules come from government copies; the model lease is the market regulator’s text, annex included. Two figures changed during that pass: the escrow measures I first dated to September 2024 were issued on 2024-07-29, and the fine I first put at 1,000 to 5,000 yuan is capped at 2,000.

City material is labelled as such, and no company is named.

One market figure appears, and it is a rent: June 2026 across 55 cities, average asking rent 30.02 yuan per square metre per month, down 6.1 percent year on year — a commercial index republished by a real estate association, so a listing price rather than a signed one (association monitor, 2026-07-15). Cities also publish reference rents, one of them down to the individual housing estate (a city’s platform, read 2026-10-11); a housing authority’s advice is to compare that figure with what an agent quotes, and to treat a price well below the market as bait (guidance, 2026-03-09).

What I could not check

A national commission rate. None exists in anything I could load: the national text says negotiated, posted, reduced and shared, and sets no percentage. The one-month figure is one city’s regulation, art 46.
Whether a private landlord’s deposit is capped nationally. Every cap and escrow duty I found is addressed to rental companies and platforms; one city’s notice says personal landlords are outside its scheme.
The 2011 brokerage rules as currently in force. The justice ministry’s copy carries the 2011 text and its commencement date; I found no page confirming no later amendment.
Whether the escrow clocks hold outside the cities above. The three-working-day refund, the monthly release and the interest are city provisions.
Which numbering of the property-fee rule is current. Two official copies in one justice ministry database differ by an article — art 41 and 44 in the copy carrying the third revision, 42 and 45 in an older one. I quoted the current one.
Whether the 2023 municipal brokerage model is still current after the national model leases appeared in 2025.
Market commission levels by city. Secondary pages list percentages per city with no method and no date. Nothing from them is here.
Anything about where I live, what I pay, or who my landlord was. Deliberately absent.