Off the USML Is Not Off the List

On October 1, the State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC) published a proposed rule that would take items off the U.S. Munitions List, add two new exclusions to the “specially designed” test, and create a license exemption for sending foreign defense articles to their manufacturer for repair. The easy headline is “less ITAR.” The accurate one is narrower: what leaves the USML would become subject to the Export Administration Regulations, and none of it applies until DDTC publishes a final rule.

Four USML entries would shrink

Section 38 of the Arms Export Control Act requires periodic review of what still belongs on the USML, and Executive Order 14268 of April 9, 2025 directed State and Defense to update the list “to focus protections solely on our most sensitive and sophisticated technologies.” DDTC says the items below no longer provide a critical military or intelligence advantage.

Not every change runs one way. Proposed XX(c)(1) would newly designate items specially designed for naval nuclear propulsion plants as Significant Military Equipment, matching the related control in Category VI.

This proposal is also not a one-off. Since July, DDTC has issued interim final rules that take firearm suppressors for non-automatic and semi-automatic firearms out of Category I (effective November 20, 2026), remove certain aircraft modified to incorporate aircraft survivability equipment from the USML (effective October 13, 2026), and remove certain uncrewed underwater vehicles from Category XX(a) (effective October 19, 2026). If you build for submersibles, read the XX(a) rule and this proposal together.

The definitions are the bigger change

Entries come and go. Definitions decide how every entry is read, and this proposal rewrites several of them.

A new home for exclusions: proposed § 120.35

The new section would gather items that are excluded from the USML. Its first paragraph covers end items, systems and equipment that are on the list only through a specially designed paragraph, because development gave them properties peculiarly responsible for meeting its control criteria, once every one of those properties has been removed. DDTC is blunt about how high that bar is. A helicopter designed to deliver munitions stays in Category VIII even if it now only fights wildfires, because pulling the hard points, weapons and mission systems does not remove the airframe properties built to carry and launch munitions. By contrast, a missile launch variant of a vehicle, stripped of weapons, mission systems and armor down to a chassis shared with variants that were never launch platforms, would no longer be described in Category VII(b), provided no defense articles or development-driven control properties remain.

A note to the same paragraph addresses demilitarization directly: a DoD certification that an item is demilitarized (DEMIL) does not mean it is no longer described on the USML. The section’s second paragraph relocates the existing carve-out for basic marketing information and general system descriptions from § 120.31(b), reworded but with no intended change in scope.

“Specially designed” gets two new releases

Many USML paragraphs are catch-alls: they control unspecified parts and components only if those were specially designed for an enumerated item. The releases in § 120.41(b) are how a part escapes a catch-all, and the proposal adds two.

Proposed (b)(7) addresses parts that drift onto the list after the fact. If an item was not described on the USML within the first year after leaving development, later use of it, in the same or equivalent form, in a defense article whose USML entry has a catch-all would not make it specially designed. DDTC’s example is a component developed for a Category XI electronic support system that is subject to the EAR as ECCN 3A611.x. Years later the same unmodified component goes into a submarine’s electronic support system, and today that reuse pulls it into Category XX(c). Under (b)(7) it would not.

Proposed (b)(8) lists basic commodities that would be released from USML catch-alls regardless of form or fit: knobs, tires, visible spectrum light bulbs, light fixtures, analog gauges or indicators, audio selector panels, nameplates, magnetic compasses, rheostats, manual electrical switches, solenoids, circuit breakers using solely thermal-magnetic overcurrent protection, fuses, glass preforms, latches, hinges, brackets, pneumatic hoses and passenger seats. The catch is in the preamble. The existing (b)(2) fastener list has a twin in the EAR’s definition of specially designed. The (b)(8) list does not, so a (b)(8) item would leave the USML catch-alls but could still be specially designed under an EAR catch-all.

The proposal also drops “and fit” from the (b)(3) release, which DDTC calls an artifact that confused practitioners, and renames the defined term “equivalent form”: a form modified solely for fit purposes. DDTC says the (b)(3) edit does not change the scope of control.

When development ends, and when a launch is not an export

Proposed § 120.43 would say development ends once functional design decisions, integration, validation and testing are complete and the design is approved for full-rate, serial or standardized production, a software production release, deployment to production or another equivalent transfer to full production. Cosmetic changes and improvements to sustainability, reliability, maintainability, quality, cost or features would not send an article back into development. Changes to its function or performance capability would. That matters because the (b)(3) release and the new (b)(7) both turn on when development ended.

Separately, § 120.54(a)(1) says launching an item “into space” is not an export. Because that phrase is undefined, the proposal would say “into or beyond orbit,” which DDTC describes as consistent with the current scope.

Leaving the USML is not leaving export control

Everything this proposal removes from the USML would become subject to the EAR. The rule does not assign Export Control Classification Numbers to those items, so where each one lands on the Commerce Control List is a classification question, and DDTC’s own worked example ends in ECCN 3A611.x, a military “600 series” entry. For a facility that hosts visitors, the more practical point is that both regimes treat a release inside the United States as an export, and they count countries differently.

So a final rule would not end the question of which visitors may see a given item’s technical data. It could change which regime answers it, which agency authorizes it, and which of a dual national’s countries count. Your Technology Control Plan, your classification matrix and the access rules for affected areas would need one coordinated update when a final rule takes effect, not before. Neither regime is a nationality screen, either: the decision turns on the technology involved and the person’s authorization. We walk through how a visit becomes an export in ITAR Foreign National Visitor Access, and how the two regimes differ at the front desk in ITAR and EAR Visitor Control.

A repair exemption, as proposed: § 123.26

The proposal would add a license exemption for the temporary export of an unclassified foreign defense article when the export is solely for servicing, inspecting, testing, calibrating, repairing, overhauling, upgrading, reconditioning, or one-to-one replacement of a defective item by the original equipment manufacturer or its authorized service provider. It is an export exemption only. DDTC notes that it does not relate to import requirements under the U.S. Munitions Import List that ATF administers (27 CFR part 447), and the proposal does not change that list. Teams that send foreign-made defense equipment to its manufacturer for service should read the conditions closely and comment if they do not fit how the work actually moves. Until a final rule takes effect, keep using the authorizations you have.

What DDTC wants to hear by November 30

The notice closes with fourteen questions. Several reach well beyond the four entries:

• Better criteria for the Category X(a)(7) eyewear entry, including whether the optical density thresholds should differ and whether visible light transmission would be a useful test.
• Examples of antennas developed only for civil airborne weather radar that are still caught by Category XI(c)(10)(iv), which DDTC said in 2025 the paragraph is not meant to cover.
• How to keep practitioners from misapplying paragraph (x) of each category, which DDTC stresses is a licensing convenience for mixed ITAR and EAR shipments, not an export classification.
• Whether to remove “software” from parts of the specially designed definition, so that the (a)(2) “for use in or with a defense article” prong and the (b) releases would no longer apply to software, while the (a)(1) test still would.
• Whether the development and production definitions work for continuous integration and deployment pipelines and for custom builds.
• Items still on the list that are in normal commercial use, widely available abroad, or expected to see civil use within five years.

Submit comments through regulations.gov docket DOS-2026-0991, or by email as the notice describes; an emailed comment must carry RIN 1400-AF40 in its subject line. DDTC cautions commenters not to put proprietary or export-controlled information in a public comment and describes a separate process for a proprietary supplement.

When would it take effect?

DDTC states that this rulemaking is exempt from the Administrative Procedure Act’s rulemaking requirements because it involves a military or foreign affairs function, and asks for comments anyway. In practice that leaves the timing of any final rule to DDTC. Recent DDTC rules have taken effect anywhere from the day they were published to about four months later. DDTC also points readers to its website for guidance on how a classification change affects existing licenses and agreements, including items already exported under an ITAR license.

Plan around the final rule, not the proposal. A final rule can differ from what was proposed.

What to do before November 30

Where SecurePoint fits

SecurePoint does not classify items or decide jurisdiction. That stays with your empowered official and trade counsel. It handles the visitor side of the same control. At check-in it screens visitors against restricted-party lists. At sites configured for ITAR access it asks each visitor for a U.S. person attestation and flags foreign national visitors for escort. Before a foreign national is checked in there, the host confirms the visitor’s nationality from their ID and commits to escorting them and to not sharing export-controlled technical data without authorization. Check-ins and host verifications are written to an append-only, hash-chained audit log that application users cannot edit or delete, and visit, screening and decision records export as an evidence pack. See how that works in our ITAR visitor management system.

When a final rule moves an item from the ITAR to the EAR, the analysis behind a visit changes. The record of who came in, who hosted them and what was decided should already be there.

Frequently asked questions