- with Senior Company Executives and HR
Doing business in Syria has become a little easier. Combined efforts by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in removing comprehensive Syria sanctions and the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) in relaxing Export Administration Regulations (EAR) controls have eased certain restrictions, particularly for tangible items.
Still, companies must be careful when offering items or services to or in Syria, especially intangible cloud-based software and services. Several specific restrictions continue to apply, including under the EAR and the State Department's International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).
Accordingly, accurate export jurisdiction and classification analyses remain vital, as do screenings of end uses, end users, and other parties to a transaction. For online-based services, this diligence also affects decisions on whether and how to apply geolocation screening and access restrictions.
Sanctions and Other End-User Based Restrictions
The comprehensive Syria sanctions (formerly the Syrian Sanctions Regulations, at 31 C.F.R. part 542) have been rescinded following the President's Executive Order (EO) 14312 of June 30, 2025, which terminated the national emergency on which the regulations were based.
Although the United States no longer maintains country-wide, sanctions-based legal barriers to providing services to Syria, specific controls remain that restrict the provision of items to Syria, including software or cloud-based services.
List-based sanctions, for example, have expanded under the same EO 14312, which now blocks all property of a person determined to have engaged in certain actions relating to the former Assad regime, serious human rights abuses, drug trafficking, abduction of Americans, or those who generally threaten stability in Syria. Any such designated person will appear on the regularly updated list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons (SDN List).
Besides the SDN List, the Consolidated Screening List (CSL) includes other sanctioned-person lists, as well as the BIS-maintained lists (the Entity List, the Unverified List, the Denied Persons List, and the Military End-User List), all of which have end-user based restrictions. Screening remains essential, even for cloud-based services or software.
But that kind of screening is tricky as OFAC's 50% Rule and BIS's new and similar 50% Affiliates Rule impose end-user restrictions based on whether an entity's direct or indirect owners are themselves designated. Screening for ownership or affiliation is already a big lift for exports of tangible items, and it can be much more cumbersome for online and intangible items.
Apart from these end-user based restrictions, other barriers also remain for item-specific exports under the EAR and ITAR.
EAR Exports to Syria of Commercial and Dual-Use Items
- U.S.-origin items not specifically controlled on the Commerce
Control List (CCL) (i.e., "EAR99" items) may now be
exported to Syria (or reexported from abroad) under a new license
exception, Syria Peace and Prosperity (SPP), subject to
restrictions regarding:
- Certain prohibited end users and end uses (throughout EAR part 744);
- General restrictions in EAR § 740.2; and
- Prohibited transactions with persons or entities designated on the SDN List with certain identifiers, or potentially owned by such designees under the 50% Affiliates Rule.
- Other list-based restrictions (like the Entity List, Denied Persons List, and Unverified List) still apply across the EAR to restrict all license exceptions, including SPP, and not all EAR license exceptions are available for Syria. (See EAR § 746.9(b)). A more permissive policy, however, now applies to the export of items that require licensing.
- Syria remains in Country Group E:1, meaning there are still restrictions on knowing exports, reexports, or in-country transfers to any Syrian military-intelligence end users or for a miliary-intelligence end use in Syria (see definitions at EAR § 744.22(f)).
- EAR license requirements remain for deemed exports or reexports of any CCL-controlled dual-use technology or source code to a Syrian foreign national, wherever located.
ITAR Exports to Syria of Critical Military or Intelligence Items Continue to Be Prohibited
Because Syria remains a proscribed country in § 126.1(d)(1) of the ITAR, items subject to the ITAR cannot be exported or reexported to Syria unless a specific ITAR provision overrides the general prohibition.
Mainstream cloud-based services and software are largely not affected by export or deemed export restrictions on ITAR-controlled technical data. But the ITAR does restrict technical data and software required for the operation of a defense article, among other defense articles and services.
Export Jurisdiction and Classification Analyses for Software, Technology, and Information Are Now More Important for Those Interested in Syrian Business
The upshot of these changes is that, while country-based sanctions are no longer a bar to providing cloud-based services or software in or to Syria, export restrictions remain that could impact the export of products, software, or related technology. These restrictions (and any potential exceptions to them) turn on whether an item (tangible or not) is designated EAR99 or is instead described on the CCL or the ITAR's U.S. Munitions List. Restrictions also depend on an items' end uses, end users, and other parties to the transaction (now including certain affiliates per the 50% Affiliates Rule).
Overall, providing cloud-based services and software to Syria is possible, but it requires diligence, a good understanding of the remaining and new restrictions, and a well-considered risk-reward matrix.
The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.
