Do I need an export licence?
Four things decide it: what the item is, where it is going, who is receiving it, and what they will do with it. Any one of them can require a licence on its own.
Written for: Anyone about to ship, share, or demonstrate something abroad
The short answer
- Item, destination, parties, and end use each decide independently.
- The country chart answers the item and destination half.
- End use and end user controls reach even EAR99 items.
- No Licence Required is a determination and needs a record.
The four questions
What the item is gives you a classification. Where it is going gives you a destination. Who is receiving it gives you parties to screen. What it will be used for gives you end use. The answer to whether you need a licence is the combination, and a clean answer on three of them does not survive a bad answer on the fourth.
How the item and the destination combine
For Commerce items, the entry gives you reasons for control, and the Commerce Country Chart tells you whether those reasons require a licence for that destination. Two entries with the same destination can give opposite answers, and the same entry can give opposite answers for two destinations. It is a lookup, and it is the part most amenable to being done properly.
The controls that ignore your classification
Restricted party lists, sanctions programmes, military end use and end user rules, and prohibited end uses apply on their own terms. They reach items that would otherwise need no licence at all, including EAR99 items, and several of them turn on what you knew or had reason to know rather than on any list.
If there is no licence requirement
Write down why. No Licence Required is a determination with a basis: a classification, a destination, a screening result, and a date. A shipment that went without a licence and without a record is indistinguishable later from one that should have had a licence.
The rules behind this
- 15 CFR 732
- 15 CFR 738
- 15 CFR 744
- 15 CFR 746
- 22 CFR 123
This is a plain reading of published rules, not legal advice, and it is not a determination about your item. What decides your case is your exact configuration, your parties, and your destination. The limits, in full.
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Related questions
ITAR or EAR, which one applies to me?
Two regimes, two agencies, and the wrong guess is expensive. The test is what the item is and what it was designed for, not what industry you are in.
What does EAR99 actually mean?
It means no Commerce entry describes your item. It does not mean you can ship it anywhere, and it is not a licence.
Can I hire an engineer who is not a U.S. citizen?
Yes. Export control regulates what you show them, not who you employ, and treating it as a hiring rule creates a different legal problem.
What is a deemed export?
Showing controlled technology to a foreign person inside the United States counts as exporting it to their country. Nothing has to ship.