The BIS 50 percent rule returns on 10 November 2026. The stay that paused it ends on its own, and no extension has been published

On 10 November 2026 the US Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) is due to switch back on the Affiliates Rule. From that day, any company owned 50 percent or more by parties on the Entity List becomes subject to the same export restrictions as its owners. It makes no difference whether the company is named on any list.

The rule lasted six weeks. On 1 November 2025 the White House announced a trade arrangement with China. Beijing agreed to suspend the rare-earth export controls it had announced on 9 October, and Washington suspended the Affiliates Rule for one year from 10 November. BIS published the suspension on 12 November.

The suspension rule runs to two Federal Register pages and contains no regulatory text. Its operative sentence is in the DATES section: the Affiliates Rule's amendments to parts 732, 734, 736, 744 and 748 "are stayed until November 9, 2026". A stay does not delete anything. Open 15 CFR 744.8 today and the 50 percent sentences are still printed in paragraph (a)(2), with an Effective Date Note at the foot of the section saying they were "stayed, effective until Nov. 9, 2026". On 10 November the stay lapses and the text is law again.

BIS's preamble describes a second phase, "effective November 10, 2026 and extending indefinitely", and says 12 amendatory instructions beginning "Effective November 10, 2026, amend" will put the provisions back. Those instructions are not in the published document. Nothing turns on the gap, because the stay has an end date either way, but a reader who goes looking for them will not find them.

That matters for planning. Nobody in Washington has to act for the rule to return. Something has to be published for it not to. The suspension rule itself says the stay ends on 9 November 2026 "absent a future extension".

We looked for that extension and did not find one. No BIS document published in the Federal Register between 1 August and 30 September 2026 touches the stay, and a search of BIS documents mentioning affiliates since 12 November 2025 finds none that does. The White House fact sheet on the Chinese state visit in September 2026 does not mention the rule. Several other US measures in the November 2025 arrangement also run to 10 November 2026, among them the suspension of heightened reciprocal tariffs on Chinese imports. The date may yet move as part of a wider negotiation. Until something is published, it stands.

The rule borrows the US Treasury's long-standing 50 percent rule for sanctions and applies it to export controls. Three features do most of the work.

The stakes add up. BIS's own example: Company A, on the Entity List with a licence requirement for all items and a presumption of denial, owns 35 percent of Company C. Company B, listed with a requirement only for items on the Commerce Control List and case-by-case review, owns 15 percent. Company C is an affiliate. A chain of holding companies that reaches 50 percent indirectly counts too.

The lists mix. Ownership by Entity List parties, by companies on the Military End-User List and by persons on the SDN List under the programmes named in 744.8(a)(1) all counts. Where the owners' entries differ, on one list or across lists, the company takes on the most restrictive licence requirement, licence exception eligibility and review policy of any of them. Company C takes Company A's terms.

Not knowing is not a defence. BIS says the rule "creates an affirmative duty to determine the ownership of other parties to the transaction". It added Red Flag 29: if you know, or have reason to know, that a foreign company has owners on the Entity List or the Military End-User List, you must establish what share they hold. If you cannot, you need whatever licence the owner's entry would require, unless a licence exception applies. The controls apply on a strict liability basis.

For stakes under 50 percent the rule imposes no licence requirement. It does tell exporters to take extra care where a listed party holds a significant minority stake, shares board members with the company or shows other signs of control. The same guidance flags the parents of listed companies: ownership runs down, not up, so a parent is not caught by the test, but BIS says to look harder.

BIS put a number on the burden. It estimated that the suspension would spare it 245 licence applications over the year, and said that burden returns when the rule does.

The EAR follows the item, not the exporter. Under 15 CFR 734.3, US-origin items are subject to the EAR wherever they are, and so are certain foreign-made items with controlled US content above de minimis levels. A distributor in Poland or the Netherlands reselling US chips, software or industrial parts makes re-exports and in-country transfers that the rule reaches. A customer that passes a list check today can fail the ownership test on 10 November without anything about it changing.

The SDN element covers fewer programmes than OFAC's 50 percent rule and reaches further. Section 744.8(a)(1) names 14 tags: seven for Russia, Belarus and Ukraine ([RUSSIA-EO14024], [BELARUS], [BELARUS-EO14038] and four [UKRAINE-...] tags), two for terrorism ([SDGT], [FTO]), one for proliferation ([NPWMD]) and four for narcotics and criminal networks ([ILLICIT-DRUGS-EO14059], [SDNT], [SDNTK], [TCO]). The section says what it is for: cases where the OFAC regulations do not apply, such as re-exports and in-country transfers that touch neither the US financial system nor a US person. That is a European distributor's case.

Those tags are on two OFAC actions from the end of September: the Los Mayos network designated on 29 September carries [SDGT] [ILLICIT-DRUGS-EO14059], and the Tren de Aragua entries of 30 September carry [SDGT] [TCO]. Under OFAC's rule a company one of those people owns half or more of is already blocked for US persons. When the Affiliates Rule returns, a non-US company shipping US-origin items to it needs a BIS licence as well.

1. List the customers and distributors who receive US-origin or US-content items. The rule bites only where the EAR applies.
2. Map their ownership to 50 percent, adding up stakes held by different listed parties and following holding chains, not just the direct shareholder.
3. Screen every owner you find against the Entity List, the Military End-User List and the SDN List, not only the customer's own name.
4. Write down where ownership could not be established. From 10 November those transactions need whatever licence the listed owner's entry requires, unless an exception applies.
5. Do not plan on a transition licence. The only one in the text expired on 1 December 2025. Check the Federal Register in the first week of November for an extension or a new general order.

On the ScreenVeritAI coverage register the Entity List is one of the additional US sources screened by default, and the Quick Check evidence PDF fixes that answer to the date of the check. The 50 percent test is not a list, though: the owners have to be found first, in company registers, and then screened one by one.

This post rests on the two BIS rules published on 30 September and 12 November 2025, on 15 CFR 734.3 and 744.8 as they stood on 1 October 2026, and on two White House fact sheets. It is not legal advice on whether a particular item or transaction is subject to the EAR.

"No extension found" means none among BIS's Federal Register documents in the searches described above, up to 30 September 2026, and none in the fact sheets we read. BIS can publish one at any time before 10 November, and we will update this post if it does. We have not counted how many companies the rule would catch; BIS publishes no such list, which is the point of the rule.