China processed 281.8 billion yuan in VAT credit refunds in the first year after the policy was refined in September 2025, official data show. Manufacturing, scientific research, software and ecological protection - the four priority industries - received 212 billion yuan, up 10.4% from the same period before the change and accounting for 75.2% of the national total, 21.4 percentage points higher than before. Manufacturing alone took 191.4 billion yuan, or 67.9% of the total.
Local tax authorities have built digital workflows around the policy. Shanghai's e-tax bureau automatically captures data, calculates refundable amounts and pre-fills forms, completing the whole process paperlessly. Suzhou introduced intelligent approval that consolidates corporate credit, filing data and financial statements to automatically verify, compute and screen risks, so eligible firms receive refund notices quickly. Hubei assigned dedicated refund officers and set up a rapid-response chain across service halls, tax policy and tax source units. Liuzhou in Guangxi uses a tax big-data platform to maintain a dynamic ledger of key enterprises, screening input deductions and filing data monthly to pinpoint eligible taxpayers.
Businesses describe the refunds as decisive for expansion. Liuzhou Gotion Battery, which is scaling production lines and buying intelligent equipment, received 30.76 million yuan after local officials helped it organise fixed-asset purchase and raw-material deduction vouchers. Vaccine developer Aimei Explorer received 7.31 million yuan in January, equal to 39.3% of its total spending in the first eight months of the year. Guangda Environmental Energy in Yulin, a household waste treatment firm, was guided on input-tax accounting and on bringing refund filing into its internal control system.
Tax authorities said they will keep refining the long-term refund mechanism, tightening precision and service quality so that policy benefits reach the front line of economic development.