China’s first comprehensive chemical safety management law, enacted just before the start of the year and slated to take effect on 1 May, sets detailed and legally binding requirements for managing hazardous chemicals. It shifts the national strategy surrounding chemical safety from what has been described as reactive disaster response to one of proactive risk reduction, as part of a larger effort to strengthen regulatory oversight across the country.
The new rule was adopted by the Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress on 27 December 2025, and it applies to entities in China that produce, store, transport and use hazardous chemicals. This includes chemical manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies and research institutions.
From the start of next month, chemical substances and mixtures in China officially listed as hazardous, or identified as hazardous, will now be required to be registered with the Chinese government. The new law defines ‘hazardous chemicals’ based on their properties and characteristics, such as toxicity, corrosiveness, explosiveness and flammability. However, some exemptions will be allowed for certain, unspecified hazardous chemicals used in scientific research and development.
The new regulatory framework also significantly strengthens corporate responsibilities, permit systems, transportation management, supervisory mechanisms, and legal liabilities surrounding the use of hazardous chemicals. Organisations and executives breaching the new regulations could be hit with penalties including suspension of operations, significant fines, or even criminal liability.
Shifting safety standards
A spokesperson for ChemLinked, a Chinese-headquartered consulting firm that supports industries that handle regulated substances, tells Chemistry World that the new law ‘addresses historical issues such as management gaps in chemical industrial parks and fragmented oversight’. ‘It promotes a shift in public safety governance from reactive disaster relief to proactive prevention, aiming to resolve the root causes of industrial accidents,’ they add.
China is a major global producer and user of hazardous chemicals, and several high-profile industrial accidents have occurred in the country in recent years. Since the August 2015 Tianjin explosion, which killed over 170 people and injured nearly 800 more, several other large chemical incidents have occurred in the country. These have been attributed mostly to lack of proper safety measures in the factories and poor implementation of safety standards by the authorities.
More recently, a massive blast and fire at a chemical plant in Gaomi in May 2025 killed at least five people and injured dozens, and in January this year an industrial explosion in northern China led to the death 10 individuals and injuries to more than 80 others. In February, eight people were reported to have died after an explosion at a small biotechnology company in Shanxi province.
The global product safety and regulatory consulting firm CIRS, headquartered in China has described the situation regarding safety in China’s chemical industrial sector as ‘severe’, saying that ‘the current regulatory framework struggles to meet the safety management demands of the entire supply chain’. The organisation notes that the new legislation ‘comprehensively strengthens the primary responsibility of enterprises involved in hazardous chemicals, elevates compliance requirements across the entire supply chain, strictly controls licensing access, increases penalties for violations, and enhances interdepartmental regulatory coordination and enforcement collaboration.’
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