BIS IFR extending standards-activity EAR authorization to all Entity List parties

Mechanism

The IFR creates a licence-free pathway for the release of EAR-controlled items to any party listed on the Entity List, provided the release occurs during a "standards-related activity." The rule amends four EAR sections:

• 15 CFR § 734.10 — adds the standards-activity authorization and relocates its definition
• 15 CFR § 744.11 — carves out Entity List restrictions for qualifying standards releases
• 15 CFR § 744.16 — corresponding carve-out in the unverified-list framework
• 15 CFR Part 772 — adds a formal definition of "standards-related activity"

A "standards-related activity" is broadly defined as the development, adoption, or application of any standard with intent that the resulting standard will be published for repeated reference or use. The definition explicitly covers conformity assessment procedures, national and international SDOs, and market-based consortia — and it does not require the body to be a "voluntary consensus standards body" under OMB Circular A-119 (a limitation inherited from the 2020 predecessor that this rule removed).

Authorized items: 1. EAR99 technology and software 2. Items controlled solely for anti-terrorism (AT) reasons, including mass-market encryption 3. Non-mass-market cryptographic software (ECCN 5D002) and technology (ECCN 5E002) specifically for development or application of cryptographic standards

The authorization is entity-neutral: it applies to all ~600 Entity-Listed parties at the time of the IFR, not to a named subset. However, it applies only to the Entity List licensing requirement; other EAR obligations (end-use rules, de minimis, Foreign Direct Product rules) continue to apply where relevant.

Relationship to predecessor and successor rules

The 2024 rule (2024-07-18-us-bis-ear-standards-related-activities) consolidated this IFR and the 2020 predecessor into a single activity-based exclusion, removing the Entity List conditionality altogether. Under the 2024 rule, a standards-related release is outside EAR jurisdiction irrespective of the participating parties' Entity List status.

Downstream implications

• Huawei 5G/6G — US engineers could contribute EAR-controlled technology to 3GPP, IEEE 802,

and ITU working groups alongside Huawei affiliates without a separate BIS licence, reducing compliance friction that had caused US firms to under-participate since Huawei's 2019 listing.

• SMIC, CXMT, and other Chinese chip-sector listings — same pathway opened; US firms active

in JEDEC and SEMI standards could now engage without licence exposure.

• Cryptographic standards (IETF, IEEE, ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27) — the explicit inclusion of

ECCNs 5D002 and 5E002 crypto items addressed a gap in the 2020 rule that had left cryptographic protocol work in a grey zone.

• BIS policy signal — the expansion from Huawei-only to entity-list-wide was framed as

ensuring US leadership in critical-technology standards (5G, AI, energy, biotech, aerospace) does not erode through compliance-risk self-exclusion.

Open questions

• Whether comment period responses (due 2022-11-08) to the IFR would narrow the scope or add

carve-outs (addressed by the 2024 IFR which moved in the direction of broader liberalization).

• Practical boundary of the "application of standards" prong — testing, certification, and

deployment activities were cited as potentially in scope, but outer boundary remained untested.