Revision of Firearms License Requirements

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <SUBAGY>Bureau of Industry and Security</SUBAGY> <CFR>15 CFR Parts 738, 740, 742, 743, 748, 750, 758, 772, and 774</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. 250910-0151]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0694-AJ46</RIN> <SUBJECT>Revision of Firearms License Requirements</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Bureau of Industry and Security, Department of Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> On April 30, 2024, the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) published an interim final rule (Firearms IFR) that imposed new export license requirements for firearms and related ammunition and components. American firearms manufacturers estimated that these regulatory restrictions would cost them hundreds of millions of dollars per year in lost sales. BIS, informed by public comments on the Firearms IFR, has determined that the Firearms IFR should be rescinded in its entirety—with the only exception being to maintain new Export Control Classification Numbers (ECCNs). This final rule also amends the EAR by removing the Congressional notification requirement for certain semi-automatic firearms license applications. By restoring export controls on firearms to the state they were in at the end of the first Trump Administration, BIS is advancing the Administration's commitment to reducing regulatory burdens on industry and law-abiding firearms owners. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective September 30, 2025. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Benjamin Barron, Supervisory Export Policy Analyst, Bureau of Industry and Security, Department of Commerce, Phone: 202-482-4252, and Ronald Rolfe, Supervisory Export Policy Analyst, Bureau of Industry and Security, Department of Commerce, Phone: 202-482-4563. Both can be reached at <E T="03">Firearms@bis.doc.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This final rule revises the EAR (15 CFR parts 730-774) in response to comments BIS received on the interim final rule, “Revision of Firearms License Requirements” that BIS published on April 30, 2024 (89 FR 34680) (Firearms IFR), pursuant to which BIS made a series of amendments to the EAR effective May 30, 2024. The Firearms IFR revised the license requirements and review policies, as well as other aspects of the control structure ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> license exception eligibility and export clearance requirements) for firearms, including shotguns, ammunition, parts, accessories ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> optical devices), and related technology and software (“0x5zz items”). This final rule is organized into four sections: I—Background, II—Comments, III—Description of Regulatory Changes, and IV—Other EAR Revisions. Section I discusses the background of this final rule which includes the history of EAR firearms controls and the policy changes that shaped this final rule. In section II, BIS summarizes and responds to the comments received in response to the Firearms IFR organized into 28 topics that in turn are divided in two parts. First, BIS describes the comments of general applicability under section II.A. Then, under section II.B, BIS describes the comments received on specific changes to the regulatory text included in the Firearms IFR. In section III, BIS describes the regulatory changes made pursuant to the Firearms IFR, and how each of those changes is revised. The revisions that this final rule makes to the EAR ensure that appropriate controls are in place for 0x5zz items, while at the same time reflecting consideration of exporters' concerns regarding burdens as detailed in public comments. Finally, section IV discusses other revisions to the EAR by this final rule that were not part of the Firearms IFR. As a general matter, the regulatory actions undertaken in this final rule are consistent with BIS's ongoing commitment to reducing the regulatory burden on the American people and industry as well as adopting commonsense regulations. <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> The changes described in this final rule that pertain to firearms and related items are based on a comprehensive review of the EAR's provisions that affect the licensing of 0x5zz items and of public comments received on the Firearms IFR. BIS will continue to exercise appropriate regulatory oversight over the export, reexports, and transfers (in-country) of the 0x5zz items at issue but will reduce the procedural burdens and costs of export compliance on the U.S. firearms industry and American people. Notably, this final rule is eliminating controls that are more restrictive or have otherwise imposed novel burdens on exporters, reexporters, or transferors that do not apply to “600 series” military items. This final rule also takes into account that 0x5zz items are typically sold through commercial channels for civil applications, as well as to certain government end users ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> law enforcement). By making these changes, the final rule will allow BIS, and its interagency partners, to make better use of export control resources in assessing threats and risks to U.S. national security and foreign policy interests. BIS has determined that certain restrictions and requirements added to the EAR pursuant to the Firearms IFR imposed unnecessary regulatory burdens on exporters, reexporters, and transferors of 0x5zz items and end users of such items outside the United States and alleviates those burdens in this final rule. BIS retains the amendments in the Firearms IFR that added four new ECCNs (0A506, 0A507, 0A508, and 0A509) to the Commerce Control List (CCL) (supplement no. 1 to part 774 of the EAR), along with changes to § 758.1(g)(4) requiring ECCN item paragraph classification or other control descriptors in the Electronic Export Information (EEI) filing in the Automated Export System (AES). These provisions enable BIS to fulfill its conventional arms reporting requirements without requiring a separate submission from exporters and allow BIS's Office of Export Enforcement (OEE) to utilize its resources more efficiently to prioritize and address diversion risks of 0x5zz items. BIS also retains the paragraph restructuring, clarifying edits, and conforming changes related to the new ECCNs added by the Firearms IFR, as they provide improved comprehension of the EAR. This final rule removes all other changes to the EAR made pursuant to the Firearms IFR. <HD SOURCE="HD2">History of EAR Firearms Controls</HD> Items classified under 0x5zz ECCNs have been controlled by the Department of Commerce (Commerce) under the EAR since March 9, 2020, when jurisdiction over certain end-item firearms and related items was transferred by removing them from the Department of State's (State) United States Munitions List (USML) ( <E T="03">see</E> 22 CFR part 121) under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) to Commerce's CCL under the EAR. BIS continues to exercise Commerce's jurisdiction over long barrel shotguns (greater than 18 inches), as well as certain related items. <E T="03">See</E> the January 23, 2020, BIS final rule, “Control of Firearms, Guns, Ammunition and Related Articles the President Determines No Longer Warrant Control Under the United States Munitions List (USML)” (85 FR 4136) (January 2020 EAR final rule; effective date: March 9, 2020) and the January 20, 2020, State final rule, “International Traffic in Arms Regulations: U.S. Munitions List Categories I, II, and III” (85 FR 3819; effective date: March 9, 2020). During the past five years, BIS has required that an authorization be obtained for most exports and reexports of 0x5zz items to most destinations, including Canada. The 0x5zz items are currently controlled under the following ECCNs: 0A501, 0A502, 0A504, 0A505, 0A506, 0A507, 0A508, 0A509, 0B501, 0B505, 0D501, 0D505, 0E501, 0E504, and 0E505. In addition to the worldwide license requirement, which has generally been in effect since March 9, 2020, BIS maintains other requirements with respect to 0x5zz items. These include certain export clearance requirements that provide information regarding the specific items being exported or reexported; limitations on the availability of license exceptions; and certain recordkeeping requirements. As described in the January 2020 EAR final rule, BIS added to the EAR provisions to ensure that U.S. export controls under the EAR account for the firearms-related import controls of other countries; specifically, the use of BIS licenses was predicated on having an Import Certificate or other permit (if required) by the importing country. These requirements were imposed to ensure, to the extent feasible, that the EAR control structure for 0x5zz items would protect U.S. national security and foreign policy interests, which include countering diversion and misuse of 0x5zz items and advancing human rights. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Policy Changes</HD> As part of the license review policy adopted pursuant to the Firearms IFR, BIS implemented more restrictive license application and review requirements, including imposing unique support documentation or other limitations or requirements on license applications for 0x5zz items. These license application and review requirements were more restrictive than those applied to other items transferred from the USML to the CCL as part of the Export Control Reform initiative ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> the “600 series” military items and 9x515 spacecraft items). This final rule revises the EAR to return the license review policy and other license support documentation requirements for 0x5zz items to those that were in effect prior to May 30, 2024, the effective date of the Firearms IFR. BIS determined that these previous license review policies and support documentation requirements in effect prior to May 30, 2024, gave BIS and the other license review ag ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 214k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━