Check entitlement to state compensation after qualifying detention followed by withdrawal, non-prosecution, or acquittal

Applying is free. Submit the claim to the legally responsible authority associated with the detention, arrest, prosecution, or judgment, according to the compensation rules.

State Compensation Law Article 17 covers unlawful criminal detention, or lawful detention beyond the statutory period, followed by termination of prosecution through withdrawal, non-prosecution, or acquittal. It also covers arrest followed by those outcomes, and an executed conviction later reversed to acquittal through trial-supervision proceedings. Article 33 calculates compensation for loss of liberty using the previous year’s national average daily employee wage. Article 35 provides for eliminating effects, restoring reputation, and apologizing within the affected scope, with emotional-distress compensation where consequences are serious. Article 19 lists six exclusions: detention or conviction caused by one’s own deliberate false confession or fabricated incriminating evidence; detention of people not criminally responsible under Criminal Law Articles 17 or 18, such as those below the responsibility age or qualifying mental incapacity; detention in statutory non-prosecution circumstances, including manifestly trivial noncriminal conduct, expired limitation, death of the suspect, discretionary non-prosecution for a minor offense, qualifying juvenile conditional non-prosecution, and qualifying settlement-based non-prosecution; officials’ personal acts unrelated to official functions; harm from deliberate self-injury; and other statutory exclusions. The 2015 joint compensation interpretation, Article 7, confirms the exclusions concerning lack of criminal responsibility and discretionary non-prosecution. However, if such a person is prosecuted, wrongly sentenced to criminal detention or imprisonment, and the sentence is executed, the period after the conviction becomes effective can still be compensable under that provision. Article 8 places the evidentiary burden on the authority when it relies on a deliberate false confession or self-injury to refuse compensation. On 15 May 2026, the National Bureau of Statistics published 2025 urban non-private-sector average annual employee earnings of RMB 129,441, yielding a daily figure of RMB 495.94. The Supreme People’s Procuratorate directed procuratorates to use RMB 495.94 for compensation decisions from 18 May 2026. The previous rate, used from May 2025, was RMB 475.52.

The daily rate is updated around May using the previous year’s published wage figure; check the year of the compensation decision. Read the legal basis of a non-prosecution notice. “No criminal facts” or “insufficient evidence” may support an application if the detention conditions qualify; “minor criminal circumstances” or expired limitation generally does not. A person disputing discretionary non-prosecution may complain to the procuratorate within seven days of receiving the decision. Emotional-distress compensation has no universal formula. Apply first to the legally responsible authority and use the statutory review route if dissatisfied. The Guo Li decision discussed in the next entry illustrates the calculation: 1,826 days of detention were paid at the decision-year rate based on 2016 wages, RMB 258.89 daily, totaling RMB 472,733.14, plus RMB 165,450 for emotional distress. His requested RMB 88.88 million for ten years of emotional harm was not granted beyond the awarded amount. That decision also rejected lost earnings, health-related claims, property losses, lawyer fees, and detention-center living-cost supplements as outside the applicable state-compensation scope.

Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (amended 2012). State Compensation Law, Articles 17, 19, 33, and 35, reposted by the National Bureau of Statistics. https://www.stats.gov.cn/gk/tjfg/xgfxfg/202503/t20250306_1958899.html; Supreme People’s Procuratorate (2026). Latest standard for compensation for infringement of personal liberty. https://www.spp.gov.cn/xwfbh/wsfbh/202605/t20260519_727675.shtml; Supreme People’s Court and Supreme People’s Procuratorate (2015). Interpretation on criminal compensation cases, Judicial Interpretation 2015 No. 24, Articles 7 and 8. https://www.court.gov.cn/zixun/xiangqing/16409.html; National People’s Congress (2018). Criminal Procedure Law, Articles 16, 177, 181, 284, and 290. https://www.spp.gov.cn/zdgz/201810/t20181027_396818.shtml. References to the 2012 procedure-law Articles 15, 173(2), 273(2), and 279 in the compensation texts correspond after the 2018 amendment to Articles 16, 177(2), 284(2), and 290.