What is the BIS Entity List?
The BIS Entity List is a U.S. export-control list in the Export Administration Regulations. It names persons, organizations, or high-diversion-risk addresses that BIS says raise national-security or foreign-policy concerns. A listing can impose license requirements, limit license exceptions, and affect exports, reexports, or in-country transfers involving controlled items.
Full name: Bureau of Industry and Security Entity List
Short explanation
The Entity List is Supplement No. 4 to Part 744 of the Export Administration Regulations. BIS uses it to publish specific parties and high-risk addresses subject to additional export, reexport, and transfer controls. It is not the same as OFAC sanctions or SAM.gov exclusions: it is an export-control restriction that depends on the item, transaction, party, and license policy in the entry.
Related use case: Federal public-records hub
How it’s used
- Export-control screening: teams look up Entity List entries before transactions involving items subject to the Export Administration Regulations.
- Public-records context: the Entity List sits beside sanctions, exclusion, and enforcement lists, but each source family has different legal effects and source fields.
- Fonteum uses the term to distinguish export-control restrictions from procurement exclusions, sanctions-list records, and ordinary company-register identifiers.
Frequently asked questions
- Who maintains the BIS Entity List?
- The Bureau of Industry and Security in the U.S. Department of Commerce publishes the Entity List under the Export Administration Regulations.
- Is the BIS Entity List the same as an OFAC sanctions list?
- No. The BIS Entity List is an export-control list. OFAC sanctions lists are Treasury-administered sanctions sources with different legal authorities.
- What does an Entity List entry do?
- An entry can add license requirements, limit license exceptions, and set license-review policies for covered exports, reexports, or transfers.
Explore in Fonteum
How Fonteum sources, resolves, and publishes data tied to this term.