New Fastener Export Rules: HS Classification and Document Checks
Executive Summary
The policy waives the licence but narrows the room for error in documentation. What really has to be redone is HS code classification and the matching of test reports, not the customs declaration process itself.
Table of Contents
What the Policy Changed
In January 2026 the Ministry of Commerce and the General Administration of Customs jointly issued the Notice on Optimising the Administration of Steel Product Imports and Exports, and fasteners, as a sub-category of steel products, fall within its scope. Two points affect us most directly: export licence requirements are waived for the great majority of fastener products, and export tax rebates move to fully electronic verification.
The first saves time. Export licence approval takes three to five working days on average, and a rush order that meets a customs delay can end in a breach of contract; that cost used to sit in the quoted price. The second does not cut the rebate rate, but it narrows the tolerance for documentation errors: declared goods description, HS code and invoice value must agree, and if verification does not reconcile, the rebate is held.
Classify First, Then Talk Documents
Fastener HS codes sit under heading 7318 and are further divided by material, thread type and application. The same part classified under different subheadings carries a different rebate rate and different regulatory conditions. So once the policy took effect, the first thing we did was not revise procedures but re-map the codes.
We went through the current export range item by item and singled out 12 categories of high-end fasteners for aerospace and semiconductor applications, checking whether test reports, certificates of origin and material certificates support one another. This step produces nothing visible, but one wrong code means the whole document set has to be redone.
Where European Customers Actually Get Stuck
European new energy vehicle customers rarely stop at tariffs when they specify high-strength fasteners. What actually blocks a shipment is three points: whether the material grade can be traced to the heat number, whether the coating meets the ELV restriction on hexavalent chromium, and whether the CE and RoHS test reports cover the actual shipment batch. Miss any one of the three and the goods may reach the port but not the line.
On the production side, aluminium bolts and profiled cold-headed parts at the Xiangyang plant are process-matched to customer drawings, and test reports are archived by batch. North America is mainly aerospace parts, where customers look more at PPAP documentation and process capability data, handled through the APQP process within the IATF 16949 system.
What Is Still Unresolved
Compliance is never finished. Two items are in progress: the EU CBAM transitional period did not put fasteners on the first list, but downstream vehicle customers have begun asking suppliers for carbon footprint data; and Southeast Asian customers want stock nearby plus small-batch secondary processing capability. Neither has a settled plan yet.
The policy itself is not hard to handle; the hard part is keeping classification, documentation, testing and carbon data running smoothly over the long term. Today the international trade department at the Shenzhen head office handles documents and the quality assurance department at the Xiangyang plant handles test data, and the two sides reconcile once a week.
