On June 17th, the State Council published a Notice on Unifying Social Credit Code (Unicode) for National Reform and Development Commission and all other organizations (Notice) (国务院关于批转发展改革委等部门法人和其他组织统一社会信用代码制度建设总体方案的通知). From now on, similar to industry and commerce organizations and other legal persons, social organizations (社会组织) will have “Unicode”.
The Unicode will be divided into 5 parts and will consist of 18 digits and letters as suggested by the newly published Notice. The first part, also the first digit, is given by Registration Management Department. The second part of the code, which is the second digit, distinguishes the type of organization. For example, 1 is for social associations (社会团体), 2 is for private non-enterprise entities and 3 is foundations. The third part (3rd to 8th digits in the code) represents each area. Fourth part (9th to 17th digits in the code) is organization registration code and lastly the fifth part is a verifying number.
Some characteristics of the new Unicode are unique, invariant and has a wide range of coverage. Unlike before, now each organization can only have one code. Even if the organization is revoked, the code will still exist and be kept as a record. The Notice also suggests that the latest that Unicode should be implemented nationwide is by 2020.
