In force since November 21, 1986
US–China Tax Treaty
Every rate below carries the article that sets it and the date we read it — because protocols move rates and leave the article numbers alone.
Every rate on this page is cited to the treaty article that authorises it. Treaty texts last read September 9, 2026.
Quick answer
The US–China income tax treaty has been in force since November 21, 1986. It reduces US withholding on China residents’ US-source income below the 30% statutory rate — portfolio dividends at 10%, interest at 10%. You claim it with Form W-8BEN before you are paid, not on a return afterwards.
Key takeaways
- In force since November 21, 1986, amended by 2 protocols — which is why the article numbers below carry their amendment chain.
- No totalization agreement is in force, so social security contributions can be owed to both countries with no relief.
- Claim it on Form W-8BEN before payment. A treaty rate you did not claim is recovered only by filing a US return.
The rates, by article
Each figure below is the ceiling the treaty sets on US withholding, with the article that sets it.
US–China withholding ceilings. Statutory rate without a treaty: 30%.
| Income type | Treaty rate | Instead of |
|---|---|---|
| Dividends — portfolio | 10%Article 9(2) | 30% |
| Dividends — direct (corporate holder) | 10%Article 9(2) | 30% |
| Interest | 10%Article 10(2) | 30% |
| Royalties — General — copyright, film, patent, know-how, trademark, design, secret formula | 10%Article 11(2) | 30% |
| Royalties — Rental of industrial, commercial or scientific equipment | 7%Article 11(2), read with the protocol, paragraph 6 | 30% |
A rate without its article is not an answer
Protocols replace whole articles and usually keep the article number while changing the rate inside it. That is why every figure above shows its article as amended. Reading the base treaty text alone — which is what the IRS-hosted PDF gives you — produces superseded rates for several treaties in this set.
Interest — the exceptions
The headline interest rate is not the whole story for this treaty.
Interest here splits by category rather than running at a single rate. Presenting the lowest as “the” treaty rate overstates the benefit, so every class is shown:
Interest rates by class
| Class of interest | Rate |
|---|---|
| General interest | 10%Article 10(2) |
| Interest beneficially owned by the other government, a political subdivision or local authority, its central bank or a wholly government-owned financial institution — or paid on debt indirectly financed by any of them | 0%Article 10(3) |
Where people get this wrong
Each of these is a claim we found stated incorrectly on other sites, or a condition that is routinely dropped.
The famous '5 year limit' is not in the treaty.
Article 20 sets no number of years. It limits benefits to the period 'reasonably necessary to complete the education or training'. That is genuinely vaguer than a deadline, and it cuts both ways: there is no automatic cut-off at year five, and no guarantee that year six is fine either.
Becoming a resident alien does not end the benefit — becoming a citizen does.
Protocol paragraph 2 excepts Article 20 from the savings clause for residents, so the $5,000 carve-out survives the switch to resident-alien status. It reserves the right to tax citizens with no exceptions at all, so naturalising ends it.
There is no reduced rate for a large shareholding.
Most US treaties cut the dividend rate for a company holding 10% or more of the payer. This one does not: Article 9(2) is a flat 10% for everybody. A corporate investor gets no better rate than an individual.
Mainland China only.
The agreement covers residents of the People's Republic. Hong Kong SAR and Macao SAR have their own tax systems and are outside its scope, and it does not extend to Taiwan.
Students, teachers and pensions
These articles decide more real cases than the withholding rates do — and they are the ones the savings clause fights over.
Students and trainees
ArticleArticle 20Article 20
ReliefThree separate exemptions: foreign-source maintenance payments, grants from government or tax-exempt organisations, and a capped amount of US personal-services incomeArticle 20(a)–(c)
Annual cap5000Article 20(c)US dollars per taxable year, on income from personal services performed in the United States. This is the provision that makes the treaty unusually generous to students.
Year limitThe agreement sets NO fixed number of years. It says benefits 'shall extend only for such period of time as is reasonably necessary to complete the education or training'. Many sites state 5 years; that figure does not appear in the text.
Survives the savings clausetrueProtocol, paragraph 2Article 20 is listed among the exceptions, so the United States may not tax its RESIDENTS as if the agreement did not exist in respect of it. A Chinese student who becomes a resident alien therefore keeps the benefit. US CITIZENS are excepted from nothing — the clause opens by reserving the right to tax citizens outright.
ConditionsMust be, or have been immediately before the visit, a resident of China, and present in the United States solely for education, training or obtaining special technical experience.Article 20Applies to residents of mainland China. Hong Kong SAR, Macao SAR and Taiwan are outside the agreement's scope.
Teachers and researchers
ArticleArticle 19Article 19
Year limit3Article 19Years in the aggregate — not per visit, and not renewable by leaving and returning.
Retroactive clawbackThis article contains no retroactive clawback. Exceeding three years ends the exemption going forward; it does not reopen the earlier years.
Survives the savings clausetrueProtocol, paragraph 2Article 19 is listed among the savings-clause exceptions for residents, on the same footing as Article 20.
ConditionsTemporarily present for the primary purpose of teaching, giving lectures or conducting research at an accredited educational or scientific research institution.Article 19
Pensions
Not yet verified. We have not read the pensions articles directly against the treaty text, so this page does not state it. Rather than summarise it from a secondary source, we leave it out — every other figure here carries the article it came from, and this one would not. Read the treaty text linked in Sources below, or ask a preparer who handles cross-border returns.
The savings clause
Nearly every US treaty reserves the right for the United States to tax its own citizens and residents as though the treaty did not exist. The exceptions are what make a treaty useful to a US person at all.
ArticleProtocol, paragraph 2Protocol, paragraph 2Unusually, the savings clause sits in the protocol rather than in the agreement itself, which is one reason it is so often missed.
Articles preserved against it:
- 8(2), 17(2), 18, 19 Teachers, Professors and Researchers, 20 Students and Trainees, 22, 23, 24, 26 — Protocol, paragraph 2 Conditional: These except RESIDENTS only. The clause opens by reserving the right to tax US citizens outright, so a US citizen gets no benefit from any of them.
How to claim it
Before you are paid, on a W-8BEN given to the payer. Not on a return afterwards.
- Give the payer a Form W-8BEN. Name China on line 9. For ordinary dividend and interest claims that is all Part II needs — leave line 10 blank.
- For royalties, scholarships or a conditioned claim, line 10 needs the article and rate. How to find your article number walks through it, and the articles for this treaty are in the table above.
- Check whether a disclosure is owed. Most individual FDAP claims are waived from Form 8833, but a position that overrides the Code may not be.
- If tax was already withheld at 30%, the routes are a refund claim on a US nonresident return, or the foreign tax credit in your own country.
Get the form in before the payment, not after
A treaty rate is applied by the payer at the moment they pay you. Submit the W-8BEN afterwards and the 30% has already gone — recovering it means filing a US return and waiting the better part of a year.
How this treaty compares
The same four rates for every country in this set, so you can see where China actually sits.
| Country | Dividends | Dividends (large stake) | Interest | Royalties (lowest) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brazil | No treaty30% statutory | No treaty30% statutory | No treaty30% statutory | No treaty30% statutory |
| Canada | 15%Article X(2)(b) | 5%Article X(2)(a), as amended by the 1995 protocol, Article 5(1) | 0%Article XI(1), as replaced by the 2007 protocol, Article 6split by category | 0%Article XII(3)split by class |
| France | 15%Article 10(2)(b), as replaced by the 2009 protocol | 5%Article 10(2)(a), as replaced by the 2009 protocol+0% tier, conditional | 0%Article 11(1)split by category | 0%Article 12(1), as replaced by the 2009 protocol |
| Germany | 15%Article 10(2)(b), as substituted by the 2006 protocol | 5%Article 10(2)(a), as substituted by the 2006 protocol+0% tier, conditional | 0%Article 11(1) | 0%Article 12(1) |
| Italy | 15%Article 10(2)(b) | 5%Article 10(2)(a) | 10%Article 11(2)split by category | 0%Article 12(3)split by class |
| Japan | 10%Article 10(2)(b) | 5%Article 10(2)(a)+0% tier, conditional | 0%Article 11(1), as replaced by the 2013 protocol, Article IVsplit by category | 0%Article 12(1) |
| Korea | 15%Article 12(2)(a) | 10%Article 12(2)(b) | 12%Article 13(2)split by category | 10%Article 14(2)split by class |
| Mexico | 10%Article 10(2)(b), as substituted by the 2003 protocol, Article II(a) | 5%Article 10(2)(a), as substituted by the 2003 protocol, Article II(a)+0% tier, conditional | 15%Article 11(2)(c)split by category | 10%Article 12(2) |
| Philippines | 25%Article 11(2)(a) | 20%Article 11(2)(b) | 15%Article 12(2)split by category | 15%Article 13(2)(a) |
| Spain | 15%Article 10(2)(b), as replaced by the 2013 protocol, Article IV | 5%Article 10(2)(a), as replaced by the 2013 protocol, Article IV+0% tier, conditional | 0%Article 11(1), as replaced by the 2013 protocol, Article Vsplit by category | 0%Article 12(1), as replaced by the 2013 protocol, Article VI |
| United Kingdom | 15%Article 10(2)(b) | 5%Article 10(2)(a)+0% tier, conditional | 0%Article 11(1) | 0%Article 12(1) |
Every figure is read from the treaty text or a protocol, with the authorising article shown beneath it. Two flags matter as much as the numbers: split means the treaty charges different rates for different categories of payment, so the figure shown is the lowest and may not be yours; +0% tier means a conditional zero rate exists for large corporate holdings, which depends on ownership, a holding period and a limitation-on-benefits test that a table cannot resolve. Use the lookup for either.
Frequently asked questions
What is the US–China tax treaty withholding rate on dividends?
10% on portfolio dividends under Article 9(2), against a statutory rate of 30% without a treaty. You claim it by giving the payer a Form W-8BEN naming China as your country of residence for treaty purposes — before the payment is made, not afterwards.
What is the interest withholding rate under the US–China treaty?
It depends on the kind of interest, which makes this treaty unusual — 10% on general interest, 0% on interest beneficially owned by the other government, a political subdivision or local authority, its central bank or a wholly government-owned financial institution — or paid on debt indirectly financed by any of them. Quoting the lowest of those as "the" treaty rate overstates the benefit, so you have to identify which class your interest falls into before claiming a rate. Our lookup shows every class rather than picking one.
What is the royalty rate under the US–China treaty?
There is more than one. This treaty splits royalties by class: 10% on general — copyright, film, patent, know-how, trademark, design, secret formula; 7% on rental of industrial, commercial or scientific equipment. Claiming the lowest rate for a payment that belongs in a higher class is a common error, and it is the payer who gets asked about it. Line 10 of your W-8BEN needs the article and the rate for your actual class.
How do I claim US–China treaty benefits?
Give the payer a Form W-8BEN before you are paid, naming China on line 9 as your country of residence for treaty purposes. For ordinary dividend and interest claims that is all of Part II you need — leave line 10 blank. Royalties, scholarships and conditioned claims do need line 10, with the treaty article and rate. The form goes to the payer, never to the IRS.
Has the US–China treaty been amended?
Yes — by 2 protocols. Protocol signed with the agreement. Contains the savings clause and the 70%-of-gross rule for equipment-rental royalties. Second protocol. This matters more than it sounds: a protocol usually replaces a whole article while keeping its number, so the article you cite stays the same and the rate inside it changes. Reading the base treaty text alone produces superseded rates.
Does the US–China treaty cover social security?
No, and there is no separate agreement either. The income tax treaty does not reach social security contributions, and there is no totalization agreement in force with China. China does not appear among the agreements in force in SSA POMS GN 01701.005, so there is no relief from paying social security to both systems. The practical result is that contributions can be owed to both systems with no relief — and no foreign tax credit, because a social security contribution is not an income tax.
Can a US citizen use the US–China treaty?
Rarely, because of the savings clause in Protocol, paragraph 2. It reserves the right for the United States to tax its own citizens and residents as though the treaty did not exist, and only the articles expressly preserved against it survive. For a US citizen the treaty usually helps by reducing the China side of the bill, with the foreign tax credit doing the rest.
Sources
Every figure on this page was read from a primary source on the date shown beside it. This country’s file was last read in full on September 9, 2026.
- US–China Income Tax Agreement (1984) and related protocols — All China articles, and the protocol containing the savings clause
- SSA POMS GN 01701.005 — International Social Security (Totalization) Agreements — Which countries have a totalization agreement in force, and each agreement's effective date
Where sources disagree
students.yearLimit
- No fixed year limit. Benefits last for the period 'reasonably necessary to complete the education or training'. — US–China Income Tax Agreement (1984) and related protocols, read September 9, 2026
- Commonly stated online as a 5-year limit, sometimes as unlimited. Neither figure appears in the agreement text. — IRS — United States income tax treaties A to Z, read September 9, 2026
What this page says: The page quotes the treaty language and states plainly that no fixed limit appears in it, rather than repeating a number we cannot source. Readers with a long course of study are told this is genuinely unsettled.
Treaty rates are ceilings on withholding, not a computation of your liability, and conditions inside an article can change the answer for you specifically. This page is educational and is not advice on your position.
Related
Tax Treaty Benefits & Country Lookup
Free tool: is there a treaty with your country, what rate, and which form claims it
Form W-8BEN
The form your broker or payer asks for, and what it actually does
Foreign Tax Credit
The relief that works when no treaty does — credit against deduction
Form 8833
When you must disclose a treaty position, and what to write on each line
Totalization Agreements
Social security, the second treaty network, and why it covers different countries
Educational information, not tax advice
Every rate and article on this page is cited to the treaty text it comes from, so you or your accountant can check it. Treaty provisions turn on facts we do not know about you — residency, beneficial ownership, limitation-on-benefits conditions and the savings clause can all change the answer. Read the article before you rely on the number, and take advice on anything material.
Social security
A separate agreement decides this, not the tax treaty — and it covers a different list of countries.
China does not appear among the agreements in force in SSA POMS GN 01701.005, so there is no relief from paying social security to both systems.
The consequence is real money: someone working across the two countries can owe social security contributions to both, with no relief and no credit — because a social security contribution is not an income tax, the foreign tax credit does not reach it either.