This study examines the effect of the strengthened general anti-tax avoidance rules (hereafter, strengthened GAAR rules) on corporate bribery in China. Using a sample of 18,800 firm-year observations over the 2012–2018 period and applying difference-in-differences analysis, we find that the strengthened GAAR rules are positively related to corporate bribery, suggesting that firms engage in more bribery-related activities following the implementation of the strengthened GAAR rules. We also conduct mechanism analyses and find that the strengthened GAAR rules increase the bribery through effective tax rates and capital and labor intensity costs. Finally, we perform cross-sectional analyses and find that the effect is more pronounced for firms operating in lower (higher) existing tax law enforcement (local corruption) environments, firms with opaque information environments, and firms with poor corporate governance monitoring. Overall, this study sheds light on an unintended consequence of the strengthened GAAR rules in the form of an increase in the level of corporate bribery.