The Validated End-User (VEU) program is an innovative trade-facilitating program that enhances high-technology civilian trade between the United States and VEU-eligible countries (currently, China and India).  Use of Authorization VEU reduces the licensing burden on industry by allowing U.S. exporters to ship designated items to pre-approved entities under a general authorization instead of individual export licenses.

Established in 2007, the VEU Program uses a market-based approach to facilitate high-technology trade (see the 2007 rule introducing the VEU program here). The program permits entities in eligible destinations that pass a rigorous interagency review and agree to ongoing compliance obligations to receive, under Authorization VEU, the same items that they could previously receive under individual Commerce Department licenses.

The list of qualified VEUs is in Supplement No. 7 to Part 748 of the Export Administration Regulations (EAR). The list of qualified VEUs can be accessed here. If you would like to subscribe to BIS’s email notification service that will alert you when BIS publishes rules in the Federal Register, including rules implementing changes to the VEU List, please click here.

Currently, any entity in an eligible country may apply for the VEU program.  Exporters and reexporters may also apply on behalf of entities in eligible destinations.  Applicants must clearly demonstrate the end-user’s ability to comply with the requirements of the VEU program.  Such requirements include using the items shipped under Authorization VEU for civil end-uses only and the provision of the end-user’s written consent for the U.S. Government to conduct periodic on-site reviews at VEU facilities. 

No. Items controlled on the Commerce Control List (Part 774 of the EAR) for missile technology (MT) or crime control (CC) reasons are not eligible to be authorized for shipment under Authorization VEU.  Additionally, items exported under Authorization VEU may not be used for any activities described in Part 744 of the EAR.  Accordingly, asserting that an item is being exported pursuant to Authorization VEU when it is destined for use in any of the activities described in Part 744 would constitute a violation of the EAR.

As noted above, only specifically listed, eligible items may be shipped to a VEU pursuant to Authorization VEU.  In accordance with relevant statutory requirements and pursuant to Section 748.15(c) of the EAR, BIS does not authorize items controlled for missile technology (MT) or crime control (CC) reasons under the VEU program.  Additionally, pursuant to Section 748.15(d) of the EAR, items obtained under Authorization VEU may be used only for civil end-uses, and specifically not for any activities described in Part 744 of the EAR. 

A “validated end-user” (VEU) is an entity that has been qualified as a participant in the VEU program.  For each VEU, the EAR lists “eligible destinations,” which are the specific facilities of each VEU that are authorized to receive specified eligible items under Authorization VEU.  A VEU may be listed with one or many eligible facilities, but note that VEUs may own or operate facilities that are not eligible destinations.  Facilities owned or operated by VEUs that are not specifically listed as eligible destinations in Supplement No. 7 to Part 748 of the EAR are not eligible to receive items under Authorization VEU.

Entities that will benefit the most from participation in the VEU program typically are those that place orders for dual-use items classified on the Commerce Control List, such as chemicals and electronic components, on a regular basis with U.S. exporters.  Generally speaking, qualification as a VEU will be most easily obtained by entities that already maintain export compliance systems and are experienced in complying with U.S. export control laws and regulations.

VEU-eligible destinations are currently limited to China and India while the Bureau of Industry and Security completes implementation of the VEU program.  Once the program is fully implemented, the U.S. Government may decide to make participation in the VEU program available in other countries.

End-users in eligible destinations can apply directly to the Department of Commerce for VEU authorization status or exporters or reexporters may file applications on behalf of such end-users.  Prospective VEUs must provide detailed information on how they will ensure that they are in compliance the requirements of the VEU program.  Additional information may be requested by the U.S. Government while a VEU application is being reviewed.

Each application for VEU authorization must include an original statement on letterhead, signed and dated by a person who has legal authority to bind the applicant, certifying that the end-user will comply with all VEU requirements.  Furthermore, the letter must state that the end-user:

Prospective VEUs must provide written certification to the U.S. Government that the items proposed for receipt under Authorization VEU will be used in accordance with VEU program restrictions, and must provide detailed information to verify compliance with the overall requirements of the VEU program (e.g., an internal compliance plan).  Additionally, VEUs are often required to comply with conditions similar to those found in individual licenses, as well as to submit regular reports on their use of the items received under Authorization VEU to the U.S. Government. 

Requests for authorization will be accepted from exporters, reexporters, or end-users who submit to the following addresses:

There is no time limit on VEU status.  However, the U.S. Government may amend or revoke a VEU’s status at any time, as circumstances warrant.  The U.S. Government will revoke qualification as a VEU if sufficient information exists to demonstrate that an organization is no longer capable of, or is not complying with, the requirements of the VEU program.  Changes made to the VEU program and published in the Federal Register, such as eligible destination changes or other program-based amendments, might also impact the VEU status of a particular entity.

Yes, they do, pursuant to §748.15(a)(4) of the EAR.  Once in receipt of information regarding a material change, BIS provides it to the interagency End-User Review Committee for review and discussion.  The End-User Review Committee may decide to revoke or amend VEU authorization based on such reports.

Yes. VEUs can request amendments to their authorizations at any time.  Such requests should be submitted to BIS and should include a complete explanation of the requested amendment and of the basis for it.

The list of qualified VEUs (found in Supplement No. 8 to Part 748 of the EAR) is updated on an as-needed basis to accommodate the qualification of new entities in the VEU program as well as amendments to existing VEU authorizations.

During the first three years of the program (2007-2010), the Bureau of Industry and Security interacted on a regular basis with participants in the VEU program.  In addition to e-mail and telephone contact, BIS and certain of its interagency colleagues held meetings with VEUs and visited VEU facilities.

No. Authorization VEU can also be used for the reexport and transfer (in-country) of qualified items from a location outside of the United States to a VEU.

No. Only the facilities at the addresses specifically listed in Supplement No. 8 to Part 748 of the EAR are eligible end-users for items shipped under Authorization VEU. 

Yes. Authorization VEU is available for export from the United States, reexport, and transfer (in-country) of the items specified for each VEU in the list of “Eligible Items (by ECCN)” found in Supplement No. 8 to Part 748 of the EAR. If the item was legally exported or reexported to an eligible destination and is an “eligible item” for another VEU, it may be transferred within the same country to the other VEU’s eligible facilities under Authorization VEU

No, not under Authorization VEU.  If the item is not an “eligible item,” Authorization VEU is not applicable.  If the item requires a license for export, reexport, or transfer (in-country) to the VEU, such a shipment will require a different kind of authorization (e.g., an individual license or a license exception, if available).  VEUs are only authorized to receive the items that are specifically listed by Export Control Classification Number (ECCN) in Supplement No. 8 to Part 748 of the EAR under Authorization VEU. All other items are subject to standard EAR licensing requirements.

The guidance in §750.7(i) of the EAR (“Terminating license conditions”) applies to items authorized for shipment under Authorization VEU.  If an item authorized for shipment under Authorization VEU as an “eligible item” no longer requires a license for export, reexport, or transfer (in-country) to VEU eligible destinations as the result of a change to the Commerce Control List (Part 774 of the EAR), then the conditions and limitations of the VEU program and of the VEU’s specific VEU authorization no longer apply to the shipment or to the ongoing use by the VEU of the affected item as of the date of the final publication of the rule implementing the lessening or elimination of export control requirements.

The End-User Review Committee (ERC), composed of representatives of the Departments of State, Defense, Energy, and Commerce, and other agencies as appropriate, is responsible for determining whether to add to, to remove from, or otherwise amend the list of VEUs and associated eligible items. The Department of Commerce chairs the ERC.

Yes, applicants can ask the ERC to reconsider decisions with respect to the disposition of their own applications, and VEUs may ask the ERC to reconsider decisions with respect to amendments of their own VEU authorizations.  The ERC asks that any such request be made in writing and include information additional to that already provided to the ERC and specific to the basis for the request for reconsideration.

Yes. The U.S. Government consults on a regular basis with the governments of both China and India.  Prospective VEU applicants should be aware that the governments of VEU-eligible countries may have their own requirements specific to the VEU program and application thereof.

For purposes of the EAR, a commercial shipment to a U.S. Embassy located outside the United States is an export or reexport to the country in which the U.S. Embassy is located (the host country). For example, a shipment from the United States to the U.S. Embassy in Germany is an export to Germany. BIS may require a license under the EAR for such an export, based on the classification of the items involved and the license requirements applicable to the particular host country.

Yes. These shipments are exports because they are being shipped to destinations outside the United States. License requirements are those that are applicable to the destination. Certain license exceptions may also be available.

Like shipments to U.S. embassies overseas, shipments to non-U.S. Embassies outside the United States are exports or reexports to the host country. For example, an export from the United States to the French Embassy in Germany is an export to Germany. License requirements are those that are applicable to the host country. There may also be relevant license exception availability (see below).

For purposes of the EAR, shipments to embassies abroad are considered exports or reexports to the host country. License requirements for exports or reexports to the home country of the embassy are not directly applicable. However, exporters are reminded to pay particular attention to the presence of “red flags” as described in Supplement No. 3 to part 732 of the EAR. Information about a proposed transaction may suggest that the embassy is not the true ultimate destination of the shipment. For purposes of the EAR, the export or reexport of items subject to the EAR that will be transshipped in a country or countries to a new country or are intended for reexport to the new country are deemed to be exports to the new country.

Yes, exports to non-U.S. embassies outside the United States may be eligible for License Exception GOV as described in Section 740.11 of the EAR.

Most transactions involving the export or reexport of items subject to the EAR to host countries that are subject to multilateral or unilateral economic sanctions require a license, as described in the specific regulatory provisions relevant to each such destination, generally found in Parts 742 and/or 746 of the EAR. However, if a host country is subject to economic sanctions implemented by the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Controls (OFAC), regulations maintained by OFAC may also restrict the transaction. Exporters are advised to contact OFAC for further clarification. OFAC may be contacted at 1-800-540-6322.

For purposes of the EAR, shipments to embassies abroad are considered exports or reexports to the host country, even in the case of an embassy of a country subject to multilateral or unilateral economic sanctions. However, regulations maintained by OFAC may also restrict a transaction of this nature. Exporters are advised to contact OFAC for further clarification. OFAC may be contacted at 1-800-540-6322.

Go to the On-line Registration Page where you will be instructed on how to obtain a CIN.

To provide for secure data transmission https is the only supported protocol (you cannot log in via http://).

PINs are no longer required in setting up user accounts so the term “PIN holders” is no longer used. User accounts are now referred to as “Users.”

Due to the implementation of the on-line registration system, certification letters are no longer required and companies no longer need to claim what type of company they are during the registration process (all new registrants are considered to be First Party).

A First Party is an exporter and/or company that submit an application, classification request, and/or notification to BIS for their company.

A Third Party is an exporter and/or company that submit an application, classification request, and/or notification to BIS on behalf of another company.

The information will be collected during the Work Item submission process. An indicator has been added within SNAP-R allowing every company to submit Work Items as either a First or Third Party.

A Work Item is one of the four types of submissions that can be made through SNAP-R: applications for export licenses, applications for re-export licenses, requests for commodity classifications, and requests for agriculture exception notices.

SNAP-R will use your email address to notify you of any messages sent to you by BIS concerning Work Items you have submitted. These include acknowledgements of the receipt of your Work Item submissions, requests for additional information, and validation and license approval notices. The texts of these messages are not included in the emails, you must log into SNAP-R to view them.

All communications between your browser and SNAP-R are encrypted, as are all communications between BIS employees and SNAP-R. Your browser should indicate that it is communicating using the secure HTTP protocol (“https”). In Internet Explorer 6.0, this is indicated by an icon of a closed padlock on your web browser’s status bar at the bottom right of the browser window. For other browsers, see the help documentation to determine how it indicates that secure communication is taking place.

You may contact the SNAP-R Help Desk via e-mail at [email protected] or phone at (202) 482-2227.

A SNAP-R Account Administrator has the authority to do the following:

No. The SNAP-R Account Administrator does not have access or authority over work-items.

No. There is no limit to the number of account administrators.

As per Section 748 of the Export Administration Regulations (EAR), BIS set forth the duty and responsibility of keeping accounts current to the user. Therefore set up a new role of Account Administrator within SNAP-R for companies to do so and have some control on who is allowed to make changes to their own information.

BIS established a deadline of 120 days from the effective date of the final rule (see above) for someone from a company who had registered using the prior paper-process to accept the role of account administrator.

See above.

In order to use SNAP-R there must be at least one account administrator.

For preexisting accounts, as an additional security measure, these three functions will not be available for the first two weeks from the date the initial account administrator role is filled. BIS wanted to make sure companies had enough time to correct rogue employees from claiming those rights and locking other users out of the system. If a password needs to be reset or accounts need to be terminated in the interim, contact the SNAP-R Help Desk via e-mail at [email protected] or phone at (202) 482-2227. Updates to email addresses will need to wait for the two weeks to pass, as the SNAP-R Help Desk does not have authority to update information due to system security measures.

If possible, you can have them update a current user to be an administrator and then the new administrator can remove the administrator functions from the user who initially claimed the role. – or – You can contact the SNAP-R Help Desk via e-mail at [email protected] or phone at (202) 482-2227 for assistance.

Contact the SNAP-R Help Desk via e-mail at [email protected] or phone at (202) 482-2227 and they will re-enable the “Claim Administrator” function, then another user will need to log into SNAP-R and claim the role of administrator.

If you already have an Applicant ID and PIN, you do not need to reregister as long as you do so by June 9, 2011 [refer to 748 of the Export Administration Regulations (EAR)]. To obtain access to SNAP-R, click on the Create SNAP-R Login ID and Password link, located on the SNAP-R homepage. You will then need to enter your Applicant ID and PIN, and select a Login ID and password.

Check with your SNAP-R Account Administrator for assistance.

Check with your SNAP-R Account Administrator for assistance. If your SNAP-R Account Administrator is not available, contact the Office of Exporter Services at 202-482-4811, 949-660-0144 or 408-998-8806.

Yes. From the Work Item overview page for the Work Item in question, click on the "Manage User Rights" link. From this link you can assign permissions for any Work Item under your control to any other SNAP-R users within your company, regardless of whether or not that Work Item has been submitted. More information is available from the ‘SNAP-R Manual for Exporters’, which is available from the SNAP-R home page (the page displayed after you first log into the system). A direct link to the relevant section of that document is provided on the "Manage User Rights" page.

Q. An employee who was an active SNAP-R user has suddenly left the company. The EAR requires exporters to inform BIS in the event of the termination of a SNAP-R user so that the user account can be disabled. However, we need to be able to access all draft and submitted Work Items created by that user. How will SNAP-R address this issue?

Your account administrator can update your account with the company’s new address within the SNAP-R Administration module.

BIS no longer requires you to obtain a new CIN; all you need to do is have the account administrator for your account update the company’s address information via the SNAP-R Administration module.

BIS no longer requires you to obtain a new CIN; all you need to do is have the account administrator for your account update the company’s name via the SNAP-R Administration module.

BIS no longer requires you to obtain a new CIN; all you need to do is have the account administrator for your account update the company’s name via the SNAP-R Administration module.

Simply have the account administrator for your account update the company’s name in the SNAP-R Administration module.

You need to register the company via the on-line registration process. Though you will be assigned the roll of account administrator for the company and given instructions on setting up the user account within SNAP-R, you don’t necessarily need to complete that step of the process to obtain a CIN (though it is advised to do so in the event that the company moves and you need to update the information at some later point in time).

The email may have been flagged as spam so try the following in order:

There is an expiration of five (5) days for each of the following actions:

BIS sends out three types of messages pertaining to individual Work Items:

It was determined that the Licensing Officers do not want open ended message threads between them and Exporter Users. For each message sent from the Licensing Officer, there is only one reply allowed from an Exporter. The Licensing Officer must initiate the message. When the Work Item has been validated, then the message flow will be closed (even if the Exporter has not replied to a message from the Licensing Officer). Note: The Licensing Officer may initiate a new message after the Work Item has been validated and the exporter may reply.

At this present time, BIS only accepts PDF (Portable Document Format) documents. This requirement guarantees that BIS employees can view any submitted document, since BIS does not have access to the numerous specialized pieces of software that exporters or manufacturers use to generate their documentation. In addition, the possibility of a virus being transmitted with formats like Microsoft Word poses a security concern.

Yes, but not directly. You can contact the Office of Export Services at 202-482-4811, 949-660-0144 or 408-998-8806 who will notify the BIS licensing officer assigned to the application (case) and inform them of the problem. The licensing officer will subsequently mark your application “Returned without Action” (RWA), which is a rejection of your application without prejudice to future resubmissions of that application. You can then copy your application, correct the error(s), and resubmit it to BIS.

Yes, but not directly. You can contact the Office of Export Services at 202-482-4811, 949-660-0144 or 408-998-8806 who will notify the BIS licensing officer assigned to the application (case) and inform them of the problem. The licensing officer will subsequently send you a message requesting the documentation. You can then attach the documentation to your response.

Yes. From the ‘Create Work Item’ page, click on the button labeled ‘Search to Reuse’, and search for the Work Item you want to reuse. In the search result page, click the ‘Reuse’ link associated to that Work Item. On the ‘Copy and Reuse Work Item’ page, choose and enter a new Reference Number (as if you were creating a new Work Item from scratch) and click on the ‘Create’ button. A new Work Item will be created with the same content as the parent copy. Remember to update the new Work Item with any changes before submitting it to BIS. Please note that documents attached to the original Work Item are not copied and attached to the new Work Item by default.

Yes. From the Work Item overview page, click on the ‘View [and Manage] Supporting Documents’ link and then click on ‘Search Documents for Reuse’ to search for an existing document. In the search results table, click on the ‘Reuse’ button next to the document that you wish to attach to the current Work Item, so you can reuse a document previously submitted.

Q. I made changes to a Work Item before leaving my desk for an extended period of time. When I came back and I clicked on a button, my browser returned to the SNAP-R homepage. What happened? Can I recover the changes I made? Were they saved?

There are several types of help available:

You can contact the SNAP-R Help Desk via e-mail at [email protected] or phone at (202) 482-2227. They will be able to answer whatever questions you might have about the process of submitting Work Items through SNAP-R. If you have encountered an error, please be sure that you tell them what you were doing before the error message was displayed. This will help us to correct these problems in a more time-efficient manner.

Once you have submitted your Work Item to BIS, you should check your Work Item acknowledgment queue to obtain your BIS status. A Work Item that has been successfully registered into the BIS licensing system will be assigned a seven character Application Control Number (ACN). The format of the ACN is the alpha character ‘Z’ followed by six numerals. When contacting BIS regarding a registered Work Item submission, please only communicate the ACN. The application reference number should only be referenced if your Work Item submission is rejected by BIS as denoted in the Work Item acknowledgment.

This information should be provided only if your original application was Returned without Action. Do not use Block 10, if your submission was previously rejected without being registered by BIS.

If already assigned by BIS, obtain the CIN from the First Party (exporter or re-exporter) on whose behalf they are submitting the applications, or have the First Party register the company via the online registration process to obtain the CIN.

Foreign parties are not authorized to submit export license applications as this Work Item type is only permissible by a domestic US party. A foreign party subsidiary cannot submit an Export License Application on behalf of their US parent company.

If you receive a license that has reporting requirements to BIS, you will receive a SNAP-R message at the same time as the license, alerting you of this report requirement.  Submit your report(s) to BIS by sending a SNAP-R reply message.  As necessary, you can scan and attach pdf documents to your SNAP-R reply.  If the requirement is for multiple reports (i.e. – every 6 months), BIS will send you a SNAP-R message response acknowledging receipt of the first report. This SNAP-R message should be used to respond with your next report when due.

In Safari (on the Mac) when viewing the license on screen the user can hold down the “Option” key and hit the “Return” key.  This should download the file to their Downloads folder.

 
You will then be able to use Adobe Acrobat Reader to print it out.