Part 762 of the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) sets the export recordkeeping requirements. Anyone involved in a transaction subject to the EAR must keep the records they create or receive, generally for five years under § 762.6. When BIS asks about a shipment from three years ago, those records are your answer.
Who must keep export records?
Exporters, reexporters and forwarders, and in some cases consignees. Each keeps the records it creates or receives.
What records does Part 762 require?
- contracts, purchase orders and correspondence
- invoices, packing lists, bills of lading and air waybills
- licences, licence applications and their supporting documents
- licence exception records, such as assurances, statements and notices
- end-use and end-user statements, for example BIS-711
- Electronic Export Information filings (AES)
- memoranda, notes and other documents relating to the transaction
Which other records should you keep?
A few more records are worth keeping because they show how each decision was made. The most useful is the classification record: the ECCN, paragraph, reasoning and regulation version. A documented classification shows diligence and lets you defend or revisit the decision (see how to find the ECCN for your product).
Also keep screening results with the lists, dates and how potential matches were resolved, red flag reviews and their outcome, training records and audit results.
How long must export records be kept?
Under § 762.6, records are generally kept for five years from the latest of the date of export, the date of any known reexport or transfer, or the termination of the transaction. Licences with longer lives keep their records longer accordingly. OFAC and the ITAR have their own retention rules, and many companies simply apply the longest.
Can export records be kept electronically?
Yes. Electronic records are acceptable if they are accurate, complete, legible and retrievable (§ 762.5). Scans and system records are fine. What counts is that you can produce them when asked.
Do NLR shipments need records?
Yes. The requirement covers transactions subject to the EAR, licensed or not.
How to organise export records
- Use one reference per transaction, linking all its documents.
- Keep one record per product classification, linked to every shipment of it.
- Make records searchable by customer, product, destination and date.
- Set a retention schedule and a destruction rule for when the period ends.
- Control access so records cannot be altered.
What if records are lost?
Failure to keep required records is itself a violation, and it undermines every other defence. See penalties for EAR violations.
Classification records in ECCN.help
The rule-based ECCN.help Classification Workflow keeps every classification as a dated record of the answers given, the rule that decided the result and the regulation version. That is the classification part of your records, ready to retrieve.
ECCN.help provides research and assistance, not legal advice. Verify every result against the regulation.