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Calling all UK dual-use exporters: time to start thinking about the annual update to the export control list

Historically, the UK Strategic Export Control List has tended to be updated more or less on an annual basis. New goods, software and technologies become subject to licensing requirements, the detail of some controls is changed and some items are removed from the scope of regulation. It’s important that exporters working with new and emerging technologies keep abreast of developments so that they aren’t caught out when the regulations change.

Recently published proposals to update the EU’s dual-use control list offer clues to forthcoming changes to the corresponding UK list. What do they tell us, and what should dual-use exporters in the UK do?

On 14th September, the European Commission adopted a delegated regulation updating the EU Dual-use Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2021/821), which implements the European Union’s Annex I dual-use list. The regulation provides for new controls over a range of dual-use items, featuring a number of emerging technologies. 

The list of proposed EU updates includes:

• Semiconductor manufacturing and testing equipment and materials (e.g. Atomic Layer Deposition equipment for molybdenum and ruthenium, equipment for the development and inspection of Extreme Ultra-Violet Masks, single wafer cleaning equipment);
• Advanced computing integrated circuits and electronic assemblies, including integrated circuits incorporating one or more digital processing units;
• Ceramic Matrix Composites (CMCs) reinforced with mullite for high-temperature applications;
• Rotary encoders based on inductive sensing technology;
• Additive manufacturing equipment for energetic materials;
• Chemical Vapour Deposition equipment for the production of silicon carbide fibres; and
• Technology required for the development of axial compressors for gas turbine engines.

These changes now undergo a standard two-month scrutiny period by the European Council and the European Parliament, following which they will enter into force.

You can read more about the proposed updates by accessing the EU Directorate-General for Trade and Economic Security’s press release on the subject here:-  https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/news/2026-update-eu-control-list-dual-use-items-2026-09-14_en

For greater detail on the proposals, read the Comprehensive Change Note Summary here:-https://circabc.europa.eu/ui/group/654251c7-f897-4098-afc3-6eb39477797e/library/109c4290-bcf5-4fc1-aee4-f33946722dfb/details?download=true

How might these changes to the EU dual-use list affect exporters in the UK?

The EU Dual-use regulation applies directly to Northern Ireland as a result of the withdrawal agreement struck between the UK and EU following Brexit. For exporters based there (and subject to any input from the European Council or Parliament during the scrutiny period), these changes to the Annex I dual-use list will come into force in mid-November.

For exporters in Great Britain (i.e. England, Scotland and Wales), the position is slightly different. The EU Dual-use regulation doesn’t apply in Great Britain, however there is good reason to believe that these EU updates will be influential on the UK authorities when they next come to update the UK Strategic Export Control List.

Partly, this is a result of the UK’s status as a former member of the EU. One consequence of that is that the Annex I dual-use list continues to apply in all parts of the UK, not just in Northern Ireland. However, since Brexit, the Annex I dual-use list is implemented in Great Britain not by EU regulation, but by the Assimilated Dual-use regulation (Council Regulation (EC) No 428/2009). The Assimilated Dual-use regulation started out as an EU regulation, but is now part of UK law and is updated regularly by the UK government.

(The Annex I dual-use list is not the only example in the UK export control regime of an export control list being implemented using a combination of domestic UK and EU regulation in different parts of the country: the Non-military Firearms List and the Human Rights List are also implemented in Northern Ireland directly by EU regulations.)

Failure to replicate changes to the EU Dual-use regulation in the Assimilated Dual-use regulation could result in a divergence between the regulation applying to exporters in Northern Ireland and that applying to their counterparts in Great Britain. Regulatory divergence is a prospect that the UK government has been keen to avoid on previous occasions, and that’s a good reason why these updates to the EU Annex I dual-use list are likely a good guide to the next UK Annex I updates.

The origin of these proposed changes is also relevant. The EU’s delegated regulation explains that the Annex I dual-use list needs to stay current in order to ensure, among other things, that EU Member States (and in some cases the EU itself) comply with their international security obligations. In the export control space, those include obligations as members of the multilateral export control regimes. These international regimes include the Australia Group, the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Missile Technology Control Regime, the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the Wassenaar Arrangement, each of which works in different ways to promote responsible transfers of conventional weaponry and the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

The delegated regulation brings the EU Annex I dual-use list in line with recent decisions taken by the Wassenaar Arrangement, the Australia Group and the Nuclear Suppliers Group. It also reflects additional commitments accepted by EU Member States to implement controls in the absence of agreement on particular matters at multilateral level.

The UK is also a member of these multilateral regimes and shares the same obligations. It too has been willing in previous years to implement new controls alongside like minded nations in situations where the members of regimes as a whole have failed to agree.

So the common origin of proposed new controls and a preference against regulatory divergence within the UK may be important. Is that all I need to know?

Not quite. Four of the six other strategic export control lists in the UK, including the UK Military List and the UK Dual-use List, are implemented exclusively by domestic UK regulation across all four home nations. The UK Dual-use List in particular is a ‘national list’, so while it may sometimes include measures agreed internationally through the multilateral export control regimes, its principal role is to allow for UK controls that apply uniquely to exports from the UK.

In addition to the Annex I dual-use list updates, we may also see changes to one or more of the ‘UK only’ lists, and those remain harder to second guess at this point.

What happens next?

The updates to the EU Annex I dual-use list will come into force as soon as the delegated regulation is published in the Official Journal of the European Union, likely to be around mid-November. Exporters in Northern Ireland should monitor the EU’s Official Journal for publication of the delegated regulation.

Updates to the UK Strategic Export Control List, including the UK’s version of the Annex I dual-use list, will be made by secondary legislation, some time after the EU updates come into force. Keep an eye on the UK government’s Notices to Exporters webpages (see here:- https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/notices-to-exporters)  for advance notice of the secondary legislation and a summary of the changes across all UK control lists.

And in the meantime…

All UK exporters should consider taking the following steps ahead of the updates to both the EU and UK lists:-

• Review whether your goods, software and technology are affected by the proposed updates.
• Think about whether you need to update any of your internal compliance procedures to reflect the proposed changes.
• Look out for the confirmation of changes to the EU and UK lists and be ready to engage with the Export Control Joint Unit for any export licence applications that you need to make.

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