The National Standards of the People's Republic of China (中华人民共和国国家标准),^[1][2] coded as GB, are the standards issued by the Standardization Administration of China under the authorization of Article 10 of the Standardization Law of the People's Republic of China.^[3][4]

According to Article 2 of the Standardization Law, national standards are divided into mandatory national standards and recommended national standards.^[3] Mandatory national standards are prefixed "GB". Recommended national standards are prefixed "GB/T". Guidance technical documents are prefixed with "GB/Z", but are not legally part of the national standard system.^[5]

Mandatory national standards are the basis for the product testing which products must undergo during the China Compulsory Certificate (CCC or 3C) certification. If there is no corresponding mandatory national standard, CCC is not required.

A Chinese standard code has three parts: the prefix, the sequential number, and the year number. For example, GB 2312-1980 refers to the national compulsory standard (GB), sequential number 2312, revision year 1980.^[6]

Besides the national standard repository, China allows the registration of standards by industry/trade, by localities (DB, Dìfāng Biāozhǔn, "local standard"), by associations (T), or by an individual company (Q). The overall prefix number-year format is retained.^[6]

Under the first clause of Article 5 of the Copyright Law of the People's Republic of China, compulsory standards are not copyrightable as they fall under "other documents of a legislative, administrative or judicial nature". In 1999, the Supreme People's Court ruled that although compulsory standards do not enjoy copyright protections, publishing houses can be given exclusive, sui generis rights to publish a compulsory standard.^[7]

The Standardization Administration operates a website for obtaining digital copies of the standards (excluding those dealing with food safety, environment protection, and civil engineering). The availability is broken down as follows (as of October 2023):^[5]

• Out of 2029 included GB standards, 1464 may be read online or downloaded as a PDF file. The remaining 565 Cǎibiāo (采标, adopted international standards) may only be read online.
• Out of 41664 included GB/T standards, 27154 may be read online. The remaining 4513 Cǎibiāo are only indexed by title.
• Out of 573 included GB/Z documents, 261 may be read online. The remaining 312 Cǎibiāo are only indexed by title.

Copies of standards (written in simplified Chinese) may be obtained from the SPC web store.^[8]

A non-exhaustive list of National Standards of the People's Republic of China is listed as follows, accompanied with similar international standards of ISO, marked as identical (IDT), equivalent (EQV), or non-equivalent (NEQ).

Changes are made frequently within the Chinese regulatory system as new standards are released and existing standards are updated.

• GOST
• China Compulsory Certificate (CCC or 3C)
• China Food and Drug Administration
• Chinese National Standards, used in the Republic of China
• Vietnam Standards
• Other meanings of Guóbiāo:
  • Guójì Biāozhǔn Wǔ (国际标准舞, International Standard Dancesport)
  • Guóbiāo Májiàng (国标麻将, National Standard Mahjong)