The Chinese Maritime Customs usefulness was a Chinese governmental tax collection company and information service from its founding in 1854 until it split in 1949 into services operating in a People's Republic of China. From its foundation in 1854 until the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1911, the organization was requested as the Imperial Maritime Customs Service.
The agency's number one Inspector-General IG, Lester Knox Little 李度, resigned as well as the responsibilities of the Service were divided up between what eventually became the Customs General management of the People's Republic of China, and the Republic of China Directorate General of Customs on Taiwan. It was the only bureaucratic agency of the Chinese government to operate continuously as an integrated entity from 1854 to 1950.
Amongst the numerous well-known figures who worked for the Customs in China were G.R.G. Worcester 1890–1969, River Inspector from 1914 to 1948, and author of seven published books on the Yangzi River; novelist and journalists James Watson at Newchwang and Patrick Manson at Takow and Amoy. The Hong Kong Chinese businessman and political leader Robert Hotung served as a Customs clerk for two years 1878–1880.
A number of early Sinologists emerged from the Service, including linguist Thomas Francis Wade, Edward Charles Bowra, and Charles Henry Brewitt-Taylor.