The IT and Software Services Determination prohibits the exportation, reexportation, sale, or supply, directly or indirectly, from the United States, or by a United States person, wherever located, of both IT support services and cloud-based services for the Covered Software to a person located in the Russian Federation. IT support services include the provision of technical expertise to solve problems for the client in using software, hardware, or an entire computer system. Cloud-based services include the supply of software and associated services via the internet or the cloud, including through Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). See FAQ 1187 for more information on how OFAC intends to define “enterprise management software,” “design and manufacturing software,” “cloud-based services,” and “information technology support services.”
The following are examples of activities that would be prohibited by the IT and Software Services Determination if such services were provided to a company located in the Russian Federation that is not owned or controlled directly or indirectly by a U.S. person (Russian company):
- A U.S. company sells a cloud-based enterprise resource planning software subscription to a Russian company.
- A U.S. employee of a third country company provides customer support services to a Russian company that is experiencing technical difficulties with its human resources software.
- A U.S. company provides a software patch to a Russian company to fix a bug in its computer-aided design software.
The following are examples of activities that would not be prohibited by the IT and Software Services Determination:
- A U.S. company sells a cloud-based electronic health records software subscription to a Russian company.
- A U.S. company provides customer support services to a Russian individual who is experiencing technical difficulties with their publicly available cloud-based spreadsheet web application.
- A U.S. person working at a third country company provides customer support services to a Russian individual who is experiencing technical difficulties with their free-of-charge publicly available teleconferencing application.
- A U.S. company provides IT support services to a Russian individual to a non-covered software application.
The IT and Software Services Determination complements regulations to be issued by the U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) pertaining to the export, reexport, or transfer (in-country) to the Russian Federation of the following types of software subject to the Export Administration Regulations, 15 CFR part 730–774 (EAR): Enterprise resource planning (ERP); customer relationship management (CRM); business intelligence (BI); supply chain management (SCM); enterprise data warehouse (EDW); computerized maintenance management system (CMMS); project management software, product lifecycle management (PLM); building information modelling (BIM); computer aided design (CAD); computer-aided manufacturing (CAM); and engineering to order (ETO).
See General License (GL) 25D for more information about certain authorizations for transactions relating to the receipt or transmission of telecommunications involving the Russian Federation and the provision of certain services incident to the exchange of communications over the internet. See GL 6D for more information on authorizations for transactions related to certain agricultural and medical activities involving the provision of information technology and software-related services.
As noted in FAQ 1185, some of these activities may be subject to other Federal laws or requirements of other Federal agencies, including export, reexport, and transfer (in-country) licensing requirements maintained by the BIS under the EAR.