No longer required to manually screen foreign entities listed in Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) license applications, BIS’s roll-out of an automated government-intelligence screening tool last fall has increased both the number of license applications BIS considers and the number it rejects or returns to the license applicant without action.
In prior years before BIS’s Common Screening System was available, the Bureau processed about 800 license applications per year, according to one U.S. Department of Commerce official speaking to industry on condition of anonymity. In less than six months with automated screening, BIS has reviewed 17,500 license applications since October 2024. Moving away from time-consuming manual screening to the Common Screening System is “one of the most important improvements we’ve done,” according to the Commerce official.
With increased capacity has come increased license application denial and in requests from BIS to license applicants for (typically) more information. A Commerce official similarly requesting anonymity noted that a 1% rejection/more information needed rate was typical in the past, meaning that (for example) only eight (8) of 800 applications failed to win approval in an average year. With automated screening and the ability to handle far more applications than in the past, 18-20% of applications have failed, meaning that about 3,150 to 3,500 applications from the pool of 17,500 since October 2024 were rejected outright or returned to the license applicant seeking additional information.
Quoted in Export Compliance Daily (March 21, 2025), one Commerce official described the significance of the automated Common Screening System this way: “This tool has been instrumental in terms of our ability to make sure that we aren’t missing transactions just because we didn’t get eyes on those transactions as they are coming through the system.”
Ian Cohen, New BIS License Screening Tool Expected to Result in More Denials, Official Says, Export Compliance Daily (March 21, 2025).
