China starts registering solar-tech exports, and proposes a ban

Two clocks in one announcement

On October 16, 2026, the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Science and Technology published Announcement No. 48. It proposes to add technologies to the catalogue of items prohibited or restricted from export, and it asks for public comment. It also starts a registration duty immediately. From the publication date until a revised catalogue is formally implemented, an exporter of a listed technology must register in Mofcom's technology-trade system before the export. Transactions already underway and not completed are inside that duty. Commenting until November 15 does not delay the registration. A solar forecast is a different documentBNEF's 2026 solar forecast.

What the announcement says is being added

The ministry's text says the consultation covers 40 technologies in three fields. Artificial intelligence accounts for 23, including large models, agents, computing clusters, and information processing, and the announcement says technology already in the public domain through open source or academic papers is outside the controls. Biomedicine accounts for five. Photovoltaics accounts for 12, in polysilicon, wafers, and cells, and the text says the scope includes key and core equipment that embodies the technology. This brief's detail is the solar list, because that is the list the trade press has itemized. The energy desk isEnergy.

The draft ban, as the trade press reads the annex

pv magazine says the proposed prohibited category includes perovskite-silicon tandem processes on wafers of at least 182 millimeters once efficiency is at least 30 percent, slot-die coating at a width of at least 1.1 meters, single-junction perovskite modules of at least a square meter at 18 percent or more, and tandem modules of at least a square meter at 28 percent or more. It also describes proposed bans on large cold-hydrogenation polysilicon lines, large silane lines, very thin wafers, and certain edge-passivation know-how. Shanghai Metals Market's reading matches the cell thresholds and adds that the conditions are simultaneous: a process has to meet the size and the efficiency before it is in the draft. The paper isFutureweb.

Licence, not ban, for a second set

Both trade accounts distinguish a restricted category, which would need a licence, from the proposed prohibition. pv magazine places large polysilicon plant engineering, advanced crystal pulling and wafer cutting, and specified TOPCon, back-contact, and heterojunction processes in that licence bucket, including some heterojunction steps described for space conditions. Restricted is not prohibited. Neither label applies until the catalogue is revised. Registration, which does apply now, is a notice filing, not a refusal. Nameplate, which is a measurement of a finished plant, iswhat nameplate capacity measures.

Finished goods stay outside, on SMM's reading

Shanghai Metals Market says the draft reaches manufacturing technology and the equipment that carries it, not ordinary exports of wafers, cells, or modules that merely were made with a process. A factory outside China that wanted to copy a qualifying line would be in a different position from a buyer of a module. The announcement says it does not name a target country. pv magazine says the ministry cites national security, including aerospace and defense uses. Those are the ministry's reasons as reported, not a finding that a particular firm is named. The hardware desk isHardware.

Who has to register

Technology exporters, in the announcement's term, for the technologies in the annex, using the Mofcom platform, from October 16 until the catalogue revision takes effect. Intellectual-property transfer, overseas licensing, and a change of control that moves the technology are the kinds of acts pv magazine says the interim rule is written to catch. A company that only ships a finished module under the thresholds is, on SMM's analysis, not in that set. The software desk isSoftware.

What a reader should not say yet

The ban is proposed. The licence list is proposed. The registration is running. Collapsing those into China banned perovskite exports today is the mistake the two clocks are there to prevent. November 15 is the comment deadline, not an effective date the ministries have promised. A battery measured in hours, filed beside this story, is a different projectBertikow and Brunsbuettel.

The other 28 technologies

This page does not itemize the 23 artificial-intelligence entries or the five biomedicine entries. The announcement's rule for public-domain AI, and its note that some biomedicine licensing can use an automatic licence, are reasons those lists need their own reading. They are in the same document. They are not the solar thresholds above. The privacy desk is Asked directly, Is the perovskite export ban in force? No. Mofcom and the Ministry of Science and Technology published a draft for comment. pv magazine and Shanghai Metals Market both say the consultation runs until November 15, 2026. The catalogue is revised only after that process.Privacy.

The line to keep

Announcement No. 48, October 16, 2026: comment until November 15 on a draft catalogue, and register listed technology exports starting now, including unfinished deals. Twelve photovoltaic technologies are in the draft. The prohibition is not in force. Finished modules are not the thing the draft describes. The short answer this page will stand on is this: A temporary duty to register exports of the technologies listed in Announcement No. 48 before they leave, including deals already started and not finished. A proposed ban and a proposed licence list for 12 photovoltaic technologies are out for comment until November 15. Those catalogue changes are not in force.