HubSpot in China: What Works and What Does Not

Parts of HubSpot reach mainland China, and the parts that run on your own pages have no current test. GreatFire, which tracks censorship in China, has read none of the HubSpot hosts it tested over HTTPS as blocked. It reads the HubSpot app as reachable (last tested 22 September 2026) and its API host as disrupted on its one conclusive test (10 September 2026). Your pages load something else: the tracking and form scripts, plus a chat loader. There is no record of whether those reach a visitor in Chengdu today.

That shapes the fix. With nothing to measure against, you build each page so the lead survives when a HubSpot script never arrives, and you start with the forms. A site hosted on HubSpot’s own CMS is a different problem with its own fix: it is served from outside the mainland and can’t carry an ICP filing (ICP备案). Every verdict below was read at its source on 14 October 2026.

Which HubSpot hosts are blocked in China, and which are untested

GreatFire read https://api.hubspot.com as 100% disrupted, 1 of 1 conclusive tests in the last 90 days, last tested 10 September 2026. It read https://app.hubspot.com as not blocked, 0 of 1, last tested 22 September 2026, and https://hs-sites.com as not blocked, 0 of 1, last tested 2 August 2026. Source: GreatFire, September 2026. https://en.greatfire.org/https/api.hubspot.com, https://en.greatfire.org/https/app.hubspot.com and https://en.greatfire.org/https/hs-sites.com

One conclusive test per host is a thin record, so read each verdict with its date. We recheck the table once a verdict passes 90 days.

The loader is the gap that matters. GreatFire’s newest test of js.hs-scripts.com ran over plain HTTP, on 13 September 2026. A page served over HTTPS fetches the script over HTTPS, and GreatFire notes the two are filtered by different means, so that reading says nothing about your visitors. Its last HTTPS reading of a HubSpot script address is from 14 July 2026, past the 90 days we allow a verdict. We list the script as untested.

No timed load fills the gap: 21YunBox, whose mainland probes we cite on other pages, publishes no HubSpot figure (its HubSpot page, reviewed 7 October 2026, deals with data residency). For the other tools a marketing site tends to load, see our table of what the Great Firewall blocks, host by host.

What a stalled tracking script costs you

HubSpot asks you to paste its tracking code just before the closing body tag. The code fetches a loader from js.hs-scripts.com, then the tracking script from js.hs-analytics.net. A third file, from js.hs-banner.com, places HubSpot’s cookies even if you don’t use its consent banner. (HubSpot’s own troubleshooting guide expects to see all three in your browser’s network panel.)

If the tracking code is not working, HubSpot says data that depends on tracking “may be incomplete or unavailable”, chat widgets “may not work as expected”, and it “can’t recover tracking data that was missed while the code was inactive.” Source: HubSpot Knowledge Base, Troubleshoot the HubSpot tracking code, 23 July 2026. https://knowledge.hubspot.com/reports/how-do-i-know-if-my-hubspot-tracking-code-is-working

The code sits at the end of the page, after your content. If it stalls, the visitor still sees the page. What goes missing is the record: visits from China arrive thin or not at all, and the attribution reports built on them go wrong in a way your team can’t spot from London or Boston. To see the gap, run a counter on your own server beside HubSpot and compare the China sessions.

Chat rides on the same code. HubSpot’s install guide says live chat widgets will not load without it. Our guide to Google Analytics in China covers Baidu Tongji (百度统计) and self-hosted counters.

Forms are where a lead goes missing

An embedded HubSpot form is built inside the visitor’s browser. The embed code loads js.hsforms.net/forms/embed/v2.js and asks it to draw the form. If that file never arrives, the visitor gets a blank space where the form should be. Copying the file to your own server looks like the obvious workaround. HubSpot rules it out.

“HubSpot forms should only be loaded using the HubSpot-hosted JavaScript file. Making a copy of the form embed code and self-hosting it is not supported.” Source: HubSpot developer documentation, HubSpot forms, last modified 29 March 2026. https://developers.hubspot.com/docs/cms/start-building/building-blocks/modules/forms

What about your own HTML form, picked up by HubSpot’s non-HubSpot forms tool? It depends on the tracking code.

“The non-HubSpot forms tool is dependent on the tracking code. HubSpot can only collect form submissions if the tracking code loads successfully.” Source: HubSpot Knowledge Base, Use non-HubSpot forms, 27 July 2026. https://knowledge.hubspot.com/forms/use-non-hubspot-forms

The submission still reaches whatever inbox or server the form posts to. HubSpot never hears about it, and the contact never lands in your sales team’s queue.

So own the form. Build it in plain HTML on your own server and save every submission there first. Then forward it to HubSpot through its Submit data to a form API, which HubSpot names as the alternative to the non-HubSpot forms tool. If the forward fails, a retry job sends it later, and the lead already sits in your database. Keep the retry on a mainland server too: the forward crosses the border, and api.hsforms.com has no test on record.

HubSpot documents an unauthenticated endpoint, https://api.hsforms.com/submissions/v3/integration/submit/{portalId}/{formGuid}, for sending form submission data to a HubSpot form. Source: HubSpot developer documentation, Submit data to a form, last modified 29 March 2026. https://developers.hubspot.com/docs/api-reference/legacy/marketing/forms/v3-legacy/submit-data-unauthenticated

A site on HubSpot CMS is a hosting question

When HubSpot hosts the site itself, the scripts become the smaller worry.

HubSpot’s product infrastructure runs on Amazon Web Services in the United States (Virginia and Oregon), Canada (Montreal), Australia (Sydney) and the European Union (Germany). No data centre is listed in mainland China. Source: HubSpot Knowledge Base, Cloud Infrastructure and Data Hosting FAQ, 24 July 2026. https://knowledge.hubspot.com/account-security/hubspot-cloud-infrastructure-and-data-hosting-frequently-asked-questions

Pages reach visitors through HubSpot’s CDN, which its developer documentation calls “powered by Cloudflare”. Neither HubSpot page on its CDN mentions China.

Then there’s the ICP filing. That one is a hard stop. A filing is made against a server inside the mainland, through the provider that runs it.

A domain that resolves to a server in mainland China must complete its website filing before the site can open to visitors (“域名解析至中国内地服务器必须先完成网站备案，才能正常开通网站访问”). Source: Alibaba Cloud (阿里云) help centre, 4 September 2026. https://help.aliyun.com/zh/dws/support/how-do-i-troubleshoot-the-failures-to-access-a-website-by-using-its-domain-name

HubSpot lists no mainland data centre, which leaves a HubSpot-hosted site nothing to file against. There are two ways out.

The first is a separate mainland site, built in WordPress or Astro on Alibaba Cloud or Tencent Cloud (腾讯云), filed in China, with its forms forwarded into the same HubSpot portal as above. Moving the China pages off HubSpot is a migration project in its own right, and it’s the route we’d take for a site that has to work every day.

The second is a reverse proxy: a mainland CDN, on a filed domain, in front of HubSpot. HubSpot accepts a proxy only on a CDN or distributed network, and its support team won’t set one up for you. Every page the proxy fetches still comes from HubSpot’s servers outside China, across the border, on a path no published test covers.

Where the contact data lives is a separate question under PIPL, and our guide to China’s data privacy rules takes it on.

Frequently asked

Does HubSpot work in China?

The HubSpot app was reachable on GreatFire’s last test, on 22 September 2026, so a team in Shanghai should be able to log in. HubSpot’s API host is shakier: disrupted on its one test, on 10 September 2026. The scripts on your visitors’ pages have no current HTTPS test at all.

Can I use HubSpot forms on a site hosted in China?

Yes, if the form doesn’t need a HubSpot script to exist. Build it in HTML on your mainland server and store each submission there. A background job then forwards it to HubSpot through the Submit data to a form API, retrying when the call fails.

Does HubSpot have a data centre in China?

No. HubSpot lists data centres in the United States, Canada, Australia and Germany, all on Amazon Web Services, and none in mainland China (24 July 2026). That rules out an ICP filing for a HubSpot-hosted site. It also turns contact data from Chinese visitors into a cross-border transfer, which brings its own duties under PIPL.