China has approved a mandatory national standard on safety requirements for automated driving systems in intelligent connected vehicles, with implementation set for 1 July 2027. The standard, GB 44721—2026, was developed by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) for Class M and Class N vehicles with level 3 or level 4 automated driving systems.

The standard requires manufacturers to build safety assurance capabilities spanning design, manufacturing and post-deployment use, covering safety policy, risk management, safety assurance and continuous improvement. It also sets minimum performance requirements for dynamic driving tasks, including triggers for minimum risk strategies when a vehicle cannot continue safely.

Human-machine interaction rules require clear notification of system status and, for level 3 systems, monitoring of driver takeover capability. Compliance will be assessed through enterprise capability testing, safety file review and confirmatory field, road and simulation tests.

The standard follows China’s role in shaping the UN Global Technical Regulation on Automated Driving Systems, approved in June 2026, and sets more detailed requirements for level 3 and level 4 systems than the international framework while remaining consistent with it. MIIT said it would strengthen access management and continue developing supporting standards.

Why this matters:

• A mandatory standard replaces the ad hoc conditional access process that has governed China’s L3 rollout so far.Only two models have received conditional access permits to date, so codifying uniform safety requirements suggests China is moving from case-by-case approval toward a scalable framework as more manufacturers approach L3 and L4 readiness.
• Setting China’s requirements above the UN’s global technical regulation positions Beijing to shape the international benchmark rather than simply adopt it.China led the ADS GTR process, and building a stricter domestic standard on top of it suggests Chinese regulators intend their approach to become the reference point other markets align to, not the other way round.
• The one-year implementation runway gives manufacturers a fixed compliance deadline rather than an open-ended transition.Requiring full lifecycle safety documentation and third-party confirmatory testing before July 2027 raises questions about how quickly OEMs still refining L3 systems can build the required safety files and testing infrastructure without slowing their own launch timelines.