The introduction of certain policies often helps activate market demand and drive consumption growth. Some enterprises and practitioners may benefit from them, and consumers can also enjoy many advantages.

According to observations by Dachai Research, in recent years consumer policies involving furniture, home appliances, building materials, and decoration have been introduced frequently. They include both central-level measures and arrangements by local cities, with broad coverage and considerable strength.

In particular, the trade-in policy has continued to exert a profound influence on market trends in 2024 and 2025.

Looking ahead to 2026, consumption in home furnishing and home appliances is once again receiving strong policy support. Some new arrangements have already been introduced one after another, and more detailed provisions are expected to be gradually implemented.

In November 2025, six departments including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the National Development and Reform Commission jointly issued the Implementation Plan for Enhancing the Compatibility Between Supply and Demand of Consumer Goods and Further Promoting Consumption. It proposed that by 2027, the supply structure of consumer goods should be significantly optimized, with three trillion-yuan consumption sectors and ten hundred-billion-yuan consumption hotspots taking shape, along with a number of high-quality consumer goods rich in cultural connotation and known worldwide. By 2030, a high-quality development pattern featuring positive interaction and mutual promotion between supply and consumption is expected to be basically established, and the contribution rate of consumption to economic growth will rise steadily.

Among the measures related to home furnishing and home appliances, at least the following are noteworthy:

1. Focus on key industries such as intelligent connected new energy vehicles, smart homes, consumer electronics, modern textiles, food, and green building materials. Carry out special activities for one hundred typical innovative applications, create one hundred landmark products, one hundred innovative enterprises, and a batch of demonstrative first-use scenarios for new products that can be experienced and promoted.

2. Cultivate a number of flexible manufacturing factories in industries such as home appliances, furniture, footwear, luggage, textiles, and cosmetics. Support enterprises and industry associations in establishing consumer goods data platforms, connecting consumer big data with production systems in real time, promoting user participation in design, and enabling production to respond efficiently to personalized consumer demand.

3. Encourage the development of household service robots, smart home appliances, and artificial intelligence terminals such as AI mobile phones, computers, toys, glasses, and brain-computer interfaces, using intelligent products as carriers to provide life services such as entertainment, health, and companionship. Support enterprises and industry associations in building smart home experience centers, age-friendly product experience centers, and customized clothing experience centers to expand multi-scenario experiences and value-added services.

4. Encourage green and low-carbon consumption in areas such as new energy vehicles, high-efficiency home appliances, and green building materials for home improvement. Formulate national standards for smart home interconnection and interoperability, and support leading enterprises in jointly developing whole-house intelligent and green solutions.

5. Encourage enterprises to develop high-efficiency and energy-saving range hoods, gas stoves, water heaters, bathroom products, and other products suitable for rural environments. Support enterprises in carrying out tours of famous and high-quality products in rural areas, as well as campaigns bringing new energy vehicles, green building materials, and green smart home appliances to the countryside, while providing product maintenance, value assessment, doorstep recycling, and replacement services.

6. Strengthen the research, development, and design of age-friendly products, with a focus on urgently needed products such as elderly-care service robots, multifunctional nursing beds, and health monitoring equipment. Launch activities that benefit older consumers and support enterprises with high-quality elderly products, promote age-friendly home renovation, publish catalogs for promoting age-friendly products and services, and encourage e-commerce platforms and supermarkets to set up silver-economy sections or dedicated zones.

In addition, the Central Economic Work Conference held in December explicitly pointed out in its key tasks for economic work in 2026 that the implementation of the two-new policies should be optimized. The Ministry of Finance also recently stated at a related meeting that all types of government bond funds should be used effectively and to the fullest extent, that ultra-long-term special treasury bonds should be issued, and that support for major national strategies and security capacity building as well as the two-new initiatives should continue.

Based on this, national subsidies are expected to continue in 2026.

The above-mentioned two-new initiatives refer to large-scale equipment renewal and trade-ins of consumer goods. Among them, the trade-in policy for consumer goods mainly covers automobiles, home appliances, and home decoration, kitchen, and bathroom products. The equipment renewal segment is also related to the production equipment of furniture and building materials enterprises.

In 2025, the two-new policies were strengthened and expanded, with the scale of ultra-long-term special treasury bond funds supporting this work increasing to 500 billion yuan. Of this amount, 300 billion yuan was used to support trade-ins of consumer goods, an increase of 150 billion yuan over the previous year, while 200 billion yuan was used to support equipment renewal, an increase of 50 billion yuan over the previous year.

The effects of the consumer-goods trade-in policy have also been affirmed. According to data from the Ministry of Commerce, from January to November 2025, trade-ins of consumer goods drove more than 2.5. trillion yuan in related product sales and benefited more than 360 million person-times. Among them, more than 11.2. million vehicles were replaced, more than 128.44 million home appliances were traded in, subsidies for purchases of mobile phones and other digital products exceeded 90.15 million units, more than 12.91 million electric bicycles were replaced, and home decoration, kitchen, and bathroom renewal exceeded 120 million items.

A number of standards are also being introduced continuously to support the healthy development of the industry.

In the age-friendly furniture sector, in October the State Administration for Market Regulation and the National Standardization Administration approved and released the national standard Design Guidelines for Age-Friendly Furniture, which will officially come into force on February 1, 2026.

Based on the actual needs and physiological and psychological characteristics of older people, the standard puts forward detailed design requirements from the dimensions of appearance materials, intelligence, and functional configuration of age-friendly furniture, with the aim of improving the fit between furniture products and the needs of elderly users.

The standard clarifies the potential risks that should be considered in the design of appearance materials for age-friendly furniture, emphasizes that intelligent design should follow the principle of simplicity and practicality, advocates introducing smart designs suitable for the elderly, and requires functional configuration design to closely address age-friendly needs.

Source: Dachai Research