China's new version of the Exit and Entry Management Regulations comes into force: National security and technology exports can trigger restrictions on exit, notification procedures set exceptions

The newly revised "Rules of the State Council on Exit and Entry Management" (Rules of the State Council on Exit and Entry Management) was officially implemented on September 15.The new rules directly link some illegal acts involving national security, industrial security and technical security with restrictive exit measures, so that the systemic link between border management and national security, export control and technology flow supervision is further clarified.

Decree No. 841 of the State Council showed that the regulation was adopted on July 22, 2026, and published on July 31, official stated that its purpose includes regulating the management of exit and entry, protecting the legitimate rights and interests of exit and entry persons, while safeguarding national sovereignty, security and development interests.

* What actions may trigger restrictions on exit*

According to the new rules, Chinese citizens abroad to carry out illegal crimes endangering China's national security and interests, or because of violation of export control, technology import and export management and other provisions, may endanger the security of the country's industrial and technical security, can lawfully decide not to leave the country.

This means that restrictive exit measures in criminal cases, civil enforcement, tax debt and other scenarios have been seen more often in the past, and are further linked to cross-border technology, industrial security and overseas behavior in new administrative regulations.

* Notification of the existence of national security and investigation exceptions

Procedure issues are one of the most concerned parts of the new regulation. According to the Associated Press report on the regulation, in principle, the persons concerned will be informed of the decision to restrict exit, but if the notification may affect national security or criminal investigation, the competent authorities may be temporarily informed.

This exception makes "when to know when to be restricted" an important issue in practical enforcement. Professor Mark Jia of the University of Georgetown Law School of the United States told AP that the conceptual scope in China's national security law is widespread, and he worries that the new regulation could expand the scope of restricting exit in the absence of adequate procedural safeguards.

The Chinese government stressed that the new rules are aimed at illegal cross-border activities, not general exit travel. when the rules were published, Xinhua said that the new rules aimed to further regulate exit and entry activities, maintain normal management order and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of relevant persons.

* Cross-border control and technical security supervision

In recent years, China has continued to strengthen export control, data security, anti-espionage and key technology management systems; this regulation connects some technical and industrial security risks with people's flow control, so that relevant enterprise managers, technicians and cross-border traders may face legal consequences at the level of administrative, criminal and exit management.

From the perspective of the chain of responsibility, the State Council shall formulate administrative regulations, state immigration management, public security and other departments shall bear the responsibilities of outbound and entry management; when involving export control, technology import and export or national security cases, business, national security and other competent departments may also provide the basis of cases or make a preliminary determination. the decision organs, time limits, information methods and remedial channels of specific cases will directly affect the predictability of the system in practice.

The existing “exit restriction” system is expanding the scenes of application

Restriction of exit is not a new system. Chinese law has long allowed courts to take restrictive exit measures in cases of non-fulfillment of the obligation to determine the legal documents in force, and there are similar mechanisms in criminal proceedings and in some areas of administrative administration. The court data compiled by public researchers in recent years also show that the number of judicial systems using restrictive exit measures has increased significantly, but the scope of different datasets is not exactly the same, and can not simply equal to all national restrictive exit decisions.

The importance of this new rule is that it further clarifies the form of State Council administrative regulations to list overseas national security behavior and some export control, technical import and export violations as the basis for possible restriction of exit. For enterprises, research institutions and cross-border technical collaborators, judging whether a certain act affects "industrial security" or "technical security" will not only relate to enterprise compliance, but may also directly affect the freedom of individual exit.

Whether the system can combine security governance and individual rights depends ultimately on the specific implementation: limiting whether decisions have clear factual and legal grounds, whether the deadline is appropriate, whether the parties can be informed of the reason in a timely manner, and whether there are effective remedies, lawsuits or other remedies.