Buyers searching for a "MOFCOM antimony whitelist" or an "annual export quota" mostly find forum noise, because the answer sits across three separate Chinese measures that trade discussion keeps collapsing into one. Meanwhile real LOIs stall on exactly this: a seller claims licensed Chinese routing, the buyer cannot name the document to ask for, and the 60–90-day licence queue eats the nominated shipping window. When we quote Chinese-routed cargoes against our own antimony concentrates, the counterparty's export qualification and licence reference are confirmed before the offer goes out — this post explains what each layer is, with dates, so your diligence can do the same. The market backdrop sits in our antimony price outlook.
Is there a MOFCOM antimony exporter whitelist for 2026?
Yes. On 2025-12-26 MOFCOM published its 2026–27 catalogue of authorised exporters for tungsten, antimony, and silver under state trading — just 11 companies may legally export antimony (confirmed by Reuters, 2025-12-30). That catalogue sits alongside per-shipment licences under Announcement No. 33 and a US-destination prohibition currently suspended until 2026-11-27.
| Control layer | What it does | Status, July 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Designated-exporter catalogue | Caps who may export — firms are designated first, products second | 11 antimony exporters authorised for 2026–27 (published 2025-12-26) |
| Announcement No. 33 of 2024 licensing | Per-shipment dual-use approval: end-user certificates, case-by-case review | In force since 2024-09-15, all destinations |
| US-destination prohibition | Bans US-bound exports "in principle" | Imposed 2024-12-03; suspended 2025-11-09 through 2026-11-27; military-end-user ban still in force |
How the 2026–27 Exporter Catalogue Was Built
The catalogue is China's tightest export-control tier, and it predates the No. 33 regime in concept — tungsten, antimony, and silver have long traded under state-managed export rights. On 2025-10-30, MOFCOM's Department of Foreign Trade issued the qualification rules for the 2026–27 round: applicants needed, among other criteria, 2022–24 export volumes above designated levels, with a lower bar for high-technology products (source: MOFCOM statement via Global Times, 2025-10-30). The resulting list — 15 tungsten, 11 antimony, and 44 silver exporters — favours scale and compliance history; named antimony listees include Yunnan United Antimony Co. and the trading arm of Hunan's Twinkling Star, one of the world's most significant antimony producers. If your counterparty's supplier is not one of the 11, there is no licence application that fixes it — the cargo must route through a firm that is.
Is there an annual antimony export quota?
No published tonnage quota exists under the current regime. The throttle works differently: the catalogue caps who may export, and No. 33 licensing gates each shipment individually — end-user certificate, dual-use review, case-by-case approval. MOFCOM publishes no licensing-throughput statistics, so every "quota" or approval-rate figure in circulation is a trade-press estimate; the only public flow measure is GACC monthly customs data. What is documented is the queue: by Q1 2026, licence processing had settled into a 60–90-day window, the operational problem our H2 buyer diligence checklist is built around.
What does the US suspension change — and not change?
On 2024-12-03, MOFCOM banned exports of gallium, germanium, antimony, and superhard materials to the United States "in principle" — the sharpest escalation of the sequence. On 2025-11-09 that prohibition was suspended, effective through 2026-11-27 (sources: MOFCOM; Fastmarkets). Two things survive the headline, and both matter more to a buyer than the suspension itself: US-bound cargoes still require per-shipment licences under the No. 33 architecture, and the prohibition on exports to military end-users remains fully in force. The suspension re-opened a route; it did not deregulate it. Any contract whose delivery schedule crosses November 27 should price both branches — extension and snap-back — because the regime has already produced three distinct states in under two years.
Verify These Five Things Before Signing
- Catalogue membership. If the routing is Chinese, the exporting entity must be one of the 11 authorised firms — the 2025-12-26 MOFCOM notification is public, so ask which listed exporter clears the cargo and check it.
- Licence reference per shipment. No. 33 approval is per-shipment, not per-supplier. A licence number from last quarter's cargo says nothing about yours.
- End-user certificate status. Confirm whose name the EUC carries and that your declared end-use has no defence linkage — rejections have been cited on exactly that ground.
- Shipment-window track record. Ask for the seller's last 90 days of licensed shipments against nominated windows; the 60–90-day queue breaks schedules that look fine on paper.
- A non-Chinese fallback. Pakistani-origin stibnite — the 5–35% Sb ore and 35–55% Sb concentrate lanes in our antimony spec guide — sits outside this architecture entirely; a dual-sourced procurement mandate is the structural hedge.
Where Whitelist Readings Go Wrong
- Treating the catalogue as a quota. It caps firms, not tonnes. Volume through the 11 exporters is gated shipment-by-shipment, which is why licensing throughput — not a quota number — sets the pace.
- Reading the US suspension as deregulation. Licences and the military-end-user ban remain; only the destination prohibition is paused, on a timer.
- Assuming a listed exporter guarantees delivery windows. Catalogue membership is necessary, not sufficient — the per-shipment queue still applies to the 11.
- Citing "MOFCOM statistics." None are published for licensing throughput. GACC customs data is the flow source; everything else is estimation and should be labelled as such.
- Pricing one side of 2026-11-27. Whether the suspension lapses, extends, or re-tightens, the contract that assumed only one outcome is the one that gets re-negotiated in December.
Next step: Review Pakistani-origin specifications for antimony ore (5–35% Sb) and antimony concentrates (35–55% Sb), or request a delivered-cost indication with the export-control documentation pack itemised. The Minerals & Mining division lists the full strategic-minerals portfolio.
Additional Market Context
The primary documents: MOFCOM Announcement No. 33 of 2024 (the licensing architecture), the 2025-10-30 qualification rules and 2025-12-26 exporter catalogue (the whitelist), and the 2025-11-09 suspension notice. The European Commission's Joint Research Centre analysis "China's Antimony Export Controls" (JRC141454) is the best independent walkthrough of the regime; USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 carries the supply context. For price levels — deliberately not quoted here — the references are Fastmarkets MB Rotterdam and Asian Metal, as covered in our antimony price outlook.
Last reviewed: 2026-07-24. Regulatory status per MOFCOM measures dated 2024-09-15, 2024-12-03, 2025-11-09, and the 2025-12-26 exporter catalogue; verify against MOFCOM announcements before contracting — this regime has changed state three times in under two years.
