India's export control list now names chip manufacturing tools, and shipping or re-exporting them needs a licence

India's export control list for dual use items, the Special Chemicals, Organisms, Materials, Equipment and Technologies (SCOMET) list, was revised by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) on 23 September 2025, to take effect 30 days after issue. The revision filled Category 7, until then reserved, with emerging technology items, among them advanced chip manufacturing tools for lithography, low temperature epitaxy, deposition and dry etching, while Category 8 keeps the general semiconductor equipment entry. A fab or tool supplier that exports, sends for repair, re-exports or transfers technology for these items needs a DGFT authorisation first, files an end user certificate, and keeps records for at least five years.

What changed, and from when?

The Directorate General of Foreign Trade issued Notification No. 31/2025-26 on 23 September 2025. It amends Appendix 3, the list of SCOMET items, in Schedule II (Export Policy) of the 2022 export and import classification, under section 3 read with sections 5 and 14A of the Foreign Trade (Development and Regulation) Act, 1992. Paragraph 3 says it comes into force 30 days from the date of issuance, and its stated effect is that the list "has been updated in line with multilateral export control regimes". Thirty days from 23 September 2025 is 23 October 2025, a date the notification does not itself state.

The 2024 list printed Category 7 as five headings, 7A to 7E, each marked reserved. Chapter 10 of the Foreign Trade Policy 2023 now describes Category 7 as "Certain Emerging Technologies and Related Items", "previously reserved" and "now populated". For a fab, that is the change that matters: equipment once reached only through the general Category 8 entry now has named entries of its own.

Which chip manufacturing items are listed?

Two places in the list speak to a fab. Category 8, sub-category 8B3, entry 8B301, covers equipment for manufacturing semiconductor devices or materials, with specially designed components and accessories. Category 7, sub-category 7B, adds entries 7B301 to 7B307, with software in 7D and technology in 7E.

• 8B301: epitaxial growth equipment (including metal organic chemical vapour deposition reactors), ion implanters above stated beam energies and currents, multi-chamber wafer handling systems, lithography and mask making equipment, and masks for controlled integrated circuits.
• 7B301: step and repeat or step and scan lithography equipment, tested on wavelength, resolution and overlay, as worked through below.
• 7B302 and 7B303: low temperature silicon or silicon germanium epitaxy equipment, with a deposition chamber designed to operate below 958 K (685 degrees Celsius), and two kinds of deposition equipment.
• 7B304 and 7B305: extreme ultraviolet masks, reticles and pellicles, and dry etching equipment meeting stated selectivity, pulsed power, gas switching and chuck tests.
• 7B306 and 7B307: cryogenic wafer probing equipment for 4.5 K or colder, and scanning electron microscopes for imaging semiconductor devices that meet seven stated tests, excluding those built to take a standard wafer carrier of 200 mm or larger.

Software and technology follow. Entry 7D301 controls software specially designed for the use of 7B305 etching equipment, and 7D302 software that extracts layout data from electron microscope images. Entry 7E301 controls technology, including process recipes, for integrated circuits with gate-all- around field-effect transistor structures, but not tool qualification or maintenance. Entry 8E301 controls technology for developing or producing the equipment and materials in 8A3, 8B3 and 8C3.

What does the list assume about used goods, components and technology?

The general notes set three rules that a fab contract has to be read against. Goods in the schedule "include both new and used goods". A non-controlled product is not safe if it incorporates a controlled component that is its principal element and can feasibly be removed or reused. And the General Technology Note for Category 8 keeps controlled technology under control "even when applicable to any uncontrolled item", releasing only public domain technology, basic scientific research, the minimum for patent applications, and the minimum to install, operate or repair items not controlled or already authorised. Where an item fits two headings, the most specific is preferred, and a note under 7B301 applies that to the similar entry 8B301.f.1.

What licence does an exporter need, and from whom?

Chapter 10 of the Foreign Trade Policy 2023 lists the DGFT as licensing authority for Categories 7 and 8. The Handbook of Procedures, paragraph 10.02, permits export of SCOMET items against an authorisation "unless prohibited or specifically exempted". The Handbook of Procedures requires an online application on the DGFT portal with an end user certificate in the prescribed form, the original going to the SCOMET Cell in hard copy.

Several rules reach beyond a plain sale abroad. An imported SCOMET item cannot be exported, even from a customs bonded warehouse, without authorisation. A supply from the domestic tariff area to a special economic zone or export oriented unit needs none, but is reported to the Development Commissioner within one week. The Weapons of Mass Destruction and their Delivery Systems (Prohibition of Unlawful Activities) Act, 2005 applies to exports, transfers, re-transfers, transit, trans-shipment and brokering, and a catch-all paragraph requires an authorisation for an unlisted item the exporter has been told, or has reason to believe, risks diversion to weapons of mass destruction, missiles or military use.

An Inter-Ministerial Working Group in the DGFT decides. It weighs the end user's credentials, the integrity of the supply chain, the risk of diversion to terrorists or non-State actors, the recipient State's export controls, and India's treaty and regime commitments. Members are to "endeavour" to comment within 30 days of the application being forwarded, the group normally meets monthly, and a case it cannot decide goes to the Director General of Foreign Trade.

What does the exporter sign up to?

The end user certificate is the core undertaking. It must certify that the item will be used only for the stated purpose and will not be changed, modified or replicated without the Government's consent, that neither the item nor any replica or derivative will be re-transferred without that consent, and that the end user will facilitate verification. It names every supply chain entity.

• Validity: an authorisation runs for 24 months from issue unless stated otherwise.
• Records: all documents, including those filed with the application, are kept for five years from the date of export or import, or until the authorisation's validity ends, whichever is higher.
• Repeat orders: an authorisation for the same item to the same country or entities must be applied for within three years of the original, and the route excludes software and technology.
• Stock and sale: bulk export to an overseas stockist, with spare parts allowed, excludes technology transfer. The Indian exporter files a statement of exports, onward transfers and stockist inventory as on 31 December by 31 January each year, and failure may bring a penalty or cancellation.
• Repair: separate authorisations cover export for repair or replacement and export after repair in India.
• Disclosure: the DGFT encourages voluntary self disclosure of a breach, and states that it takes strict action under the Foreign Trade Act otherwise.

What does an intra-group transfer look like?

A global authorisation for intra-company transfers (GAICT) lets a group clear a repeating flow once. It covers export and re-export of SCOMET items, software and technology under Category 8 only, except items in Appendix 10M, between an Indian parent and its foreign subsidiary, or an Indian subsidiary and its foreign parent or sister company, under a master services agreement. The applicant must show an internal compliance programme or equivalent certification, allow on-site inspection, and keep the whole supply chain in the countries in Table 1 of the paragraph unless the Working Group allows otherwise. It lasts three years, cannot be revalidated, and is not issued for destinations under United Nations Security Council sanctions.

Onward re-export by the foreign group company is stated to be subject to the export control regulations of the country where that company sits, as in the stock and sale route. India's licence is one layer and the recipient's regime another.

What does the lithography test look like in numbers?

An illustration. The scanners and figures below are hypothetical. The formula is the one printed in the list: the minimum resolvable feature size is the exposure wavelength multiplied by a K factor, divided by the maximum numerical aperture. Entry 7B301 uses a K factor of 0.25, and requires a wavelength of 193 nanometres or longer, a resolvable feature of 45 nanometres or less and a dedicated chuck overlay of 1.50 nanometres or less, all three. Entry 8B301.f.1 uses 0.35, and is met by either a wavelength shorter than 193 nanometres or a resolvable feature of 45 nanometres or less.

Scanner A (nm is nanometres): wavelength 193 nm, numerical aperture 1.35, overlay 1.40 nm
  7B301.b: 193 x 0.25 / 1.35 = 35.7 nm, within 45 nm      all three met
  Result on the words                                     controlled

Scanner B: as A, but overlay 1.60 nm
  7B301.b: 35.7 nm, but overlay above 1.50 nm             not met
  8B301.f.1: 193 x 0.35 / 1.35 = 50.0 nm, above 45 nm     not met
  Result on the words                                     not caught by these two

Scanner C: wavelength 13.5 nm (extreme ultraviolet, 5 to 124 nm band)
  7B301.a and 8B301.f.1.a: shorter than 193 nm            controlled

If the hypothetical fab ships Scanner A to its Japanese subsidiary for calibration, GAICT is unavailable on the words of the paragraph, because 7B301 is a Category 7 entry, so an ordinary authorisation is needed. Say it is issued on 1 March 2027 and the shipment leaves on 1 June 2027. The authorisation lapses after 24 months, in March 2029, while the records period of five years from export runs to 1 June 2032, which is later and governs. A deposition reactor under 8B301.a.2 sent to the same subsidiary can go under a three year GAICT, if the fab holds one and the item is not listed in Appendix 10M.

What remains unsettled?

• The entry into force. The notification says 30 days from issuance without naming the date, and we have read the DGFT copy, which carries a to-be- published legend, not the printed gazette.
• Whether Category 7 items can use the intra-company route. The paragraph on its face covers Category 8 only, and we have not found a notice extending it.
• How a scanner between the two lithography tests is treated. The Note under 7B301 prefers it, but the K factors differ, 0.25 and 0.35, and the list does not say how numerical aperture or overlay is measured.
• Processing time. The 30 day figure is an endeavour for comments, not a deadline.
• Penalties. We have not read the penal provisions of the two Acts.
• Foreign controls. Imported tools may carry the exporting country's licence terms, which we have not read.