Big dog in China’s hot drinks game, Luckin Coffee (瑞幸咖啡), is gunning for relisting on a U.S. stock exchange. The move comes a full five years after the 2020 accounting-fraud scandal that disgraced the brand and resulted in its delisting from Nasdaq.
The company has yet to commit to a timeline, but its leadership is publicly pushing the process. CEO Guo Jinyi told attendees at an entrepreneur gathering in Xiamen that Luckin is ‘actively pushing the process’ of returning to a U.S. main board, under local government guidance.
From an accounting perspective, the numbers are strong. In the third quarter of 2025, Luckin delivered revenue up around 50% year-on-year. In the same period the chain added more than 3,000 new stores, taking its global network close to 30,000. If you need proof of a comeback, those are figures you can’t underplay.
But the relisting road is far from smooth. The U.S. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) recently sanctioned the Hong Kong-based audit firm Centurion ZD CPA & Co. – and barred its owner – for failing to perform proper risk assessments and evidence-gathering in Luckin’s 2021 audit. This could hurt Luckin’s chances. And at a time when U.S. regulatory scrutiny of Chinese companies is unpredictable and governed by deeper political motivations, the comeback bid may be vulnerable to forces well beyond Luckin’s control.
If the Luckin Coffee relisting succeeds, it will serve as a landmark case. It would signal whether U.S. investors are prepared to embrace a high-growth Chinese chain that once collapsed under the weight of its own fraudulent behavior. For now, though, the company appears more focused on breathing new life into stores and growth than delivering investors a calendar. If they carry on at the same rates they’ve done so far this year, they might be a hard prospect to ignore.
