Xiaohongshu’s New Advertising Rules Are Here

One clear red line now separates compliant marketing from high-risk exposure.

Xiaohongshu has recently officially released the Commercial Risk Points Management Rules, which will take effect on 21 July 2025. The platform has introduced a new label, “Low-Risk Qualification, High-Risk Promotion”, to tighten control over accounts that use low-risk business credentials to push high-risk content. At the same time, eight new high-risk “prohibited advertising” labels have been added, further standardising advertising behaviour.

If you breach the rules, penalties escalate progressively from warnings to permanent account bans.

If you’re a brand, merchant, creator, or anyone planning to run ads on Xiaohongshu, here is what the new rules mean for your business:

What exactly is being restricted under the new rules?

Is your industry on the platform’s “high-risk list”?

The Key Change: A Risk Points System
High Alert: Industries That Are Explicitly Restricted or Banned
It's Not Just Content, Risky Promotion Behaviours Are Also Penalised
Three Practical Actions for Advertisers: Self-Check and Next Steps
What This Means for Brands

The Key Change: A Risk Points System

At the heart of the new policy is a risk points mechanism.

Only accounts verified under eligible low-risk industries can run ads. Each account starts at 0 points, and points accumulate based on the severity of each violation. The total is accumulated across the year.

The higher your points, the tougher the penalty:

≥ 3 points: Non-compliant posts are taken down; account receives a warning; no advertising allowed
≥ 6 points: Account frozen for 14 days; no advertising allowed
≥ 9 points: Account frozen for 30 days; no advertising allowed
≥ 12 points: Account frozen for 45 days; no advertising allowed
≥ 15 points: Permanent freeze (not recoverable)

Points reset annually, but penalties already enforced will not be reversed. In practice, one violation can pause your entire campaign plan overnight.

High Alert: Industries That Are Explicitly Restricted or Banned

Xiaohongshu groups violations into two categories:

Promotional content violations (what you promote)
Promotional behaviour violations (how you promote)

It then grades severity into three levels: P0 (most severe), P1, and P2.

If your business touches any of the categories below, you are prohibited from advertising on Xiaohongshu. Importantly, if you try to run high-risk content using an account verified under a different “advertisable” industry, you could face account freezes or permanent bans.

P0: Absolute No-Go Zones (Red-Line Industries Strictly Prohibited)

Publishing this content via another advertiser's eligible account results in an immediate 15-point penalty and permanent ban. This includes:

Political content, pornography, gambling, and drugs
"Black Five" Products' high-violation categories are frequently linked to misleading claims:

Weight loss, sexual enhancement, breast enhancement, height increase, and intimate-area cosmetic services, particularly where deceptive or false advertising is involved

P1: High-Risk Industries (Serious Violations, 9-Point Penalty)

These categories are not allowed to run Xiaohongshu ads. If posted using another eligible advertiser account, it triggers an immediate 9-point penalty and account freeze

Illegal services and products: illegal document/financial services, counterfeit goods, illegal medical services (e.g. surrogacy)
High-risk prohibited sectors:

Medical & health: controlled/toxic/prescription medicines; adult products
Finance: P2P, illegal small loans, cryptocurrencies, private funds
Mother & baby: stage 1–2 infant formula; complementary foods for babies aged 0–6 months
Food: betel nut and related products
Business/lifestyle/legal services: investment immigration, lotteries, overseas maternity services, psychiatric/mental competency assessments.
Impersonating official bodies or misleading “official” behaviour

P2: Restricted Industries (General Violations, 3-Point Penalty)

These industries are not entirely banned, but they face strict content controls, and certain sub-categories may still be prohibited. If you’re considering advertising, A thorough risk assessment is essential before proceeding. Oxygen's team can guide you through it..

Key areas include:

Healthcare: no promotion of specific medical procedures/techniques or “effectiveness principles”; restrictions on general hospitals and genetic testing
Finance: restrictions on trusts, crowdfunding, futures and options
Education: restrictions on academic tutoring and “digital dependency treatment”; bans on endorsements featuring children under 10
Lifestyle services: restrictions on ride-sharing, carpooling, funeral services, and locksmith services
Business services & franchising: restrictions on overseas labour recruitment, investigation services, and franchising models resembling multi-level recruitment
E-commerce & gaming: restrictions on “Category 2” e-commerce, one-yuan deals, web games, card and chess games
Ghostwriting services: Xiaohongshu post-writing services, business document writing, etc.
Other restricted sectors: property (e.g. court-auction homes), telecoms (IoT SIM cards), internet services (news/info sites), plus energy-saving/environmental, chemical and energy-related sectors

It's Not Just Content, Risky Promotion Behaviours Are Also Penalised

Beyond what you promote, how you promote can also trigger penalties.:

P0 (15 points): illegal “account farming” using rented licences, KOS affiliation schemes (buying/selling employee accounts), fraud, malicious traffic diversion, falsified qualifications (KOS here refers to internal employee-linked accounts; trading or “hanging” campaigns off them is treated as a severe violation.)
P1 (9 points): “approval crashing” (repeatedly submitting non-compliant posts), organised cheating, “Low-Risk Qualification, High-Risk Promotion” (using low-risk credentials to promote high-risk business lines, e.g. using a “consulting” qualification to advertise medical device content)

P2 (3 points): false delivery/fulfilment, failing to honour commitments

Three Practical Actions for Advertisers: Self-Check and Next Steps

Match your industry to the correct risk tier

Use the list above to confirm whether your business and content fall into P0/P1 prohibited zones or P2 restricted areas.

Review your content and the full conversion journey

Compliance extends beyond the ad post itself. You must also audit the entire user journey: landing pages, private messages, customer service scripts, and any follow-up touchpoints, ensuring all touchpoints align with the ad claim and contain no misleading promises.

Ensure your qualifications are real, valid, and aligned

Make sure your business credentials are authentic, current, and match what you’re promoting. Attempting "low-risk qualification, high-risk promotion" is one of the fastest routes to account suspension.

Xiaohongshu has made it clear: where violations are seen as deliberately resisting governance, or cause personal/property losses or major public incidents, the platform may escalate penalties immediately, including blacklisting the business entity and terminating cooperation.

What This Means for Brands

This policy confirms that Xiaohongshu's commercial ecosystem is moving towards stricter, more standardised compliance. The underlying logic is simple: protect content safety and user experience, and direct commercial traffic towards compliant, high-quality advertisers.

For trustworthy brands, this is a long-term positive. For anyone hoping to push boundaries, the window is closing fast.

The rules are set. The red line is clear. Compliance is now the first requirement for doing business on Xiaohongshu. Brands that meet the new requirements are well-placed to build a lasting competitive advantage on Xiaohongshu.