Made-in-China.com's Ball Screw manufacturer directory listed 4,300+ verified factories on 2026-07-16, with Lishui (Zhejiang) and Shandong as the two dominant clusters for ground (C5-C7) and cold-rolled screws [S3][S4]. On DirectIndustry's ball-screw support category, 5 manufacturers across 6 products were indexed on 2026-05-24, with KSS, norelem, MediaLas Electronics (Germany) and HLC Metal Parts handling the premium fixed/adjustable end-bearing units [S1].
Domestic pricing for the same commodity grade (1605-1610 cold-rolled SFU series, C7) sits at US$7-12/piece FOB Shandong [S8], while miniature high-speed C5 ground screws (1204 class) start at US$50-65/piece MOQ 5 [S4]. End-support units (BK/BF/EK/FK/AK) trade at US$12-120 across 10-piece MOQs from HZMotion (Shandong) and Lishui Wangong Precision [S6]. This spread defines the China-anchored sourcing band for engineers in 2026.
Manufacturer clusters: Lishui and Shandong dominate volume
Lishui City in Zhejiang is the single densest ball-screw production base, hosting at least 4 of the 5 audited Diamond Members on the 2026-07-16 Made-in-China directory, including TXP Bearing, JLD Bearing, Jialida Linear Motion and Lishui Wangong Precision Machinery [S3][S6]. Lishui Xingborui Transmission operates a 25,000 m² plant with 200+ staff and 80+ patents, founded 2009, and lists ball screw, ball screw nut, linear guide, linear block bearing, linear shaft, linear stage, motor bracket and lock nut as in-house products [S2]. Lishui Guangyuan Industry & Trade publishes an active English-language catalog covering ball screw, linear guide and linear stage as of 2026-07-24 [S10].
Shandong is the second pillar: Shandong Sair Import & Export lists a DIN 69051 Form B ground SFNU05020-4 precision screw for automation, and HZMotion (Shandong) is an audited ISO 9001:2015 + ISO 14001 Diamond Member on the support-unit category [S6][S8]. Nanjing Technical Equipment Manufacture Co. (Yigong) is the outlier for heavy-duty DFKD/FFZD double-nut ground screws — established 1991-06-03, 584 employees, with a triple-certification stack of ISO 9001:2015, ISO 45001:2018 and ISO 14001 [S5]. Okorder's 60-year-experience profile for a 12-120 mm diameter ground ball-screw family reflects the same domestic maturity in cold-rolling plus through-hardening [S7].
Premium end-support and non-China suppliers
DirectIndustry's 2026-05-24 snapshot of the ball-screw support category listed 5 manufacturers with 6 products, all five offering metal fixed or adjustable units; the supporting-bearing function is functionally identical to a standard ball bearing angular-contact pair in the BK/BF/EK/EF pattern [S1]. KSS (Japan) and norelem (France, "Éléments standard mécaniques") anchor the European/Japan catalog reference set, with MediaLas Electronics GmbH (Germany) covering spring-preload adjustable side and HLC Metal Parts covering fixed-side economy units [S1]. Guangzhou Link Automation Equipment is the only China-anchored player in this premium support listing, reflecting how support-bearing sourcing often diverges from screw sourcing [S1].
For end-machining, holders and fixed/floated supports, the EK-EF-BK-BF series at 5-20 mm shaft diameter is a catalog staple at JLD Bearing, with C7 cold-rolled SFU/SFNU/DFU/SFS/SFY/SFE/SFI variants covering the full CNC ball-screw catalog [S3]. The same factories also list nut housings and lock nuts, so engineers can single-source the screw + support + nut-housing + lock-nut sub-assembly from one Lishui or Shandong vendor [S2][S3]. This is structurally how a ball screw buys into a motion axis as a kit, not as a loose part.
Product spec bands engineers should anchor RFQs to
The China catalog splits cleanly into four spec bands based on the 2026-07 listings: (1) Economy cold-rolled C7 SFU 1605/1610, US$7-12/piece MOQ 1 from Shandong Sair [S8]; (2) C7 cold-rolled SFU 1605/1610 with end-machined holders, JLD Bearing, MOQ 1 [S3]; (3) C5/C7 ground + rolled, 1605/2005 right- and left-hand, 800-1500 mm lengths, Jialida Linear Motion — explicitly labeled as TBI-replacement [S3]; (4) High-precision miniature ground screws (1204 class) for high-speed low-friction positioning at US$50-65 MOQ 5 [S4]. On the upper end, Nanjing Yigong's 50 mm DFKD/FFZD ground screw assembly sells at US$15-20/set MOQ 1, and an OEM/ODM 40 mm CNC FFZD4005 variant is listed on the same Nanjing storefront [S5].
End-support units split into two pricing tiers: BK/BF 12-20 type economy units at US$12-20/set MOQ 1 (Lishui Wangong), and full BK/BF/EK/FK/AK CNC sets at US$15-120 MOQ 10 (HZMotion Shandong) [S6]. For comparison, Okorder's 80 mm diameter, 10 mm lead FFZD8010 ground ball-screw is the largest catalog diameter in the 2026-07 China index [S7]. The premium imported band — KSS, norelem, MediaLas — is rarely published with FOB price on B2B catalogs and typically routes through industrial distributors rather than direct RFQ [S1].
Quality systems, certifications, and audit signals
ISO 9001:2015 is now table stakes: every Diamond Member factory in the 2026-07 Made-in-China ball-screw directory holds it, including HZMotion (Shandong), Jialida Linear Motion (Lishui), and the JLD Bearing storefront [S3][S6]. The fuller triple-stack — ISO 9001:2015, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001:2018 — is held by Nanjing Technical Equipment (Yigong), giving it a documented EHS + quality baseline that few Lishui small/mid-tier suppliers match [S3][S5]. KSS and norelem are cataloged on DirectIndustry with European/Japanese factory certifications implied through their parent-group compliance, but the public pages reviewed do not enumerate specific ISO clauses [S1].
For engineers specifying ball spline integrated units (rotary + linear combined), Nanjing Yigong lists a "rolling spline compound unit" product family alongside its standard DKF ground screws, and TXP Bearing lists a "high-precision cold-rolled ball screw for industrial automation robot arm precision measuring equipment" — both are signals that Lishui and Nanjing suppliers are now addressing the integrated-axis market that used to be import-only [S3]. The full ball-screw ecosystem (screw, nut, support bearing, nut housing, lock nut, end machining) is reachable from one Lishui or Shandong vendor for most CNC and automation-trolley applications [S2][S3].
Selection gates: which supplier type matches which job
For high-volume CNC router, 3D-printer and automation OEM production where C7 cold-rolled is acceptable, Lishui factories (JLD, TXP, Jialida) at US$7-12/piece with full ISO 9001:2015 audits are the cost-optimal path [S3][S8]. For C5 ground or 50 mm+ diameter screws (DFKD/FFZD), Nanjing Yigong's 1991-established 584-person plant with the triple-certification stack is the safer single-source [S5]. For high-precision measuring, semiconductor or machine-tool spindle axes where 1204-class miniature ground screws and European support bearings are needed, the KSS + norelem + MediaLas European/Japan import route is the default, with Lishui Xingborui's "grinding ball screw" line as the China-domestic alternative [S1][S2].
Engineers should treat support units separately from the screw itself: even if the screw is sourced from a Lishui commodity vendor, BK/BF/EK end-support bearings are frequently imported because the angular-contact ball bearing inside determines axial stiffness and DN life, not the screw's lead accuracy [S1]. The 2026 China market lets buyers mix-and-match at the sub-assembly level — screw from Lishui, support from KSS, lock nut from a third Shandong vendor — but this multi-vendor approach adds incoming-inspection overhead and is only sensible at low annual volumes [S2][S3][S6].
Cross-reference: related motion-component sourcing
Ball screws do not stand alone — they are usually co-specified with a linear guide rail on the same RFQ. The 2026 mid-year read on linear-guide rail supply notes tight lead times for HGR20/HGR25 profile rails from the same Lishui cluster, and frame-scaffolding and electrochemical-gas-detector sourcing have followed similar China-factory-map patterns in 2026 [S2][S3]. The same vendor-switching logic — premium imports for spec-critical axes, Lishui/Shandong for volume axes — applies to guide rails, so engineers building CNC axes should source both sub-assemblies from the same supplier to compress lead time and consolidate warranty exposure.
For spec work, two signals to track into Q3 2026: (a) whether Lishui Xingborui's grinding-ball-screw and Lishui Guangyuan's English catalog line continue to publish C5-class part numbers and lead-time data — these are the leading indicators of how fast Chinese grinding capacity is moving into the import-replacement zone [S2][S10]; (b) whether KSS, norelem or HLC Metal Parts publish 2026-vintage EU/US distributor stock data, since this controls the premium-support import lead time that constrains any full-axes kit [S1].
Related analysis: Quartz Material Types and Classifications: Spec Map for Engineers.