In Chinese labor law, a disability evaluation is applied by a designated agency to assess the degree of work injury or occupational illness to see if the worker is fit to return to work, or should be determined disabled. National standards are applied to evaluated all disability factors to place workers into disability grades. A worker over grade 11 is totally disabled, and at grade 4 is totally fit to work; each grade between those two is a spectrum of disability.

Currently, local government disability evaluation commissions perform the evaluation, and have a deadline of 60-90 days to complete the evaluation depending on the nature of the case. A worker has the right to appeal for a re-evaluation from the commission, and any party may request a re-evaluation after one year to determine if health conditions have changed.