The Canton Fair is 26,000+ exhibitors spread across a floor plan the size of a small city, split into three phases over roughly two and a half weeks. This is what to know before you book the flight.
The China Import and Export Fair — almost universally called the Canton Fair — is held twice a year in Guangzhou at the Pazhou complex, one of the largest exhibition venues in the world. It isn't a single event so much as three back-to-back trade fairs under one name, each covering a different set of product categories, with tens of thousands of exhibitors across the full run. For an Indian importer, it's often the single highest-density opportunity to meet real manufacturers face to face, compare quality and pricing across dozens of suppliers in one place, and build relationships that are genuinely harder to form over chat.
| Phase | Categories | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Phase 1 | Electronics, machinery, vehicles, hardware, building materials | Industrial buyers, electronics importers, machinery/equipment sourcing |
| Phase 2 | Consumer goods, home decor, gifts, kitchenware | D2C brands, home & lifestyle importers, gifting/decor sellers |
| Phase 3 | Textiles, apparel, shoes, health products, food | Fashion importers, textile buyers, FMCG-adjacent categories |
Each phase runs roughly five days, with the full fair spanning about two and a half weeks across spring (April–May) and autumn (October–November) seasons. Confirm exact current-season dates when you plan — they shift by a few days year to year. If your product spans two phases (for instance, a home-and-apparel brand), you can attend both, but treat them as two separate, focused visits rather than trying to cover everything in one exhausted pass.
Attending requires an M-visa (business visa), which typically needs an invitation letter — exhibitors and official fair channels can issue these — plus a cover letter stating your business purpose and standard visa documentation. Apply well ahead of your travel dates; processing and appointment availability can be the actual bottleneck, not the paperwork itself. Book accommodation near the Pazhou complex specifically; Guangzhou is a large city, and a hotel that looks close on a map can still mean an hour in fair-week traffic each way.
Fair-week hotel rates near Pazhou spike hard and rooms sell out early. Book as soon as your dates are confirmed, not once your visa is approved.
The single biggest difference between a productive fair visit and an exhausting one is whether you arrive with a shortlist. The official exhibitor catalogue lists hall and booth numbers by category weeks in advance — use it to identify 15–25 realistic candidates for your product before you land, with a rough walking route grouped by hall so you're not crossing the complex repeatedly. Going in with no plan, hoping to "see what's there," burns your limited days on orientation instead of negotiation.
At each booth, the questions that matter most rarely start with price. Ask about minimum order quantity and production capacity first — it tells you quickly whether this supplier can actually serve an order your size. Ask whether you're speaking to the factory or a trading company representing several factories; both can be legitimate, but it changes your pricing expectations and who's accountable for quality. Take photos of the booth, the product, and the business card together (it's easy to lose track of which card belongs to which conversation after forty booths). If serious, ask for a sample to be shipped to India rather than carrying fragile or bulky samples home yourself.
For buyers in small-commodity categories — jewellery, accessories, stationery, small hardware, festive and gifting items — the Yiwu Fair is worth adding to the trip. It's timed to fall in a gap within the Canton Fair season, and Yiwu's market culture supports much smaller minimum order quantities, making it a good fit for testing a new category before committing to container volumes. Yiwu is also home to the enormous Yiwu International Trade Market, a permanent wholesale complex worth visiting even outside fair dates if your category fits.
The fair ends discovery, not the transaction. The business cards and photos in your bag are worth nothing until every promising booth gets carried into formal supplier verification, sample coordination, and negotiation follow-up — see our supplier verification guide for the exact checks to run before you commit. The importers who get real value from the Canton Fair are the ones with a disciplined follow-up process waiting for them when they land, not the ones who file the cards away and mean to get to it.
Individual buyers can register and attend, though having a company name and business card makes registration smoother and is taken more seriously by exhibitors during negotiation.
For a single phase relevant to your product, 2–3 full days on the floor is realistic if you have a pre-built shortlist; without one, you'll spend most of that time just orienting yourself in a complex covering over a million square metres.
You can agree terms and sometimes pay a sample deposit on the spot, but a serious order should still go through the verification and sample process afterward — a booth conversation is a starting point, not a substitute for diligence.
For small-commodity categories — jewellery, accessories, stationery, festive goods — yes; Yiwu's much lower minimum order quantities suit buyers testing a category, and its timing is designed to let you cover both in one trip.
Booth shortlist, negotiation support, and on-ground interpretation in Guangzhou or Yiwu — built around your product, not a generic itinerary.
