---
title: "Guangdong Prices the Public-Data Operator Like a Utility: Inside the Province's Authorized-Operation Price-Management Measures"
author: "DCC Editorial"
published: 2026-06-17T03:00:00.000Z
url: https://datacompliancechina.com/posts/guangdong-public-data-operation-pricing-measures/
description: "On 12 May 2026 the Guangdong DRC and the Guangdong Administration of Government Services and Data issued the Guangdong Province Public Data Resource Authorized-Operation Price Management Measures — one of the first provincial implementations of the national NDRC/NDA price-formation notice (发改价格〔2025〕65号). The 20-article rule prices the 'public-data operation service fee' (公共数据运营服务费) with a regulated-utility toolkit: government-guided pricing, a maximum permitted revenue equal to operating cost + permitted profit + tax, and a permitted profit rate capped at the prior-year 10-year treasury yield plus no more than 6 percentage points. DCC reads the full text (carried by 数据行者X) against the Guangdong DRC's official interpretation (carried by 砖济咨询) to draw out what overseas counsel needs: this is cost-of-service, rate-of-return regulation imported into the data-element market, with periodic resets every three years, a ±10% annual adjustment band, mandatory cost separation, and a carve-out keeping public-governance and public-welfare data 'conditionally free.'"
tags: ["public-data", "authorized-operation", "data-economy", "government-guided-pricing", "public-data-operation-service-fee", "permitted-revenue", "guangdong", "data-pricing"]
laws_cited: ["public-data-authorized-operation-specifications", "public-data-registration-interim-measures", "data-foundation-system-opinions"]
domains: ["data-economy"]
account: "datawalker-x"
original_title: "政策 | 广东出台公共数据授权运营价格管理办法（附全文）"
original_author: "行者X (DataWalker)"
original_publication: "数据行者X WeChat Official Account"
original_url: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/DTdg84hRofrOgeHht-7rug"
source_language: "zh"
---

> **Source: Data Compliance China** — https://datacompliancechina.com/posts/guangdong-public-data-operation-pricing-measures/ · China data law, translated and annotated for overseas counsel. Cite as: Data Compliance China, "Guangdong Prices the Public-Data Operator Like a Utility: Inside the Province's Authorized-Operation Price-Management Measures", https://datacompliancechina.com/posts/guangdong-public-data-operation-pricing-measures/
> *Editor's Note — DCC.*
>
> This brief covers a single new instrument — the **Guangdong Province
> Public Data Resource Authorized-Operation Price Management Measures**
> (《广东省公共数据资源授权运营价格管理办法》), issued **12 May 2026** by the
> **Guangdong Development and Reform Commission (DRC)** and the
> **Guangdong Provincial Administration of Government Services and Data**
> (省政务服务和数据管理局, the provincial "政数局"). DCC works from two
> WeChat sources that carry the same instrument from opposite ends: the
> **full 20-article text**, reposted by the independent channel **数据行者X
> (DataWalker)** ([original](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/DTdg84hRofrOgeHht-7rug)),
> and the **official departmental interpretation** (部门解读) sourced from
> the **Guangdong DRC** and reposted by the PPP-advisory firm **砖济咨询
> (Shenzhen Brick-Economy Public Consulting)**
> ([interpretation](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/PHXQceU3XR6w88a6jTm2mA)).
> Neither channel adds analysis of its own; the substance is official. The
> analysis below — the "regulated-utility" reading, the comparison to
> rate-of-return tariff-setting, and the operational takeaways — is DCC's.
>
> One framing note for overseas readers. China's public-data regime is
> **layered**: the national [Authorized-Operation Implementation
> Specifications](/laws/public-data-authorized-operation-specifications/)
> and [Registration Interim Measures](/laws/public-data-registration-interim-measures/)
> (both NDRC + NDA, January 2025) set the floor, and provinces issue the
> binding implementation rules. The price mechanism has its own national
> parent — the **NDRC/NDA Notice on Establishing a Price-Formation
> Mechanism for the Authorized Operation of Public Data Resources** (《关于
> 建立公共数据资源授权运营价格形成机制的通知》, 发改价格〔2025〕65号) — and
> Guangdong is among the **first provinces to operationalise it**. The
> Measures sit inside Guangdong's "1+3" public-data policy system and run
> for a **five-year** term from issuance.

## What the Measures actually price

The object of the rule is narrow and specific: the **public-data
operation service fee** (公共数据运营服务费). This is the fee an **operating
institution** (运营机构) — a body that has obtained authorization through
the proper procedure — may charge when it **governs and develops** public
data resources within its authorized scope and **fairly provides data
products and services to the market** (Article 3).

Two gating conditions sit in front of the fee, and both tie back to the
national regime DCC has covered before:

- the underlying public data resources must be **registered** with the
  registration body designated under Guangdong's public-data registration
  rules (the provincial implementation of the [Registration Interim
  Measures](/laws/public-data-registration-interim-measures/)); and
- the data products and services must be **formed under** the
  authorized-operation rules, registered, and **listed on the catalogue**
  of public-data products and services that support industry development.

In other words, the price rule only switches on **after** a firm is
inside the gate that DCC's earlier brief — [Inside the Gate: How
Enterprises Can Compliantly Process, Operate, and Trade Public
Data](/posts/public-data-authorized-operation-processing-trading/) —
describes. The Measures answer the question that regime left open: once
you are an authorized operator with a listed product, **how much can you
charge, and who decides?**

## The headline mechanism: government-guided pricing, not market pricing

The fee is placed under **classified-and-tiered management and
government-guided pricing** (分类分级管理、政府指导定价 — Article 4). It is
**not** left to the market. The official interpretation is explicit about
why: public data resources carry both a **public-welfare attribute** and
**economic potential**, so the regulator wants a price that keeps
operators "healthy and sustainable" while **preventing them from forming
monopoly profits** (防止其形成垄断利润). That sentence is the whole policy in
one line — the operator is being treated as a **franchised infrastructure
monopoly**, not as a competitive vendor.

The decision rights split by **level of authorization**:

- **Province-level authorization.** The Guangdong DRC, together with the
  data authority, **verifies the operator's maximum permitted revenue**
  (最高准许收入). Within that ceiling, the data authority sets **ceiling
  tariffs** (上限收费标准) for each class of product and service (copying
  the DRC). The operator then sets **specific charges at or below** those
  ceilings.
- **City/county-level authorization.** The prefecture-level city
  government sets the charging standards; its DRC and data authority
  verify the maximum permitted revenue; the data authority sets ceilings
  within it, reported to the city government for approval. Same
  operator-sets-the-final-number logic underneath.

So three numbers stack: a **revenue cap** (regulator), **per-product
ceiling tariffs** (regulator), and **actual prices** (operator, beneath
the ceilings). The operator has pricing freedom only in the gap between
the ceiling and zero.

## The pricing formula is straight out of utility regulation

Here is the part overseas counsel should recognise immediately. The
**maximum permitted revenue** is built on a "compensate cost, reasonable
profit" principle (补偿成本、合理盈利) with an explicit formula (Articles
6–9):

> **Permitted revenue = operating cost + permitted profit + tax**
> （准许收入 = 经营成本 + 准许利润 + 税金）

Each term is defined:

- **Operating cost** (经营成本, Article 7) is the **reasonable expenditure
  net of government subsidies**, fixed through a **cost investigation**
  (成本调查). It expressly includes (1) authorized-operation **platform
  build and O&M**; (2) data **transmission, aggregation, storage and
  governance**; (3) **human resources**; (4) the **cost of obtaining the
  public data resources** themselves; and (5) period expenses.
- **Permitted profit** (准许利润, Article 8) = operating cost × **permitted
  profit rate**. And the permitted profit rate is capped at:

  > the **average yield of 10-year treasury bonds** in the year before the
  > cost investigation, **plus no more than 6 percentage points**.

- **Tax** (税金, Article 9) means taxes **other than VAT** — corporate
  income tax, urban maintenance and construction tax, and the education
  surcharge.

This is **cost-of-service, rate-of-return regulation** — the same toolkit
China uses to price regulated natural monopolies such as gas-pipeline
transmission and water (准许成本加合理收益, "permitted cost plus reasonable
return," with the return benchmarked to government-bond yields). The
novelty is the **subject matter**: Guangdong has imported utility tariff
methodology into the **data-element market**. For a foreign investor
sizing a public-data operating venture in Guangdong, the practical
consequence is that the **upside is analytically capped** — return on the
regulated asset base is bounded at roughly the long-bond yield plus six
points, not by what the market will bear.

How the ceiling translates into actual charges is left flexible (Article
10): tariffs may be levied **by product quantity, number of service
calls, service duration, or data-call volume**, taking into account the
data, compute, and storage consumed across different application
scenarios. That metering flexibility matters for API-style data products,
where "per call" or "per volume" is the natural unit.

## Resets, true-ups, and a ±10% band

Because the data industry moves fast, the Measures build in **periodic
re-baselining** rather than a fixed tariff:

- **Periodic assessment** (Article 12). The DRC and data authority
  reassess the maximum permitted revenue on a cycle of **no more than
  three years**, and may assess **early** if investment or cost changes
  materially. Crucially, **over-recovery is clawed back**: revenue earned
  above the permitted ceiling in one cycle is **deducted** when setting
  the next cycle's cap (with large over-recoveries smoothed across
  cycles). This is a classic regulatory **true-up** — the operator cannot
  keep windfall revenue.
- **Annual adjustment band** (Article 13). Within a cycle, if actual
  revenue **deviates from the permitted ceiling by 10% or less**, the data
  authority guides the operator to adjust its **specific charges**; if the
  deviation **exceeds 10%**, the data authority adjusts the **ceiling
  tariff** itself.
- **Reporting and cost separation** (Articles 14–15). The data authority
  reports the operator's prior-year results to the DRC by the **end of
  March**; the operator must run an **independent price-management system**
  and **separately account for** authorized-operation costs and revenue.
  For a multi-line business, that mandatory ring-fencing of the regulated
  activity is itself a compliance obligation — regulated public-data
  revenue cannot be commingled with the firm's other books.
- **Transparency and enforcement** (Articles 16–17). The operator must
  **clearly mark prices** (明码标价) and publish its catalogue and tariffs
  on its portal. Supervision is split three ways: the **DRC** guides
  price-management practice, the **data authority** supervises the
  authorized-operation activity, and the **market-regulation authority**
  (市场监管, the SAMR line) polices price conduct — failure to follow the
  government-guided price, **price fraud**, and failure to clearly mark
  prices.

## Two carve-outs worth flagging

- **Public-governance and public-welfare data stays "conditionally free."**
  Article 18 keeps public-data products and services used for **public
  governance and public-welfare** purposes on a **conditional
  free-of-charge** basis (有条件无偿使用), per the data authority's
  requirements. The service fee covers **market-facing** products, not the
  government's own use or public-interest distribution. The same article
  also clarifies that **revenue-sharing** from the public data resources
  and from the operating platform is **outside** the scope of the
  operation service fee — i.e. the fee regulation does not reach the
  upstream revenue-distribution arrangements between the government and the
  operator.
- **Public utilities get a parallel track.** Where a **public-utility
  enterprise** (公用企业) conducts authorized operation, its **sectoral
  authority** sets the ceilings and handles pricing **by reference to**
  these Measures (Article 19) — a recognition that utilities (power,
  water, transport) sit on large public-data holdings and are already
  inside sector-specific price regulation.

## Why this matters beyond Guangdong

- **The price question is now being answered.** Through 2024–25 the public-data
  story was about **getting authorized and getting registered**. With the
  national 65号 price-formation notice and Guangdong's implementation, the
  regime is moving to **what operators can charge** — and the answer is a
  **regulated, capped return**, not market pricing. Expect Beijing,
  Zhejiang, Shanghai, and other early movers to issue parallel measures;
  Guangdong is a template to read now.
- **Model the asset like a regulated utility, not a SaaS business.** Any
  overseas party evaluating a Guangdong public-data operating role should
  build the financial model around **permitted revenue = cost + (cost ×
  capped return) + tax**, with a **three-year reset** and **over-recovery
  clawback**. The return ceiling — long-bond yield + ≤6 points on the cost
  base — is the number that governs the investment case.
- **Cost-base definition is where the value is contested.** Because profit
  is a markup **on operating cost**, the **cost investigation** is the
  decisive regulatory event. What counts as a legitimate cost of
  "obtaining the public data resources," of platform build, and of data
  governance will determine the permitted revenue. That is the proceeding
  to staff and document carefully.
- **Ring-fencing is mandatory.** The independent price-management system
  and separate accounting (Article 15) mean the regulated public-data line
  must be **carved out** of a diversified firm's accounts from day one —
  not reconstructed at assessment time.

This is continuous with DCC's broader public-data coverage — the
authorized-operation [processing-and-trading
guide](/posts/public-data-authorized-operation-processing-trading/), the
[franchise/concession framing](/posts/public-data-under-franchise-concession/),
and the reminder that authorized operation [is not a liability
shield](/posts/public-data-authorized-operation-not-a-shield/) — but it
adds the missing economic layer. China is not only deciding **who** may
operate public data and **how**; with Guangdong, it is now deciding
**what they may earn** — and doing it with the price-control playbook used
for utilities.

---

— *Primary text: 政策｜广东出台公共数据授权运营价格管理办法（附全文）, 数据行者X
WeChat Official Account. [Full text (Chinese).](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/DTdg84hRofrOgeHht-7rug)
Official interpretation: 《广东省公共数据资源授权运营价格管理办法》解读 (source:
Guangdong DRC), reposted by 砖济咨询. [Interpretation (Chinese).](https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/PHXQceU3XR6w88a6jTm2mA)
Issued 12 May 2026 by the Guangdong DRC and the Guangdong Provincial
Administration of Government Services and Data; effective on issuance, five-year term.*

*Not legal advice. The above is DCC's structural analysis and translation
of a provincial pricing rule and its official interpretation. Article
numbers refer to the Measures as reposted in full by 数据行者X.*