What is a qifengzhang? China's cross-page seal, and why notarial booklets don't use one

Handle documents in China long enough and you will meet this: a red seal stamped across the join between two pages, so that each page carries half the impression. That is a 骑缝章 (qifengzhang) — a cross-page or "perforated" seal.

Two claims about it circulate widely in English and Chinese alike: that the law requires it, and that notarial booklets carry a "steel cross-page seal". Neither is accurate. Here is what the documents actually say.

What it is for

The usual explanation is anti-substitution: because the impression spans two pages, a missing or swapped page breaks the pattern, so the seal shows that these pages belong together.

That reasoning is sound, but we found no official Chinese text that states this function for a cross-page seal. It appears in vendor and legal-information articles, not in the rules themselves. So this article treats it as reasoning, not as a citable requirement.

No general legal requirement

We searched the following texts. The term 骑缝 (cross-page) does not appear in any of them:

• Rules of Notarial Procedure (issued by Ministry of Justice Order No. 103 on 18 May 2006, amended by Order No. 145 on 20 October 2020, effective 1 January 2021, https://www.gov.cn/gongbao/content/2021/content_5578540.htm) — Article 42 lists the notary's signature (signature seal) and the notary office's seal among required contents; there is no cross-page sealing provision
• Specification for the Preparation of Notarial Certificates, SF/T 0038—2021 (issued and effective 21 June 2021, replacing SF/T 0038—2019) — a full-text search for 骑缝 / 齐缝 returns zero hits
• Detailed Rules for the Implementation of the Invoice Management Measures — requires only the invoice-dedicated seal
• Rules for Arranging Archived Documents, DA/T 22—2015 (National Archives Administration, effective 1 June 2016) — regulates binding methods in detail (thread binding, right-angle binding, sewing-machine edge binding, the three-holes-one-thread method, and expressly rules out hot-melt and office glue) with no cross-page seal requirement

So the claim that "the law requires a cross-page seal" is one we cannot source. It is largely industry and counter-window practice.

As for public tenders: many articles assert that bid documents must carry a cross-page seal, but the trail leads back to bid-writing companies. Article 51 of the Regulation on the Implementation of the Tendering and Bidding Law (State Council Order No. 613) lists a bid not sealed by the bidder and signed by the person in charge as a ground for rejecting it — a rejection ground, not a cross-page requirement. An individual tender document may impose a cross-page seal as its own condition — that is a term of that tender, not a rule of law.

Notarial booklets use an embossed seal — and not across the join

This deserves its own section, because the popular version conflates two different instruments.

SF/T 0038—2021, clause 7.3 f), on the notary office's embossed seal:

2) After the notarial certificate has been pasted up, an embossed seal is generally applied vertically through the body, from the front cover to the back cover, at the lower left of the certificate;

4) Where the certificate is too thick for the embossed seal to register well, the notary office may apply it to several pages at a time after pasting up, keeping the position broadly consistent. (unofficial translation; the Chinese text is authoritative)

Note what that describes: an embossed seal (colourless, raised), applied vertically through the whole body from front to back cover, positioned at the lower left — not red paste, and not across a page edge. The purpose is comparable, but the instrument, the method and the position all differ.

The same clause specifies the notary office's ink seal as circular, 4.2 cm, in red paste, and the embossed seal as circular, 4 cm. Clause 7.3 l) provides that a foreign-language translation may be attached. A translation issued with the certificate is bound into the booklet and so falls under the booklet's own sealing — that last inference is ours; the standard does not say it.

So "a notarial certificate carries a steel cross-page seal" mixes up the embossed seal with the cross-page seal. The standard says embossed, through the body — and never says cross-page.

Do translations need one?

We found no published rule from any receiving authority requiring a cross-page seal on a translation — not from exit-entry administration, vehicle administration, human resources bureaux, or civil affairs.

Guangdong's marriage-registration guidance states that foreign-language materials must be fully translated in a matching format and may come from an embassy or consulate or from a qualified translation institution (we could not open the page directly and saw only a search snippet). Note that this speaks to the institution's qualification, not to a cross-page seal.

The accurate statement is therefore: no law or national regulation of general application mandates a cross-page seal — but individual agency guidance can and does impose one. Beijing Municipal Education Commission's requirements for submitting private-school articles of association, for instance, call for a cross-page company seal. For translations specifically it is largely counter practice rather than published rule. Whether a particular window wants it — follow that authority's requirements, which differ by locality and by office.

The different seals, briefly

• 公章 — the company's legal-name seal.
• 翻译专用章 (translation-dedicated seal) — the public-security rules on seal engraving (for example Zhejiang Provincial Government Order No. 225, effective 1 January 2007, amended 20 March 2023) enumerate name seals and seals dedicated to contracts, finance, tax, invoices, inspection and so on. A "translation-dedicated seal" is not separately named; it sits within the open-ended "and other dedicated seals" category as a business-dedicated seal. These seal-engraving rules are made province by province; we checked only Zhejiang's, and other provinces may enumerate differently.
• 钢印 — the colourless embossed seal; this is what notarial booklets use.
• 骑缝章 — a way of applying a seal, not a category of seal. Any seal can be applied across a join.

On the 13-digit registration number often cited by translation companies, be precise: the 13-digit seal code does have an official basis — Ministry of Public Security standard GA 241.1—2000, Public Security Administration Information System for Seals, Part 1: Seal Information Coding (issued 18 March 2000, effective 1 April 2000, still current), sets coding rules for seals engraved under the filing system generally, not for translation seals specifically. What we could not source is the claim that the code is peculiar to the translation industry, or that it works as a test of translation credentials.

Two claims that are out of date but still circulating

One: for CSCSE's overseas academic degree certification, translation-company translations were dropped years ago. Its notice abolishing translations from certification application materials was published on 8 January 2018 and took effect on 1 January 2018: applicants no longer need to provide a Chinese translation produced by a translation company. Note the scope: what was removed is that specific item, not every language-related requirement — an applicant holding a source-language certificate plus an English certificate must still submit the English one alongside it, and some countries carry additional material requirements. The change is also confined to that one certification service. Agency and vendor pages still say otherwise.

Two: the Measures for the Administration of Electronic Seals contain no cross-page provision. The Measures for the Administration of Electronic Seals (State Council General Office document 〔2025〕 No. 33, issued 27 September 2025) provide for legal-name seals, internal-department seals, branch seals, business-dedicated seals and personal name seals, and under Article 5 an electronic seal that complies with the Measures has the same legal effect as a physical seal. An electronic signature is applied to the whole file, so page integrity is guaranteed by the signature itself and no cross-page stamping is needed. Some platforms render a decorative "electronic cross-page seal" — that is a skeuomorphic interface element, not a legal construct.

Does a foreign authority care?

We found no record of any foreign authority requiring a cross-page seal, or rejecting a document for lacking one. That is an absence of evidence, and we will not turn it into a claim that no foreign authority ever looks at it.

One distinction is worth keeping straight: the Hague Apostille Convention has applied to China since 7 November 2023, and an apostille authenticates the signature and seal of the issuing authority. It does not certify the content of a translation.

In short

• A cross-page seal is a way of stamping, not a type of seal, and we found no general legal requirement for it.
• Notarial booklets use an embossed seal driven vertically through the body at the lower left (SF/T 0038—2021), not a red cross-page seal.
• Cross-page sealing on translations is counter practice, essentially absent from published rules; follow the receiving authority.
• The Measures for the Administration of Electronic Seals contain no cross-page provision.

Requirements differ between receiving agencies — always confirm with the authority handling your case.