Key practical points:
• It regulates TCM practice: practitioners need a licence, and some experienced healers can be licensed by a skills assessment.
• Simple TCM clinics can in some cases be set up by filing instead of complex licensing.
• It regulates Chinese herbal medicines and their quality, encouraging safe, contaminant-free herb cultivation.
• It encourages integrating TCM with modern medicine and, sometimes, health-insurance coverage.
• It protects traditional knowledge and secret formulas and encourages research into them.
• False promotion or claiming impossible cures in the name of TCM is banned.
Traditional Chinese Medicine Law · Yalla China
中华人民共和国中医药法 / Traditional Chinese Medicine Law
Enacted: 2016-12-25 ✅ Effective: 2017-07-01
📝 Overview
The first comprehensive law regulating traditional Chinese medicine: clinics, practitioners, herbal medicines, education and research. It aims to develop TCM and ensure its safety and quality. It concerns patients seeking traditional treatment and those working in the field.
This is general information only, not legal advice. For your specific case, consult a licensed lawyer.
📜 The law text / key provisions
💬 Practical reading
💬 This is a general reading/opinion for orientation — not the official legal text nor legal advice.
If you consider trying traditional Chinese medicine, make sure the practitioner is licensed and the clinic registered, and avoid anyone claiming miracle cures for serious diseases — that is legally banned. Regulated herbal medicines are safer than undocumented ones. General orientation, not legal advice.
📎 Official source
National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine / natcm.gov.cn
🕒 Updated: 16 March 2026