The November 10 date every magnet buyer is watching

Announcement No. 61, issued by China's Ministry of Commerce in October 2025, was the strictest set of rare earth and permanent magnet export controls to date. Foreign firms would need Chinese government approval to export magnets containing even trace amounts — 0.1 percent or more — of Chinese-origin heavy rare earths, or magnets produced using Chinese mining, processing or magnet-making technology. From December 1, 2025, companies affiliated with foreign militaries, including the U.S. military, would be largely denied licenses. Applications for rare earths used in sub-14-nanometer semiconductors would be reviewed case by case.

The measures were then suspended for a year as part of a trade understanding, and the review window closes this month. What never went away is the layer underneath: the April 2025 licensing regime covering seven rare earth categories and their downstream magnet products is still fully enforced, and exporters must still apply for a license on each individual shipment. There is no statutory approval timeline. The working expectation is 45 days; in the months after the April 2025 announcement, approvals routinely took two to four months.

Beijing added more in January, when its updated export licensing catalogue brought samarium, gadolinium and lutetium compounds under control. The design is not a ban. It is a screening mechanism, applied shipment by shipment, that reaches any product with enough Chinese content in it.

For U.S. buyers the distinction that decides a purchase order is the grade, not the magnet. Standard sintered neodymium-iron-boron magnets made only from light rare earths can still move without a license. High-coercivity grades — the ones that hold their strength at the temperatures inside an electric vehicle traction motor or a wind turbine generator — require terbium or dysprosium, and those are inside the licensing regime.

Domestic magnet capacity at Mountain Pass and at USA Rare Earth is not expected to reach full production before 2027 or 2028, which leaves the current window as the one where the licensing regime carries the most leverage. If the suspended provisions snap back after the review, the 0.1 percent de minimis rule would follow Chinese-origin material into third countries, even after it has been processed outside China.