General License X1

General License X1 is an OFAC wind-down-only licence that revoked General License X, the Iranian oil waiver, and permits no new purchases of Iranian crude.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control issued General License X1 on 7 July 2026, revoking the 22 June Iranian oil waiver, General License X, five weeks before its scheduled expiry and replacing it with a wind-down-only authorisation. General License X1 permits no new purchases of Iranian crude and expires 17 July 2026; traders who bought oil under the old licence have ten days to unwind their positions. OFAC Director Bradley T. Smith signed the revocation.

OFAC general licences are unilateral Treasury instruments: a director's signature can issue or revoke one without notice-and-comment rulemaking or Congressional involvement, carving (or closing) a legal exemption inside a standing sanctions programme. That reach extends to any buyer clearing dollars through US banks, which is why the revocation bites law-abiding buyers such as Japan's oil importers, who had only just reopened purchase talks with Iran for the first time since 2019, while China, which never used the waiver, is untouched.

General License X1 is the first signed US Iran instrument of the war, more than 120 days into the conflict, and it withdraws relief rather than granting a deal. Where the 29 June verbal stand-down between Washington and Tehran evaporated within days on a phone call, a signed licence with a hard 17 July wind-down runs on OFAC's own administrative clock, a mechanism no diplomatic call can reverse.