A controlled AI-hardware export to China works only when two governments agree. The United States has to license it. China has to admit it. Fitter Law prepares and coordinates both sides of that filing.
Attorney advertising. Not legal advice. Fitter Law is not part of the U.S. government, the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), or any export-control authority, and cannot influence or guarantee any government decision. License requirements depend on the specific item and parties and must be confirmed per transaction. Our role is to improve the odds of a successful, compliant export by identifying a transaction's strengths and weaknesses, preparing the supporting reports, and strengthening any application.
The two-gate reality
Since January 2026, the legal path to send advanced AI servers to China has been open, but narrow. It runs through two separate approvals, and clearing one does nothing if the other says no.
On January 15, 2026, BIS issued a final rule (2026-00789) moving H200-class exports to China and Macau from a presumption of denial to case-by-case review. A license is still required, and any approval is discretionary. The rule sets specific conditions a filing must meet to qualify.
A U.S. license does not admit the hardware into China. The NDRC reviews these imports case by case, with its own expectations about how and where the hardware is used. The Chinese gate keeps its own timeline and its own discretion.
A yes on one side is worthless without a yes on the other. The two filings have to be built to line up, and that coordination is where the work lives.
What qualifies
The hardware defines the pathway. It covers a specific performance band, and it stops there.
The H200, AMD's MI325X, and lesser or equivalent chips below the control thresholds. These are classified under ECCN 3A090.a, with Total Processing Performance under 21,000 and total DRAM bandwidth under 6,500 GB/s.
Blackwell-generation parts, including the B300, sit above those thresholds and stay under a presumption of denial. They are not on this pathway. If your order is for B300-class hardware, we will tell you so directly rather than file something that cannot clear.
Chips manufactured in Taiwan are still caught by the Foreign Direct Product Rule. The compliant route sends them through the United States for third-party testing before they continue on.
How the program works
The process moves from verifying the buyer, to connecting with a U.S. distributor, to a full submission with the BIS application. Fitter Law handles the legal work at each stage and keeps the U.S. filing in step with the China-side requirements.
You engage Fitter Law. We authenticate your intent, review your supporting reports, and confirm proof of funds. We then issue the US Export Readiness Certificate on Fitter Law letterhead, stating what we collected and verified.
The Certificate records completed diligence. It is not a government approval, and it does not promise one.
You present the Certificate to U.S. distributors to negotiate and purchase the AI servers. It shows a distributor that an attorney has verified your identity, intent, and funds before any commitment is made. That is the starting point a serious distributor needs.
Once a deal is reached, the distributor instructs Fitter Law to prepare the full submission. A Fitter Law team visits the site and confirms it can handle the order size to the standard the BIS application requires. The report is built to address what BIS actually weighs: performance-threshold analysis, sufficient-supply and shipment-ratio analysis, a review of physical, cyber, compute, and access controls, and the end-use and end-user governance the rule demands.
We circulate the draft report and application to you and the distributor for review, with suggestions that may improve the odds of approval, and then submit the final package with the BIS application.
Throughout, Fitter Law coordinates both gates so the U.S. filing and the China-side requirements are built to match, instead of leaving you to reconcile two processes that were never designed to talk to each other.
What the BIS filing must show
Case-by-case review runs on evidence. BIS weighs the facts of each transaction, not the headline policy, and unsupported assertions do not clear. The Fitter Law report is built around the four areas the rule turns on.
Performance-threshold analysis confirming the hardware operates below the control limits (ECCN 3A090.a), shipment-ratio tracking against the volume cap, and the sufficient-supply attestation the rule requires. These threshold conditions come first.
A review of the site's physical, cyber, compute, and access controls, measured against what BIS expects on know-your-customer procedures and on preventing unauthorized remote access. BIS wants controls it can watch working on the ground.
The rule requires independent, U.S.-headquartered third-party testing of the hardware before export. The report documents the site verification and testing in a form built to give a regulator credible assurance.
Confirmation that the hardware is not bound for a prohibited end use or end user, with governance over how it is used, including controls on infrastructure-as-a-service, training, and inference. This is where many filings draw the most scrutiny.
Fitter Law performs each of these as part of the report and the filing, so the application arrives with the evidence BIS is looking for rather than assertions it will have to question.
For U.S. distributors
If you distribute AI hardware and a prospective China buyer approaches you, the US Export Readiness Certificate tells you an attorney has already verified that buyer's identity, intent, and proof of funds. You see documented diligence before you commit inventory or time.
When a deal is reached, you instruct Fitter Law to prepare the full report and BIS application. We handle the site verification, assemble the submission, and route it to you and the buyer for review before filing. Coordinated counsel on both sides of the transaction lowers the chance of a filing that stalls or draws questions you did not anticipate.
We do not promise an approval. We prepare the strongest, most complete filing the facts support.
Conditions and realities
This pathway carries constraints that are easy to underestimate. We would rather you know them now than find them mid-deal.
Qualifying filings carry government-imposed conditions: third-party testing of the hardware, a government revenue-share charge, per-firm purchase caps, and limits on volume. We walk through the specific figures and how they apply to your order in consultation.
China's expectations lean toward a training-oriented use of the hardware, and in practice there is pressure to keep the servers in Hong Kong. Hong Kong's data-center and power capacity is a real constraint on how quickly licensed hardware can be deployed.
Both governments decide case by case, and no one can guarantee the outcome. Fitter Law's role is to present a filing that is complete, credible, and built to improve your odds.
Why Fitter Law
Most U.S. distributors won't touch a China AI-hardware deal. The failure rate is high, the diligence is expensive, and the political exposure is real, so the deal dies before it starts. The established trade-controls practices serve the large exporters, the NVIDIAs, AMDs, and big distributors, and they file from the seller's side.
Fitter Law works the other side. We open this market to the smaller distributor, because the buyer carries the cost and the risk from the beginning. The buyer funds the verification and the report up front, so a distributor can look at a documented, site-verified deal without fronting the time, the expense, or the political risk of attempting one that may not clear.
From there, Fitter Law prepares the U.S. submission, documents the buyer diligence a distributor needs, verifies the site to the standard the BIS application requires, and keeps the U.S. and China requirements in step from the first filing to the last. The work is built to improve the odds of approval. It is not a promise of one.
Frequently asked questions
Yes, through a specific pathway. A January 15, 2026 BIS final rule moved H200-class exports to China and Macau from a presumption of denial to case-by-case review when the filing meets certain conditions. A U.S. license is required, and separately China must admit the hardware through its own review. Both approvals are discretionary.
It means the Bureau of Industry and Security evaluates each license application on its own facts rather than starting from an automatic denial. Qualifying for that review requires meeting the conditions set out in the rule. Case-by-case review improves the odds of approval compared to a presumption of denial. It does not guarantee one.
No. The two gates are independent. A U.S. license clears the export on the American side, but China reviews the import separately through the National Development and Reform Commission, with its own conditions and timeline. The hardware clears only when both agree.
The pathway covers the H200, AMD MI325X, and lesser or equivalent chips below the control thresholds (ECCN 3A090.a, Total Processing Performance under 21,000 and DRAM bandwidth under 6,500 GB/s). The B300 and other Blackwell-generation parts sit above those thresholds and remain under a presumption of denial. They are not on this pathway.
It is a document Fitter Law issues on its letterhead after we verify a buyer's identity, intent, supporting reports, and proof of funds. The buyer uses it to approach U.S. distributors. It records completed diligence. It is not a government approval. You get one by starting the buyer verification process with Fitter Law.
The rule sets several threshold conditions. The chip must operate below the control limits (performance-threshold analysis), the exporter must certify sufficient U.S. supply and stay within the shipment-ratio and volume caps, the hardware must pass independent U.S. third-party testing, and the ultimate consignee must maintain know-your-customer procedures and controls against unauthorized remote access, with governance over end use and end user. An application has to show this with evidence.
BIS looks for provable, operational controls: physical, cyber, compute, and access controls at the site, know-your-customer screening, and prevention of unauthorized remote access, together with end-use and end-user governance covering infrastructure-as-a-service, training, and inference. Fitter Law reviews these as part of the report so the filing reflects controls that actually exist on the ground.
There is no fixed timeline. Both the U.S. and China reviews are discretionary and case by case, and timing has varied considerably since the rule took effect. We give you a realistic picture for your specific situation in consultation rather than a number we cannot stand behind.
Often, in practice. China's current approach has pushed licensed hardware toward Hong Kong, which sits outside the mainland customs border. Hong Kong's limited data-center and power capacity is a genuine constraint, and it affects how a realistic order is structured.
If you are a buyer, the first step is the US Export Readiness Certificate. If you are a distributor with a buyer in hand, we can move to the full report and filing. Either way, begin with the Certificate.
Attorney advertising. Not legal advice. Fitter Law is not part of the U.S. government, the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), or any export-control authority, and cannot influence or guarantee any government decision. License requirements depend on the specific item and parties and must be confirmed per transaction. Our role is to improve the odds of a successful, compliant export by identifying a transaction's strengths and weaknesses, preparing the supporting reports, and strengthening any application.