On November 10, 2025, the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Department of Commerce, and the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, issued a Tri-Seal Advisory on sanctions and export controls relief for Syria.
The advisory provides that the United States no longer imposes comprehensive sanctions on Syria and that the Caeser Syria Civilian Protection Act (“Caeser Act”) is suspended, except for sanctionable transactions with Russia and Iran. See Thompson Hine Update of May 27, 2025. The Caesar Act was signed into law in 2019, and aims to hold the Assad regime accountable for committing violence against civilians and to deter foreign support for the regime. It established mandatory sanctions to target foreign persons who facilitated the Assad regime’s acquisition of goods, services, or technologies that supported the regime’s military activities as well as its aviation and oil and gas production industries. See Thompson Hine Update of July 3, 2025.
Basic civilian use U.S.-origin goods, software, and technology may all be exported to Syria without a license. However, most items on the Commerce Control List still require a U.S. export license for Syria.
Sanctions remain on certain individuals including Bashar al-Assad and his associates, human rights abusers, Captagon drug traffickers, and other destabilizing regional actors. The United States plans to continue to review Syria’s State Sponsor of Terrorism (SST) designations for these individuals.