Bibles are allowed in China for personal ownership and reading, but nearly everything else you might do with one is regulated. You can buy a Bible at a state-approved church or affiliated bookstore, and travelers can carry a small number of copies through customs. You cannot order one from a Chinese online retailer, hand copies out in public, use one in an unregistered church, or share scripture with children outside the home. The gap between “legal to own” and “freely available” is where most people get the rules wrong.
Where You Can Legally Get a Bible
Every officially printed Bible in China comes from one place: the Amity Printing Company in Nanjing. Amity is a joint venture between the Amity Foundation, connected to China’s recognized Protestant leadership, and the United Bible Societies. As of 2023, it had produced roughly 89 million Bibles for use inside China.
Distribution runs through two state-sanctioned Protestant bodies, the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) and the China Christian Council (CCC), which coordinate church activity nationally and decide which publications reach congregations.1OFFICIAL WEBSITE OF THE PROTESTANT CHURCH IN CHINA. Official Website of the Protestant Church in China Print quantities are approved by the government each year, and purchases happen in person at TSPM/CCC-affiliated churches and bookstores. Catholic communities access Bibles through the same infrastructure, coordinated by the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association.
The system works better in cities than outside them. Approved distribution points cluster in urban areas with registered churches, so believers in rural provinces often travel long distances to buy a copy. People who worship at unregistered congregations face an additional obstacle: they sit outside the approved system that controls supply.
You Cannot Buy a Bible Online in China
Since March 2018, Bibles have been unavailable on major Chinese e-commerce platforms. Taobao, JD.com, and other retailers pulled listings after the revised Regulations on Religious Affairs took effect that February. The ban covers both physical and digital editions and is still in force.
The government tightened online religious content further in 2022 with the Administrative Measures for Internet Religious Information Services. Any website, app, blog, social media account, or livestream publishing scripture or religious teaching now needs an Internet Religious Information Services Permit. To qualify, the applicant must be an organization legally established in China, led by Chinese citizens, staffed with content auditors trained in state religious policy, and free of religious-affairs violations for the previous three years.2Wikisource. Administrative Regulations for Internet Religious Information (PRC) Foreign organizations and individuals are barred from providing internet religious information services inside China at all.
The practical effect: Bible apps have largely disappeared from Chinese app stores, and posting scripture on social media without a permit is illegal.
Bringing a Bible Into China as a Traveler
Foreigners can legally carry Bibles into China for personal use. Revised rules on foreigners’ religious activities, effective May 1, 2025, set clearer limits than earlier regulations: up to ten copies of a single-volume religious publication per person per trip, or up to three sets of multi-volume editions. These caps cover religious printed materials generally, not only Bibles.
Customs officers can confiscate materials that exceed those limits or that appear intended for distribution. Disposable religious pamphlets and tracts are banned from entry entirely. If you’re traveling with a Bible, keep to what you’ll personally read and stay well inside the stated numbers.
What You Cannot Do With a Bible in China
Owning and reading a Bible at home is legal. Almost every other use is restricted unless it happens inside a registered church, under registered clergy, using approved materials.
- Handing out Bibles on the street, at schools, or in any public setting is illegal. All distribution has to run through official TSPM/CCC channels.
- Using Bibles in worship at unregistered “house churches” violates the Regulations on Religious Affairs, which require religious activities to take place at registered venues under registered clergy.
- Evangelizing in public or online, including sharing Bible passages with the intent to convert, is prohibited outside registered settings.
- Clergy are forbidden from spreading religious ideas to anyone under 18 through the internet, and organizing children for religious education, training, or camps is banned.
The rules on minors are among the strictest. National Religious Affairs Administration regulations specifically bar clergy from evangelizing to underage users online or organizing youth religious camps. Reading the Bible privately at home with your own children sits in a gray zone, treated as a family matter; anything organized or public crosses the line.
Penalties for Printing or Distributing Bibles Without Approval
People who produce or distribute Bibles outside the official system face criminal prosecution, not just confiscation. The usual charge is Article 225 of China’s Criminal Law, which covers illegal business operations that “seriously disrupt market order.”3CECC. Prior Restraints on Religious Publishing in China Framing unauthorized Bible distribution as a market offense rather than a religious matter lets the government prosecute without triggering religious-freedom debates.
Sentences are real. House church pastor Cai Zhuohua and two family members were convicted in 2005 for printing and distributing Bibles without a license. Cai received three years in prison and a fine of 150,000 yuan (about $20,000 at the time); his relatives received one and a half to two years with fines of 100,000 to 120,000 yuan.3CECC. Prior Restraints on Religious Publishing in China More recent cases have been harsher. In 2020, three Christians in Henan Province were sentenced to between two and six years for selling audio Bibles, with the principal offender receiving six years.
When profits from unauthorized sales exceed 100,000 yuan, courts treat the offense as involving “particularly grave circumstances,” which pushes penalties toward the top of the range. Authorities have also raided unregistered churches, confiscated religious materials, and shut down unauthorized publishing operations outright.4U.S. Department of Justice. China International Religious Freedom Report July-December 2010
How the Rules Are Being Enforced Now
Enforcement moves in waves, and the current one is intense. In January 2026, police raided the home of the leader of the Early Rain Covenant Church in Sichuan Province and detained several senior members. That followed a sweep in late 2025, when authorities arrested roughly 100 members of Yayang Church in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, with at least two dozen still in detention afterward. Local authorities used hundreds of armed and special police to surround the Yayang Church building.
The last comparable wave came in 2018, alongside the revised Regulations on Religious Affairs. Unregistered churches are treated not simply as unlicensed religious groups but as organizations refusing to accept Communist Party authority, which makes them a political target as well as a regulatory one.
For an ordinary reader, the takeaway is straightforward. You can own a Bible in China, keep it at home, and attend a registered church that uses approved texts under approved leadership. Step outside that framework by distributing copies independently, worshiping in an unregistered congregation, sharing scripture with minors, or posting biblical content online, and you risk having your materials seized and facing administrative or criminal penalties. Bibles are permitted on the government’s terms, and those terms have been narrowing.