Canton Fair 2026: the dates, the phases — and the vetting you should do first.
The world’s largest trade fair runs twice a year in Guangzhou. This page keeps the autumn 2026 schedule in one place — and adds the part no schedule tells you: what China’s public business registry says about 5,580 of the exhibitors you will meet there.
DATA AS OF 2026-08-04 · SAMPLE 5,580 EXHIBITOR PROFILES · FREE TO CITE
In short
- The 140th (autumn) session runs Oct 15–19, Oct 23–27 and Oct 31–Nov 4, 2026 at the Canton Fair Complex, Pazhou, Guangzhou — three phases, three different sets of product categories.
- Buyer registration is free; the invitation letter matters for your visa, not the door.
- A booth is not a factory: 20.6% of the 5,580 exhibitors we profiled are registered as trading companies. Thirty minutes with the registry beats three days of hall-walking.
3 phases
Oct 15 – Nov 4, 2026, split by product category
140TH SESSION · GUANGZHOU
20.6%
of profiled exhibitors are registered as traders, not manufacturers
n=5,580
Taizhou
is the single biggest exhibitor city in our dataset
293 COMPANIES ON FILE
The 2026 autumn schedule, phase by phase
Every session is split into three phases with a rest day between them, and each phase hosts different categories. Buyers who land during the wrong phase find the halls full — of somebody else’s industry. Confirm your category’s phase on the official site before booking anything.
Phase 1
OCTOBER 15–19, 2026
Electronics & household electrical appliances, industrial & manufacturing equipment, hardware & tools, building materials, new energy, vehicles & spare parts
Phase 2
OCTOBER 23–27, 2026
Daily consumer goods, gifts, home decorations
Phase 3
OCTOBER 31 – NOVEMBER 4, 2026
Textiles & garments, shoes, office & school supplies, health & leisure, food, medical products
The spring session (the 141st) returns in mid-April 2027 with the same three-phase structure. Dates are published on cantonfair.org.cn, the only site worth trusting for schedule changes.
Registration: simpler than the agencies make it sound
Overseas buyers attend free. Pre-register online for a buyer badge, or register on site with your passport. The famous “invitation letter” is chiefly a visa document — the organiser issues it so you can apply for a business (M) visa; it is not a ticket. A cottage industry sells “Canton Fair registration services” for money; you are paying them to fill in a form.
What the registry says about the exhibitors
Our dataset profiles 5,580 Canton Fair exhibitors from public records — business registry, customs signals, social-insurance filings. Three findings change how you should walk the halls:
- 20.6% are not factories. They are registered trading or import/export companies. Nothing wrong with a good trader — but the price, the QC access and the lead-time control you negotiate all change when you know which one is across the table. Full study here.
- Geography is concentrated. The top exhibitor cities in our sample are Taizhou, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Foshan — industry clusters, not accidents. If your supplier claims a factory in a city with no cluster for their category, that is a question worth asking at the booth.
- The web presence is weaker than the booths suggest. Among profiled exhibitors with a website on file, 7.7% of sites failed our reachability sweep and 26.6% of published contact emails run on free webmail — details a booth never shows.
Vet the shortlist before you fly
The productive way to do the fair: build the shortlist at home, verify it on public records, and spend your days in Guangzhou on the companies that survived. The sequence, using free tools:
- Resolve each English company name to its registered Chinese legal name and 18-character USCC — name lookup does this from our records; 4,996 profiles carry a USCC on file.
- Pull the registry record and read three fields: business scope (manufacturer or trader), registered address (industrial zone or office tower), registered capital against company age. The supplier check page walks through all eight steps.
- At the booth, skip the catalogue theatre: ask for the business licence photo and a live video walkthrough of the plant they claim. A real factory produces both in minutes.
Common questions
When is the Canton Fair in 2026?
The autumn session (the 140th) runs in three phases at the Canton Fair Complex in Pazhou, Guangzhou: October 15–19, October 23–27, and October 31 – November 4, 2026. Each phase covers different product categories, so check which phase your category sits in before booking flights — attending the wrong phase is the classic first-timer mistake.
Do I need an invitation to attend the Canton Fair?
Overseas buyers register free of charge — pre-register online for a buyer badge or register on site with a passport. The organiser can issue an invitation letter, which most buyers use for their Chinese visa application rather than for entry itself. Rules evolve session to session; confirm the current process on the official site, cantonfair.org.cn, before you book.
Is a Canton Fair booth proof that a supplier is a real factory?
No. We cross-checked 5,580 Canton Fair exhibitors against China's public business registry: 20.6% are registered as trading companies, not manufacturers. A booth proves a company paid for a booth. The registry — business scope, registered address, social-insurance headcount — is what tells you whether there is a production line behind it.
How do I check a Canton Fair exhibitor before the fair?
Take the company name from the exhibitor list, resolve it to the registered Chinese legal name and 18-character USCC, then pull the registry record. That tells you the business scope (manufacturer or trader), registered address (industrial zone or office tower), registered capital and company age — enough to decide who deserves a meeting slot. FactoryBase profiles thousands of Canton Fair exhibitors from public records, free.
FactoryBase is an independent directory built from public records — exhibitors cannot pay to change what their profile says. Browse exhibitor profiles · CNY shutdown planner · Factory-or-trader study