Taiwan’s Export Entity List and the U.S. EAR: Two License Questions for One Shipment

On June 10, 2025, Taiwan’s International Trade Administration (ITA) added 601 entities to its export entity list, including Huawei and SMIC. In its June 15, 2025 statement, the agency said exporters that want to ship to a listed entity need a Strategic High-Tech Commodities (SHTC) export permit first, and that customs will stop unlicensed shipments to listed parties.

For a U.S. company shipping through a Taiwan subsidiary, distributor or contract manufacturer, the additions brought more Chinese counterparties within Taiwan’s existing permit regime. A shipment leaving Taiwan for one of them may need authorization under both Taiwan’s Foreign Trade Act, from the ITA, and the U.S. Export Administration Regulations (EAR), from the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS). One authorization does not substitute for the other.

The discussion of U.S. law below is general background for readers working in Taiwan. U.S. licensing analysis for a particular transaction belongs with U.S. export counsel.

What Taiwan has announced since June 2025

The ITA described the June 2025 update as the result of a periodic inter-agency review under Article 13 of the Foreign Trade Act, drawing mainly on UN Security Council and allied-country sanctions and control lists. The 601 additions came from Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Myanmar and mainland China and included Chinese-funded companies such as Huawei and SMIC.

The list changes in both directions. The ITA’s April 1, 2026 update and the MOEA’s June 9, 2026 update each removed names as well as adding them, so a screening record should name the version of the list it was run against. The ITA publishes the list as a downloadable dataset, Taiwan’s Strategic High-Tech Commodities Export Entity List, on the government open-data platform.

Taiwan’s goods-based lists also changed in 2026. On February 11, 2026, the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) amended the dual-use and military control lists with immediate effect, citing updates by the Wassenaar Arrangement and other regimes. According to the Economic Daily News report that day, the amendment brought 18 high-tech items under export control, in fields including advanced 3D printing equipment, advanced semiconductor equipment and quantum computers.

Why the entity list reaches goods that are not on a control list

The statutory basis is Article 13 of the Foreign Trade Act. It provides that strategic high-tech commodities may not be exported without permission, that end use and end user must be truthfully declared for both exports and imports and may not be changed without permission, and that the MOEA defines the covered commodities and controlled areas by public announcement.

That announcement is where the entity list comes in. The most recent version found for this column was published in the Executive Yuan Gazette on January 16, 2024, after the agency’s renaming; it is also the version attached to the ITA’s explanatory page as of October 3, 2026. It keeps the structure of the April 6, 2022 announcement and defines strategic high-tech commodities in three parts. The first is the control lists themselves, including the dual-use list and destination-specific lists. The second covers goods that are not on any list but whose end use or end user may involve the production or development of nuclear, chemical, biological or missile weapons. The third covers imported goods for which the exporting country requires a Taiwan import certificate or similar assurance.

The announcement then lists eight circumstances that fall within the second category. The first is that the foreign counterparty is on the entity list published on the ITA website, or is a party the authorities have specifically notified. The others are classic red flags, such as a buyer that will not explain end use, specifications that do not match the buyer’s business, or unusual payment terms. One of them concerns shipping: without any particular reason, the buyer is vague about delivery dates, the delivery point is somewhere other than the destination, the final consignee is a freight forwarder, or the consignee or location is changed at short notice.

The ITA’s explanatory page, What Are Strategic High-Tech Commodities, shows the same structure as of its February 11, 2026 update. The destination-specific lists have changed since 2022 (the Russia list became the Russia and Belarus list, for example), but the entity-list mechanism remains in place.

On this text, the counterparty test applies regardless of the product. A Taiwan exporter shipping ordinary industrial parts to a listed entity is, under this framework, exporting a strategic high-tech commodity and needs a permit. That reading matches the ITA’s June 2025 instruction that exporters obtain an SHTC export permit before exporting to listed entities.

How Taiwan’s permit rules apply to a U.S. company’s Taiwan operations

The procedures sit in the Regulations Governing Export and Import of Strategic High-Tech Commodities, last amended on October 31, 2023 according to the Ministry of Justice database. Several provisions matter to U.S.-owned operations in Taiwan, whichever structure a group chose when it entered the Taiwan market. The permit duty under Article 15 falls on the party acting as exporter in the Taiwan shipment. The group should identify that party from the transaction documents before assigning the filing work.

Article 15 sets ordinary permit validity at six months, or two years for exports to members of all four major export control regimes and for certain repeat transactions. It also contains a provision specific to shipments to the United States or Japan: for SHTC exports to either country, the authorities may waive the permit if the shipment of the same controlled item is under NT$300,000 FOB, or the exporter operates an internal control program recognized by the ITA. In either case, the waiver depends on the exporter verifying that the foreign counterparty is not on Taiwan’s entity list and is not a party the authorities have specifically identified. Screening is therefore a condition of the waiver itself.

Article 15-1 allows exporters with a recognized internal control program to apply for three-year permits covering more than one destination, buyer, consignee and end user. These exporters must file the previous year’s internal review report by March 31. The ITA may cancel the recognition and revoke the three-year permit if the exporter fails to file that report, fails to correct control deficiencies within the notified deadline after an ITA inspection, or exports SHTC in violation of the rules.

In the ordinary case, Article 16 requires an international import certificate, end-use certificate or other assurance document issued by the importing government, or an end-use statement from the foreign importer or end user. The application must truthfully state the end use and end user and include the related transaction documents and any other required documents. For a recognized exporter seeking a three-year permit, a head office or controlling company may, with ITA consent, provide the end-use statement when the foreign importer or end user and the exporter are part of the same company or have a controlling-company/subsidiary relationship. The related transaction documents may also be omitted in that qualifying case.

Article 18 allows a shorter document set for specified exports to non-controlled areas, such as shipments of the same controlled item under NT$150,000 and temporary exports for exhibition, repair or testing where the goods will be re-imported into Taiwan. For that temporary-export route, the exporter must provide proof of re-import to the original issuing authority and close the case within the approved period. This is document relief; the exporter must still apply for a permit.

Article 17 adds that when SHTC imported from abroad are re-exported, the exporter must also submit the original exporting government’s re-export approval if that government requires one. This is one point where the two systems touch directly. If the United States was the country that exported the goods to Taiwan and U.S. rules require authorization for the re-export, Taiwan’s regulations expect evidence of that approval in the Taiwan application. A recognized exporter applying for a three-year permit may leave the re-export approval and import evidence out of the application, but must keep them for each shipment for later ITA inspection. That filing relief does not change whether a U.S. authorization is needed.

Article 21 requires exporters and importers to keep SHTC records for five years. It also requires them to provide documents on the goods and their later movements when the authorities ask.

Penalties in Taiwan depend on the destination and the conduct

The Foreign Trade Act separates criminal and administrative exposure. Under Article 27, exporting SHTC to a controlled area without permission is punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment or detention, and/or a fine of up to NT$3 million. The same penalties apply in two other situations: diverting goods to a controlled area before import, without permission, after Taiwan has issued import documentation for them; and, after import, changing the declared end use or end user without permission so that the goods are used to produce or develop nuclear, biological, chemical, missile or similar weapons. When an employee or agent commits the offense in the course of the company’s business, the company is also fined. Article 27-1 adds suspension of trading rights for one month to one year, or revocation of the exporter’s registration.

Article 27-2 covers unlicensed exports to areas other than controlled areas, along with certain unauthorized changes of importer or end user. It authorizes an administrative fine of NT$60,000 to NT$3 million, suspension of trading rights, or revocation of the exporter’s registration. The statutory text still refers to the International Trade Bureau, the agency’s name before its reorganization as the International Trade Administration.

The definition of "controlled area" matters for China-bound shipments. In the January 2024 announcement text, unchanged on this point from 2022, the controlled areas are Iran, Iraq, North Korea, mainland China, Sudan and Syria. For mainland China, however, the controlled-area treatment is limited to twelve categories of wafer fabrication equipment, including lithography, etching, deposition, ion implantation and CMP tools. Other SHTC shipped to mainland China follow the rules for non-controlled areas. On that text, an unlicensed export to China of SHTC that fall within those twelve categories falls under the criminal provision. That Article 27 criminal exposure requires the equipment to be SHTC in the first place, because it is on a control list or because the catch-all applies, for example through a listed counterparty. An unlicensed shipment of other SHTC to a listed entity in China points toward the administrative provisions. Classifying a real shipment depends on its facts and on the version of the announcement in force on the export date.

Separately, equipment classified under a tariff line subject to export regulation code 488 can require a Taiwan export permit even when it is not SHTC. The tariff classification determines whether that rule applies; an assessment that equipment is not SHTC does not by itself settle its Taiwan permit requirements.

As of the Ministry of Justice database checked for this column, the Foreign Trade Act’s latest amendment date is December 25, 2019. This column does not predict how the ITA or prosecutors will enforce the June 2025 listings.

The U.S. rules that travel with the item

The EAR works differently. Its controls attach to items "subject to the EAR" wherever those items are located. That includes certain foreign-made items under the foreign direct product (FDP) rules. A Taiwan shipment can therefore need a U.S. license even though nothing physically leaves the United States.

Huawei was added to the BIS Entity List effective May 16, 2019 (84 FR 22961), with a license requirement for all items subject to the EAR and a presumption of denial. The same rule added 68 non-U.S. affiliates in 26 destinations, Taiwan among them. In August 2020, BIS expanded the footnote 1 FDP rule for Huawei (85 FR 51596, effective August 17, 2020). In its current form at 15 CFR 734.9(e)(1), the rule has a product test, which looks at the item, and an end-user test, which looks at whether a footnote 1 entity is involved. SMIC was added effective December 18, 2020 (85 FR 83416). Its current Entity List entry carries footnote 5 and cross-references 15 CFR 734.4(a)(9) and 734.9(e)(3). The December 2024 Entity List rule (89 FR 96830) added the footnote 5 designation to SMIC’s entry, and the referenced EAR provisions came from the December 2, 2024 interim final rule (89 FR 96790), which created new FDP rules for certain semiconductor manufacturing equipment and added controls on high-bandwidth memory. The eCFR text of § 734.9(e) also shows language extending the end-user test to entities 50 percent or more owned by listed parties; that language came from the Affiliates Rule discussed below, which BIS has stayed.

The two footnotes work differently. The footnote 1 rule for Huawei covers a broad range of foreign-produced items. The footnote 5 rule that applies to SMIC covers only specified semiconductor manufacturing equipment in Category 3B, so SMIC’s involvement alone does not bring every Taiwan-made chip or module within the EAR. Under either rule, the item has to meet that rule’s product test and its end-user test. The narrower footnote 5 product scope does not limit SMIC’s licensing requirements for other items that are already subject to the EAR.

The practical consequence for a Taiwan operation is that an item produced in Taiwan with no U.S.-origin content can still be subject to the EAR. That can happen, for example, when the item falls within an FDP rule’s product scope and a footnoted entity is involved in the way the rule describes. A Taiwan permit does not resolve EAR jurisdiction or U.S. licensing requirements, so the U.S. analysis remains separate even when Taiwan’s application calls for evidence of a foreign re-export approval.

Violations of the Export Control Reform Act carry criminal and civil penalties; for willful violations, the criminal maximum is a fine of up to US$1 million and, for individuals, imprisonment of up to 20 years (50 U.S.C. 4819).

Name lists, ownership and the suspended Affiliates Rule

Taiwan’s entity list identifies parties by name, alias and address. Until recently the U.S. Entity List worked in a broadly similar way, with listed entities treated as legally distinct from their unlisted subsidiaries. On September 30, 2025, BIS published the "Affiliates Rule" (90 FR 47201), effective September 29, 2025. It extended Entity List restrictions to foreign entities owned 50 percent or more, directly or indirectly, individually or in aggregate, by one or more listed parties or entities subject to ownership-based Entity List restrictions.

On November 12, 2025, BIS published a one-year suspension (90 FR 50857). The rule’s summary says the Affiliates Rule changes are suspended from November 10, 2025 until November 9, 2026, "absent a future extension," and the rule provides that the suspended provisions are added back into the EAR effective November 10, 2026.

For a U.S. group trading from Taiwan, this creates an asymmetry worth planning for. A customer can pass Taiwan’s name-based screening and still be restricted under U.S. rules because of who owns it, if and when the Affiliates Rule takes effect. The reverse can also happen. Taiwan’s list contains names drawn from many sources, and a party missing from U.S. lists may still require a Taiwan permit. Running one list does not complete the other review.

A hypothetical order seen through both systems

The following scenario is hypothetical and uses no real company names.

A U.S.-owned distributor in Hsinchu receives an order for a batch of test sockets and a refurbished inspection tool. The buyer is a trading company in Singapore. The original order named a Singapore warehouse as consignee, but a week before shipment the buyer asks, without giving a reason, that the goods go instead to a fab in mainland China.

On the Taiwan side, the first question is whether the buyer, the consignee or the fab appears on the ITA entity list. If any of them does, the shipment needs an SHTC permit regardless of the products’ classification. If none does, the distributor still has to classify the goods against Taiwan’s control lists and consider the red-flag circumstances in the announcement. Delivery to a customer’s own fab can be entirely ordinary. An unexplained last-minute change of delivery location is different: it is one of the circumstances the announcement lists, and it calls for an explanation before the goods move. If the inspection tool is SHTC, because it is on a control list or because the catch-all applies, and it falls within one of the twelve wafer-equipment categories, the China destination raises the criminal-exposure tier under Article 27. Even if the tool is not SHTC, the distributor must check whether its tariff classification brings it under code 488’s separate export-permit requirement.

On the U.S. side, U.S. export counsel would ask whether each item is subject to the EAR, through U.S. origin, U.S. content or an FDP rule, and whether any party is on the Entity List or, once the Affiliates Rule applies, owned by a listed party. A Taiwan permit, if granted, would not answer those questions. If the refurbished tool was originally exported to Taiwan from the United States and U.S. rules require approval for its re-export, Article 17 of Taiwan’s regulations would also expect evidence of that approval in the Taiwan application.

Both systems call for the same kind of record: screening results with dates and list versions, classification reasoning, end-use statements, the communications that explain changes in routing, and the permits or license determinations themselves. Taiwan requires five-year retention of SHTC records under Article 21 of its regulations.

Companies that want to discuss Taiwan’s SHTC permit rules or a Taiwan-side export question can write to attorney Wei Tseng (曾雋崴), partner at Hovering International Law Firm (昊鼎國際法律事務所), at wei@hoveringlaw.com.tw. A short, non-confidential outline of the goods, route and parties is a good first message; detailed technical files can follow once a secure channel is agreed. Taipei office: 7F-2, No. 35, Sec. 1, Chengde Rd., Datong Dist., Taipei City 103, Taiwan.

More columns for semiconductor companies

Sources

All sources below were opened and checked on October 3, 2026 (Taiwan time). Laws are cited from the Ministry of Justice Laws & Regulations Database, whose compilation cutoff was shown as September 24, 2026.

• International Trade Administration, MOEA, 國際貿易署更新戰略性高科技貨品出口實體管理名單，納管601個涉武擴活動實體 (ITA updates the SHTC export entity list, adding 601 entities), June 15, 2025.
• International Trade Administration, MOEA, 國際貿易署更新戰略性高科技貨品出口實體管理名單，新增納管67個涉武擴活動實體 (ITA entity-list update, entities added and removed), April 1, 2026.
• Ministry of Economic Affairs, 國際貿易署更新戰略性高科技貨品出口實體管理名單，新增納管265個涉武擴活動實體 (ITA entity-list update, entities added and removed), June 9, 2026.
• Government open-data platform, 我國戰略性高科技貨品出口實體管理名單 (Taiwan SHTC export entity list dataset), International Trade Administration.
• Ministry of Economic Affairs, Announcement 經貿字第11550200140號 amending the dual-use and military goods lists, effective immediately, February 11, 2026.
• Economic Daily News (udn), 經部：先進半導體設備等18項高科技產品納出口管制 (MOEA adds 18 high-tech items, including advanced semiconductor equipment, to export controls), February 11, 2026.
• Executive Yuan Gazette, MOEA Announcement 經貿字第11350200060號: Strategic High-Tech Commodity Categories, Specific SHTC Categories and Export-Controlled Areas, January 16, 2024.
• Executive Yuan Gazette, MOEA Announcement 經貿字第11104601450號: Strategic High-Tech Commodity Categories, Specific SHTC Categories and Export-Controlled Areas, April 6, 2022 (earlier version).
• International Trade Administration, 甚麼是戰略性高科技貨品 (What are strategic high-tech commodities), page updated February 11, 2026; and the ITA entity-list and announcement page, whose attachments include the announcement version dated 1130116 (January 16, 2024) and the June 2026 entity-list notice.
• Ministry of Justice, Foreign Trade Act: Article 13, Article 27, Article 27-1 and Article 27-2; full text showing amendment date December 25, 2019.
• Ministry of Justice, Regulations Governing Export and Import of Strategic High-Tech Commodities, Articles 15, 15-1, 16, 17, 18 and 21; amended October 31, 2023.
• International Trade Administration, Export regulation code 488, Commodity Classification System, current export-regulation explanations checked October 3, 2026.
• Bureau of Industry and Security, Addition of Entities to the Entity List, 84 FR 22961, May 21, 2019 (effective May 16, 2019).
• Bureau of Industry and Security, Addition of Huawei Non-U.S. Affiliates to the Entity List … and Amendments to General Prohibition Three (Foreign-Produced Direct Product Rule), 85 FR 51596, August 20, 2020 (effective August 17, 2020).
• Bureau of Industry and Security, Addition of Entities to the Entity List, Revision of Entry on the Entity List, and Removal of Entities From the Entity List, 85 FR 83416, December 22, 2020 (effective December 18, 2020).
• Bureau of Industry and Security, Foreign-Produced Direct Product Rule Additions, and Refinements to Controls for Advanced Computing and Semiconductor Manufacturing Items, 89 FR 96790, December 5, 2024 (effective December 2, 2024).
• Bureau of Industry and Security, Additions and Modifications to the Entity List; Removals From the Validated End-User (VEU) Program, 89 FR 96830, December 5, 2024 (effective December 2, 2024), including SMIC’s footnote 5 designation and license review policy.
• Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, 15 CFR 734.9 and Supplement No. 4 to Part 744 (Entity List), text as of September 30, 2026.
• Bureau of Industry and Security, Expansion of End-User Controls to Cover Affiliates of Certain Listed Entities, 90 FR 47201, September 30, 2025 (effective September 29, 2025).
• Bureau of Industry and Security, One Year Suspension of Expansion of End-User Controls for Affiliates of Certain Listed Entities, 90 FR 50857, November 12, 2025.
• U.S. Government Publishing Office, 50 U.S.C. § 4819, Penalties, checked October 3, 2026.

General information, not individualized legal advice. U.S. law is described only in general terms. Sources checked October 3, 2026 (Taiwan time).