BIS confirms license requirement for advanced computing exports to D:5-headquartered entities regardless of physical location

On 31 May 2026, BIS published guidance clarifying that a license is required under § 742.6(a)(6)(iii)(A) of the EAR to export advanced computing items (ECCNs 3A090, 4A090, and related items) to any entity headquartered — or whose ultimate parent is headquartered — in Country Group D:5 or Macau, even if the entity itself is physically located outside those destinations. BIS's non-enforcement policy for the AI Diffusion Rule does not override this pre-existing requirement. Exporters, cloud-service providers, and in-house legal teams should audit their customer and distributor lists for D:5 ultimate-parent structures; entities shipping chips or compute capacity to subsidiaries of Chinese groups located in Singapore, the UAE or Europe need to treat those as licensed-or-not transactions rather than relying on destination-country analysis alone.