口译
Outside Interpreters at a Canton Fair Booth: What the Export Booth-Use Provisions Say About Non-Exhibitor Staff Receiving Visitors, Other Companies' Cards and Quotations, and Signing Contracts, and What Exhibitors Can Control
The Canton Fair's Provisions on the Use of Export Exhibition Booths (Trial) never mention interpreters, but Article 15 treats non-exhibitor staff selling, promoting or receiving visitors as business staff, and distributing or displaying business cards, brochures or quotations printed with a non-exhibiting enterprise's name, or QR codes promoting one, as improper booth use, and signing contracts in the name of a non-exhibiting enterprise as transferring the booth. The booth manager must be a formal employee of the exhibiting enterprise and must be on duty during working hours. Improper use of a standard booth found by an inspection team means no exhibiting in any Export Exhibition area for 10 consecutive sessions from the next one, and no badges for the legal representative and booth manager for 10 consecutive sessions; transfer, and brand booths, mean 20 sessions. Whether an outside interpreter counts as business staff is not written down and is for the Fair to decide; this article sets out what an exhibitor can control: the interpreter receiving buyers together with your own staff and never minding the booth alone, no interpreter business cards, no translation company's name on outsourced translations, only your own staff signing, and Article 16 for joint-exhibiting booths.
Contents
- 1. Find your row
- 2. Who the provisions cover, and what they cover
- 3. Does an outside interpreter count as non-exhibitor staff receiving visitors?
- 4. Business cards, quotations, QR codes: what the interpreter and your materials carry
- 5. Signing: the interpreter interprets, and signs nothing
- 6. What happens if a violation is found
- 7. Who checks, and when
- 8. The part we sell, and what it does not cover
- 9. Sources
Checked on 9 October 2026. We are an interpreting company in Guangzhou (Guangzhou GuanRi Translation Service Co., Ltd.). We are not the Canton Fair organiser, not a trading delegation, not a booth inspection team, and not a law firm. The booth interpreting this article recommends at the end is a service we sell ourselves; read it on that basis. This is not legal advice and it is not compliance advice: whether something counts as improper booth use is decided by the booth inspection teams and the Fair, and we do not speak for them. Apart from the tax and deposit terms in section 8, which come from our FAQ page, and our own WhatsApp and WeChat contacts in section 8, every rule, session count and phone number below comes from official documents on the Canton Fair website.
We covered the badge side of hiring an outside interpreter for an Export Exhibition booth in Canton Fair Exhibitors Hiring a Booth Interpreter: Which Badge, What Proof, and Why One Interpreter Cannot Work Two Companies in One Phase (140th Session). Once the badge is issued, there is a second document to read: the Provisions on the Use of Export Exhibition Booths at the China Import and Export Fair (Trial) (中国进出口商品交易会出口展展位使用管理规定（试行）; our translation of the Chinese title), posted on the Canton Fair website on 21 September 2026; Article 31 says it has applied "from the 138th Canton Fair onwards" (our translation). It never mentions interpreters, but several of its articles apply directly when someone who is not your employee stands in your booth talking to buyers: no other company's business cards, quotations or QR codes in the booth; no non-employees selling, promoting or receiving buyers as business staff; no contracts signed in the name of a company that is not the exhibitor. Penalties are counted in sessions, and the heaviest tier is a ban of 20 consecutive sessions starting from the next one, with the legal representative and booth manager put on the badge "blacklist".
We probed the same contentNo with the suffixes EN, AR, FR, ES, RU and PT one by one and found no other language version of these provisions. Every quotation below is our translation of the official Chinese.
1. Find your row
| Your situation | What to do | Who decides | See |
|---|---|---|---|
| You have hired an outside interpreter for an Export Exhibition booth | Have the interpreter speak for your own people, not receive buyers on your behalf alone: the interpreter receives buyers together with your own staff | Inspection teams check; the Fair's Political Work Office and Business Office decide. Who is on shift: your company | Section 3 |
| The interpreter carries their own or an agency's business cards or QR codes | Hand out or display none of them in the booth, including interpreters hired from us; if a buyer wants contact details, give your company's | Your company instructs the interpreter; inspection teams check, the Fair decides | Section 4 |
| Your brochures or quotations were translated by an outside translator | If not yet delivered, have the translator remove every credit line, footer, watermark and QR code; if already printed, check every page before your phase opens and remove or cover anything showing another company's name or QR code | Your company | Section 4 |
| Your booth is a joint-exhibiting booth and the supplier's staff are there too | Article 16 has a separate set of rules for joint exhibiting: materials on show are limited to the exhibitor and the registered joint-exhibiting (supply) unit; who hired the interpreter and in whose name orders are signed — ask your trading delegation in writing before your phase opens | The delegation answers; the Fair decides | Section 4 |
| You sent only one or two people and they don't speak the buyers' language | Plan in advance who stays at the booth during meals and shift changes; if you are short-handed, send one more of your own staff: an Export Exhibition exhibitor badge costs ¥50 per person for a first badge under the same applicant (Annex 1), reviewed by the delegation and the Badge Service Center | Your company; badges are reviewed by the delegation and the Badge Service Center | Section 3 |
| The interpreter also brings in business for a sourcing agent or another company | Ask when you book; in your booth, no other company's materials, no promoting other companies' goods, no negotiating in another company's name | Your company instructs; the Fair decides | Sections 4 and 5 |
| A buyer wants to sign on the spot | Only your company's name appears on the contract, proforma invoice or order, and your own staff sign; the interpreter interprets and signs nothing | Your company | Section 5 |
| You are unsure how far the interpreter may go in the booth | Ask your trading delegation in writing before your phase opens, and keep the answer | The delegation manages its own booths; the Fair decides | Section 3 |
| You want to know what happens if a violation is found | Read the table in section 6 first: improper use of a standard booth means no exhibiting in any export exhibition area for 10 consecutive sessions from the next one, and the legal representative and booth manager cannot get badges for 10 consecutive sessions; for brand booths it is 20 consecutive sessions | The Fair's Business Office and Political Work Office | Section 6 |
| You exhibit at the Import Exhibition | These provisions are about Export Exhibition booths and say nothing about the Import Exhibition | — | Section 2 |
| You are the interpreter | The session-count penalties in Articles 19 to 21 fall on the exhibitor, enterprises under its legal representative's name, the legal representative, the booth manager and the trading delegation; but Article 14(4), in the procedure for booth-ownership disputes, provides for confiscating the badges of "violating persons" and blacklisting them, without saying who those persons include. What is being checked is exactly what you do in the booth, so follow sections 3 to 5 | Inspection teams check; the Fair decides and handles it | Sections 3–5 and 6 |
The provisions give no enquiry number, only a reporting line (020-89125121, see section 7). If you are unsure, ask your trading delegation; for badge questions, call 020-89074092, the number printed under item 8, "Enquiries", of the Notice on Badge Application for Exhibitors and Service Units of the 140th Canton Fair (our translation of the Chinese title).
2. Who the provisions cover, and what they cover
These provisions cover Export Exhibition booths only. Article 2 says Export Exhibition booths are "only for use by enterprises that have passed review and been allocated a booth (exhibiting enterprises)" (our translation). Article 4 sets the general rule (four sentences in the official Chinese; our translation of the first two):
The Canton Fair strictly prohibits improper use, transfer or subletting (sale) of booths, and leaving booths empty during the exhibition. The actual user of a booth must be the same as the exhibiting enterprise named on the booth fascia board.
The last two sentences of the same article set out what the exhibiting certificate must show and require it to be displayed prominently in the booth; an exhibitor that cannot produce it on site "is treated as having used the booth improperly" (our translation).
The article that matters most for hiring an interpreter is Article 6 (two sentences in the official Chinese; our translation):
The exhibiting enterprise designates a specific person to be responsible for the use of the booth. The booth manager must be a formal employee of the exhibiting enterprise that holds the booth and must hold an exhibitor badge for the current session issued by the Canton Fair.
The second sentence of Article 7 says what that person has to do (two sentences in the official Chinese; our translation of the second):
Each booth manager may be responsible only for one booth or several adjoining booths of their own enterprise in a single exhibition section, must be on duty during working hours, and must cooperate with the relevant departments in inspections of Export Exhibition booth use.
So an outside interpreter cannot be your booth manager — someone hired from outside is not your formal employee. Article 7 requires the booth manager to "be on duty during working hours"; the provisions do not say what "working hours" or "on duty" mean in practice, so if you are unsure, ask your trading delegation.
3. Does an outside interpreter count as non-exhibitor staff receiving visitors?
Article 15 divides violations into two groups. The first group is "improper use of a booth", and its item (4) reads (our translation):
(4) Within an Export Exhibition booth, non-exhibitor staff selling, promoting or receiving visitors as business staff.
The Chinese 非参展企业员工, rendered here as "non-exhibitor staff", can be read as "people who are not the exhibiting enterprise's employees" or as "employees of a non-exhibiting enterprise". On the first reading an outside interpreter is clearly covered; on the second, someone sent by an interpreting agency is covered, and it is unclear whether a freelance interpreter is. We do not choose a reading on the Fair's behalf. The other doubt is in the second half: whether what the interpreter does in the booth counts as "selling, promoting or receiving visitors as business staff". The provisions do not mention interpreters and do not define "business staff". Item (5) of the first group is "other improper booth use confirmed by a booth inspection team" (our translation), and Article 17 opens an exception only for related companies (same legal representative, controlling shareholdings and the like), not for hired service providers.
Another document does mention outside helpers. Annex 1 to the badge notice describes who the exhibitor representative badge is for (one sentence in the official Chinese; our translation):
For use by persons assisting Export Exhibition exhibitors in their work, and by staff of Export Exhibition exhibitors taking part in the matchmaking events for quality export products entering the domestic market.
The two documents speak separately: the badge side acknowledges "persons assisting Export Exhibition exhibitors in their work", while the booth-use side prohibits "non-exhibitor staff" receiving visitors "as business staff". Neither mentions interpreters, and nor does the Canton Fair website's Guide to the Use of Export Exhibition Booths (广交会出口展展位使用指南; our translation of the Chinese title), posted 6 March 2026, a 25-page PDF. In the titles of the last 1,200-odd items on the Canton Fair website and in two sets of search results, we found no official statement linking the two. We do not decide on the inspection teams' behalf where the line falls; we only describe the two extremes:
- Your salesperson is talking and the interpreter puts the words into the buyer's language — the interpreter is speaking for your people.
- None of your people are there, and the interpreter greets buyers, introduces products, quotes prices and collects cards alone — this may be treated as the "selling, promoting or receiving" in item (4); the Fair decides.
What you can do is keep the booth looking like the first case at all times: the interpreter receives buyers together with your own staff; when your people go to eat or to the storeroom, leave one of your own people at the booth and do not leave the interpreter to mind it alone. If you sent only one or two people, this needs a shift plan in advance; if you are short-handed, send one more of your own staff — Annex 1 charges ¥50 per person for a first Export Exhibition exhibitor badge under the same applicant. When you apply for the interpreter's badge (Annex 1 does not say whether an outside interpreter should hold an exhibitor representative badge or an exhibitor badge; the written materials for both include the "exhibiting duties undertaken"), state it truthfully: "interpreting".
If you are unsure, ask your trading delegation in writing before your phase opens. Article 5 says the "trading delegation (sub-delegation) is responsible for managing the use of its own booths", and Article 11 requires each delegation to submit a booth self-inspection report to the Fair's Business Office before the halls close on the first and second days of each phase (our translations). Keeping the answer in writing is practical advice, not a legal opinion on whether it would count as evidence.
4. Business cards, quotations, QR codes: what the interpreter and your materials carry
Item (1) of the first group in Article 15 reads (our translation):
(1) Distributing or displaying, within an Export Exhibition booth, promotional materials of a non-exhibiting enterprise, including business cards, brochures and quotations printed with the name of a non-exhibiting enterprise, or websites, discs, QR codes, promotional videos or paper materials promoting a non-exhibiting enterprise or its products, etc.
Read literally, there are two easy ways to fall into this:
- The interpreter's own business cards. If the interpreter's card carries the name of an agency or any other organisation, it is a "business card printed with the name of a non-exhibiting enterprise". Hand out none and display none in the booth, and the same for QR codes — wherever the interpreter comes from, including from us. If a buyer wants to follow up, give them your salesperson's card.
- Brochures and quotations translated by an outside translator. Many companies have their foreign-language catalogues and quotations translated by someone else, and the delivered files may carry the translator's credit line, footer, watermark or QR code. If what is printed is an interpreting or translation company's name, or the QR code points to such a company, then once printed and placed in the booth, that is displaying a brochure or quotation "printed with the name of a non-exhibiting enterprise". The booth-use guide mentioned above puts it more bluntly: on-site promotional materials may show "only the exhibiting enterprise's own name" (our translation). If the files have not been delivered yet, have the translator remove all of it, whoever the translator is; if they are already printed, check every page before your phase opens and remove or cover anything showing another company's name or QR code.
Item (3) of the first group also covers exhibits: displaying in the booth "exhibits bearing the contact details of a non-exhibiting enterprise", "except where laws and regulations provide otherwise" (our translations). If you have samples from a supplier whose labels carry the supplier's phone number or website, check them before your phase opens.
Joint-exhibiting booths have a separate set of rules. Article 16 says that in joint exhibiting, "distributing or displaying, within an Export Exhibition booth, promotional materials of a non-exhibiting enterprise or of a non-registered joint-exhibiting (supply) unit" is also improper booth use, as is "more than one joint-exhibiting (supply) unit in one joint-exhibiting booth" (our translations). In other words, in a joint-exhibiting booth the materials that may appear are limited to the exhibitor and that one registered joint-exhibiting (supply) unit. If the interpreter was hired by the supply unit and stands in a joint-exhibiting booth, the provisions say nothing specific about in whose name orders may be signed; ask your trading delegation in writing before your phase opens.
5. Signing: the interpreter interprets, and signs nothing
The second group in Article 15 is "treated as transferring or subletting (sale) of a booth". When a booth inspection team finds it, the second group is penalised more heavily than the first (Article 19); when a delegation finds it in its own self-inspection, both groups are penalised the same (Article 20). Its item (1) reads (our translation):
(1) Signing contracts with outside parties in the name of a non-exhibiting enterprise.
If a buyer wants to sign a contract, proforma invoice or order on the spot, the only seller on it can be your company, and the signature is your own staff's. The interpreter puts the terms into both languages; signatures and documents carry your company's name only. Item (4) of the second group also lists "falsely or fictitiously reporting an Export Exhibition booth manager" (our translation) — reporting an interpreter who is not your formal employee as your booth manager may be treated as falling under that item; the Fair decides.
6. What happens if a violation is found
Chapter 4 sets tiers by the kind of violation and by who found it. The table lists only the tiers for standard booths; every figure is from the provisions:
| Case | The enterprise | Legal representative and booth manager | The trading delegation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Improper booth use found by a booth inspection team (Article 19) | No exhibiting in any export exhibition area for 10 consecutive sessions from the next one; the same 10 sessions for enterprises under the legal representative's name | No badges for 10 consecutive sessions | Booth quota cut at 1:5; 1:10 for later cases once violating booths exceed 5‰ of its booths in that session |
| Transfer or subletting (sale) found by a booth inspection team (Article 19) | 20 consecutive sessions; the same 20 sessions for enterprises under the legal representative's name | Put on the badge "blacklist" and barred from badges | 1:10; 1:20 for later cases once above 5‰ |
| Found by the delegation's own self-inspection (Article 20) | 10 consecutive sessions; the same 10 sessions for enterprises under the legal representative's name | No badges for 10 consecutive sessions | 1:1; 1:3 above 1% |
Where Article 19(1) deals with improper booth use, its last sentence reads (five sentences in that paragraph of the official Chinese; our translation of the fifth):
At the same time, enterprises under the name of the exhibiting enterprise's legal representative lose their eligibility to exhibit in all export exhibition areas for 10 consecutive sessions starting from the next session; the legal representative and the booth manager lose their eligibility for entry badges for 10 consecutive sessions.
Article 19(2) adds that the outcome is published in the Canton Fair Newsletter and on the Canton Fair website. All three tiers above penalise the enterprise, its legal representative, its booth manager and the trading delegation; separately, Article 14(4), on handling booth-ownership disputes, has the Fair's Security Office, together with the Badge Service Center, "confiscate the badges of violating persons and put the violating persons and units on the badge blacklist", "strictly prohibit violating persons from entering the halls during the penalty period", and also "cut the badge quota of the violating badge-applying unit for 10 consecutive sessions from the next one" (our translations) — the provisions do not say who these "violating persons" include. For brand booths (Article 21) the ban is 20 consecutive sessions, together with loss of eligibility for brand-booth selection over the same number of sessions.
7. Who checks, and when
- Delegation self-inspection: Article 11 says it runs through agreement signing, booth pre-payment and on-site move-in, with a self-inspection report due before the halls close on the first and second days of each phase.
- Booth inspection teams: Article 12 says the relevant chambers and associations "may, together with local commerce authorities and the China Foreign Trade Centre, each set up booth inspection teams", and that the Fair's relevant offices may send staff to take part as needed (our translations).
- Determination and handling: Article 13 assigns this to the Fair's Political Work Office and Business Office, whose working period in the autumn is "10 October until the close of that session of the Canton Fair" (our translation).
- Reporting: Article 26 (two sentences in the official Chinese; our translation):
The Canton Fair has a complaints and reporting line, 020-89125121, and encourages reports of improper use, transfer or subletting (sale) of Export Exhibition booths. Complaints and reports are made under real names.
Article 28 adds that an exhibiting enterprise whose report is confirmed can apply to its trading delegation for additional Export Exhibition booths at the next session. In other words, the inspection teams are not the only ones watching your booth.
8. The part we sell, and what it does not cover
What we sell is interpreting at the booth. Every booking is quoted separately: send us the phase, the exhibition section, the language and the number of days. According to our FAQ page, a VAT special invoice adds 6% and a general invoice adds 3%, and new clients typically pay a 30–50% deposit. The Fair's badge fees are set out in Annex 1 to the badge notice. Badges can only be applied for by your company and the interpreter in the Fair's own system; we do not apply on anyone's behalf.
What sections 3 to 5 cover — who receives buyers in the booth, what materials are on display, who signs — is in your company's hands, not ours, and whether anything is found to be a violation is for the inspection teams and the Fair. When you book, put sections 3 to 5 into your written instructions to the interpreter, wherever the interpreter comes from.
You can browse interpreters by language and industry in our Guangzhou interpreter directory. To book, use WhatsApp +86 139 2416 6640 (WeChat ID Saralee93), or our contact page.
9. Sources
- Canton Fair website, Provisions on the Use of Export Exhibition Booths at the China Import and Export Fair (Trial), posted 21 September 2026, contentNo 786054738168066048, accessed 9 October 2026; Article 31 says it applies from the 138th session, and Article 30 says the Fair is responsible for interpreting it.
- Canton Fair website, Notice on Badge Application for Exhibitors and Service Units of the 140th Canton Fair (our translation of the Chinese title), contentNo 65d6b41c858a4c59a021512259cf3a03, Annex 1, Notes on Badge Application for Exhibitor and Service-Unit Personnel and Move-in/Move-out Vehicles at the 140th Canton Fair.
- Canton Fair website, Guide to the Use of Export Exhibition Booths, posted 6 March 2026, contentNo 676239214685384704, 25-page PDF attachment, downloaded 9 October 2026.
- Our FAQ page, checked 9 October 2026: invoice surcharges and deposit terms.
Further reading: Canton Fair exhibitors hiring a booth interpreter: which badge, what proof. Translation China (Guangzhou GuanRi Translation Service Co., Ltd.) is an independent translation service provider and is not affiliated with the Canton Fair organiser.
