Import restrictions on Nepali antiquities take effect the day they print, and the five year term they run on started seven months ago

The cutoff is 1950.

Customs and Border Protection filed a final rule on Tuesday adding Nepal to the list of countries whose archaeological and ethnological material may not enter the United States unless documentation conditions are met. The archaeological categories reach back to about 32,000 B.C.E. and stop at 1770 C.E. The ethnological categories, which cover religious architectural elements, religious and ceremonial items and manuscripts, run from the 13th century C.E. through 1950 C.E.

The five year clock started in January

The agreement is older than the restriction.

The United States and Nepal entered into a bilateral agreement under the Convention on Cultural Property Implementation Act on 8 January 2026, and the document says it entered into force upon signature. The restriction inside the regulations takes effect on publication, which the filing footer dates 12 August 2026.

Restrictions listed at 19 CFR 12.104g(a) run for no more than five years from the date an agreement enters into force, and this rule states that these expire on 8 January 2031 unless extended. Seven months have already run. The determinations underneath the agreement are older still, because the State Department's Assistant Secretary for Educational and Cultural Affairs made them on 24 January 2024, after consultation with and recommendation by the Cultural Property Advisory Committee. Roughly two and a half years separate that finding from the day the restriction starts to operate.

No comment period, and no delay

CBP made the amendment without notice or public procedure, citing 5 U.S.C. 553(a)(1) on the ground that it involves a foreign affairs function of the United States. For the same reason it took no delayed effective date under 5 U.S.C. 553(d)(3). On the same ground it treated the document as exempt from Executive Order 12866, and it prepared no regulatory flexibility analysis, because none is required where no general notice of proposed rulemaking was required.

Commissioner Rodney S. Scott reviewed and approved the rule and delegated signature to Susan S. Thomas, Executive Assistant Commissioner of the Office of Trade.

What the designated list actually covers

Ten categories of archaeological material, sorted by what the object is made of: stone, ceramics and fired clay, metal, plaster and stucco and unfired clay, painting, ivory and bone, glass, leather and parchment and birch bark and paper and palm leaf, wood and shell, and human remains.

The stone entries are the most specific in the document. They name dhunge dharas, the carved drinking fountain heads that taper to a spout, and toranas, the semicircular panels set above doorways and windows. Three ethnological categories follow, and they are broader than the archaeological ones rather than narrower: religious architectural elements, religious and ceremonial items, and manuscripts.

The rule adds one qualification that matters more than the list. It says the Designated List is representative only, and that the agreement includes but is not limited to the categories described.