This study examines the probability of survival of online peer‐to‐peer (P2P) lending platforms in China. Our empirical findings show that shareholder's background, platforms’ risk management and institutional environment are three major factors that influence the probability of survival of P2P platforms in China. In addition, the effects of risk control and institutional environment are less pronounced in state‐owned P2P platforms. We also show that platforms that die from abscondence of owners tend to be more short‐lived than others, while platforms that die from liquidity problems are usually due to lack of high‐quality risk management techniques.