What goes into an export compliance program for used IT hardware?

A diagnostic first, then a written program, then review and support on live deals.

The subject matter is used equipment. A used or refurbished item is subject to the Export Administration Regulations exactly as a new one. Classification follows technical parameters rather than age (15 CFR 734.3).

Four things, as they run today. How equipment is classified when it comes in. How buyers are screened before a sale. How a sale is documented and approved. How a shipment is prepared and what leaves the building with it.

The diagnostic reads what is already written down. It then reads a sample of recent deals against it. The output is a list of gaps in plain order, from the ones that touch the next shipment to the ones that touch next year's audit.

A classification procedure for used equipment. Restricted-party screening. A customer certification and red-flag check. A headquarters and ultimate-parent check. A procedure for Common High Priority List items. A scrap export procedure. Recordkeeping. Staff training.

Each piece names who does it, when it happens, and what is kept afterwards.

The customer certification and the red-flag check follow the BIS guidance of May 13 2025, which lists eleven red flags and seven due diligence actions for advanced computing items and asks sellers to collect a certification naming the customer's role, intended activity, delivery address and the headquarters of the customer and its ultimate parent.

The headquarters and ultimate-parent check follows the BIS guidance of May 31 2026, which says a license is required to export advanced computing items to an entity headquartered in Country Group D:5 or Macau, or whose ultimate parent is, "even if the entities themselves are located outside Country Group D:5 or Macau."

The Common High Priority List procedure covers the headings a reseller of used hardware handles in ordinary trade. On the BIS Common High Priority List, HS 8517.62 for network equipment is Tier 2 and HS 8471.50 for processing units, which covers servers, is Tier 3.A.

The scrap export procedure covers consent. Since January 1 2025, international shipments of e-waste and scrap, hazardous and non-hazardous, move only with the prior written consent of the importing country (EPA). Exports of cathode ray tubes for recycling need a notice to EPA and an Acknowledgement of Consent before shipment (40 CFR 261.39).

An R2v3 facility already keeps a legal compliance plan under Core Requirement 4 and runs a transboundary shipment check under Appendix A. The program is written to fit both, in the facility's own numbering, so that an auditor reads one document set rather than two.

A facility without R2 gets the same program.

Per-deal review is a check on a single transaction before it ships. It runs the buyer, the item and the destination through the program's own steps and returns a written record of what was checked.

Retained support is the same work on a standing basis, plus staff training and a rewrite when a rule moves. Where we also broker a client's inventory, a review and the sell-through run behind an information wall: two people, two files, two decisions, neither overruled.

The limits of what we do are set out on the practice page.

To start, use the form at /practice-inquiry.