On 10 November 2025 the EPA published proposed amendments to the TSCA Section 8(a)(7) PFAS Reporting Rule, and if you’ve been staring down a mid 2026 compliance bill for every per and polyfluoroalkyl substance you’ve ever touched since 2011, you just got a material break. The headline change is a 0.1 per cent de minimis threshold for PFAS present in mixtures, plus a broad exemption for imported articles. EPA’s own regulatory impact analysis projects aggregate compliance savings of USD 786 to 843 million across the regulated population, and the reporting window has been pushed to April through October 2026. That’s not a cosmetic tweak. That’s the rule rewriting which of your SKUs actually has to be reported.
If you’re an Australian exporter or a Sydney based importer moving fluoropolymer coated industrial articles, fluorinated surfactants, or refrigerant blends into the US market, this post walks through what the proposal actually changes, what the numbers look like on a real product line, and the short list of compliance actions you should run this week while the comment period is still open.
What the 10 November Proposal Actually Changes
The original 8(a)(7) rule finalised in October 2023 was brutal by any measure. Any entity that had manufactured or imported PFAS (or PFAS containing articles) between 1 January 2011 and 31 December 2022 was required to file a detailed report covering identity, use, volumes, byproducts, worker exposure, and environmental release data. There was no de minimis. There was no article exemption worth mentioning. If your imported assembly had a fluoropolymer gasket with 0.02 per cent total PFAS by mass, you were in scope.
The 10 November 2025 proposal does four things that matter. First, it introduces a 0.1 per cent by mass de minimis threshold for PFAS present in mixtures, aligning the rule with long standing TSCA Chemical Data Reporting and EU REACH conventions. Second, it broadly exempts imported articles unless the article was specifically designed to release PFAS during normal use. Third, it narrows the look back population for byproducts and research and development quantities under a defined threshold. Fourth, the submission window has been reset to open on 13 April 2026 and close on 13 October 2026 for most submitters, with small manufacturers getting until 13 April 2027.
EPA’s regulatory impact analysis estimates that the de minimis threshold alone removes roughly 58 per cent of the previously in scope SKU count from reporting obligations. The imported articles exemption removes another tranche on top of that. Aggregate compliance cost savings across the regulated population are projected at USD 786 to 843 million over the ten year analysis horizon, relative to the 2023 final rule baseline.
Why the 0.1 Per Cent Threshold Is the Real Story
The de minimis number is the one you need to burn into your compliance planning. 0.1 per cent by mass (1,000 ppm) is the same threshold REACH uses for substances of very high concern in articles, and it’s the threshold most global chemical compliance teams already operate against. Aligning TSCA 8(a)(7) with that number means you can reuse your existing REACH declarations, existing supplier letters, existing CAS number mappings, and existing analytical certificates without having to rebuild a separate US facing dataset.
Under the 2023 final rule, if your imported epoxy based industrial coating contained 450 ppm of a long chain perfluoroalkyl sulfonic acid derivative (CAS 1763-23-1, PFOS, the textbook example), you had to report. Under the proposed amendment, that same coating is out of scope because 450 ppm sits under the 1,000 ppm de minimis. That’s one SKU, one product line, one less reporting exercise.
Scale that across a typical mid sized Australian chemical importer’s US facing book, and you’re usually looking at somewhere between 40 and 120 SKUs that were in scope under the 2023 rule. Realistically, after applying the 0.1 per cent de minimis plus the imported articles exemption, you can expect 55 to 70 per cent of those SKUs to fall out of reporting. The remainder, typically intentional fluoropolymer imports, fluorinated surfactant concentrates, refrigerant blends, and a narrow band of specialty intermediates, still have to be reported and the data obligations for those remaining SKUs have not been softened.
What the Compliance Cost Delta Looks Like on a Real Product Line
Let’s run the numbers on a realistic Australian importer scenario. Assume you’re bringing a mixed book of 68 SKUs into the US through Houston and Los Angeles, with a PFAS footprint that breaks down into three buckets. Bucket one is 14 SKUs of fluoropolymer coated industrial articles (gaskets, seals, coated fabrics) imported as finished articles. Bucket two is 31 SKUs of chemical mixtures where trace PFAS sits under the 1,000 ppm threshold. Bucket three is 23 SKUs of intentional fluoropolymer dispersions, fluorinated surfactants, and refrigerant blends where PFAS content is well above 0.1 per cent.
Under the 2023 final rule, all 68 SKUs had to be reported. Under the proposed amendment, bucket one is exempt under the imported articles carve out, bucket two is exempt under the de minimis threshold, and only bucket three (23 SKUs) still needs a filing. The per SKU compliance cost under the original rule was running at USD 8,500 to 14,000 depending on data availability and third party analytical requirements, with larger SKUs at the upper end.
| Compliance bucket | SKU count | 2023 rule status | 2025 proposal status | Avg cost per SKU | Total cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fluoropolymer coated articles | 14 | Report required | Exempt (articles) | USD 9,200 | USD 128,800 avoided |
| Trace PFAS in mixtures (under 1,000 ppm) | 31 | Report required | Exempt (de minimis) | USD 7,800 | USD 241,800 avoided |
| Intentional fluoropolymer and surfactant | 23 | Report required | Report required | USD 12,400 | USD 285,200 still owed |
| Totals | 68 | All 68 reportable | 23 reportable | USD 370,600 saved |
On this illustrative book, the proposed amendment saves roughly USD 370,600 in direct compliance cost across a single submission cycle, which is about 56 per cent of what the 2023 rule would have extracted. Scaled up to the total regulated population, that’s where EPA’s 786 to 843 million dollar aggregate saving comes from. The direct implication for a Sydney based importer is that your US facing PFAS compliance budget for FY 2026 should be rebuilt against the new scope, not the 2023 scope, and any quote you’ve received from a regulatory consultant in the last 12 months should be renegotiated against the reduced SKU count.
What Still Has to Be Reported and What the Data Looks Like
The 23 SKU bucket in the scenario above, the intentional fluoropolymer and surfactant book, still carries the full 2023 reporting burden. That means for each in scope substance you need to supply the CAS number, the EPA registry name, annual volume for every year from 2011 to 2022, industrial and commercial use categories, worker exposure estimates, environmental release data, and any available health and environmental effects information that you have or can reasonably ascertain.
Reasonable ascertainment is the phrase that still has teeth. EPA hasn’t softened it in the November proposal. If the data exists inside your organisation, at your suppliers (Chemours, 3M, Wanhua, Sinopec, Dow, BASF), in published literature, or in commercial databases you subscribe to, you’re expected to find it and report it. If you’ve genuinely exhausted those avenues and the data isn’t available, you can indicate that on the form, but EPA has signalled it will audit a sample of filings for the quality of the ascertainment exercise.
Three data points to lock in now for every remaining in scope SKU. Volume history by calendar year back to 2011 (even if you weren’t importing in 2011, you still have to indicate that you weren’t). Use categories aligned to the Industrial Functional Use codes and Consumer and Commercial Use codes in the EPA regulation. Worker exposure estimates including number of workers, duration of exposure, and route of exposure for manufacturing, processing, and end use activities you have visibility into.
How to Use the April to October 2026 Window
The reset of the reporting window to 13 April through 13 October 2026 (with small manufacturers getting to 13 April 2027) gives you a six month reporting window rather than the earlier compressed schedule. That’s a meaningful planning lever if you use it properly. The trap is treating the window as an end date and leaving all the data collection to Q3 2026. The opportunity is to sequence the work so that the 30 per cent of SKUs with the cleanest data get filed in April, the middle 50 per cent filed across May to August, and the 20 per cent with thorny data gaps filed in September and October after you’ve had time to chase suppliers.
If you’re importing from Chinese fluoropolymer producers (Wanhua, Sinopec, Dongyue, 3F) or through Korean and Japanese intermediates, build your supplier data request against a single standardised template that covers CAS identity, typical concentration range, volume shipped by year, and production site. Send it in December 2025 or January 2026, not March 2026. Chinese suppliers will need translation turnaround. Japanese suppliers will want legal review. Korean suppliers will want MoU level commitments before they release production data. None of that moves at Sydney importer speed.
For imported articles that you believe qualify for the exemption, document your reasoning now. EPA has been explicit that the articles exemption is self determining, meaning you don’t need EPA sign off, but you do need a defensible written rationale on file in case of audit. A two page memo per SKU family explaining why the article qualifies, with supplier attestations attached, is the minimum standard. If your inventory system can’t currently isolate imported article SKUs from imported chemical mixture SKUs, fix that classification in your ERP or trading platform before end of Q1 2026.
What to Do This Week
Five actions to run this week while the public comment period is still open. First, pull your full PFAS related SKU list against the 2011 to 2022 volume history and reclassify each SKU into the four new buckets (article exempt, de minimis exempt, still reportable, uncertain). You want a live dataset you can update as EPA finalises the rule in Q1 2026. Second, if you have uncertain SKUs, request analytical data from your suppliers against the 1,000 ppm threshold. SGS and equivalent third party labs can close data gaps at roughly USD 450 to 900 per sample for PFAS total organic fluorine screens. Third, if you’re a member of ACCC or an Australian chemical industry body that’s engaging with EPA, feed your comments into that channel by the 30 day comment window close. The de minimis threshold and the articles exemption are likely to be tightened if the comment record skews toward environmental NGOs.
Fourth, rebuild your 2026 compliance budget against the reduced SKU count. Renegotiate any consultant retainer that was priced against the 2023 scope, because a 55 to 70 per cent SKU reduction should flow through to a roughly 40 to 50 per cent fee reduction if the work was priced per SKU. Fifth, lock in your April 2026 filing sequence now. The 30 per cent of SKUs with clean data should be ready to submit in the first week of April. That’s the discipline that separates importers who coast through 2026 from the ones who burn Q3 chasing Chinese supplier letters.
The October 2023 version of 8(a)(7) was going to cost this industry somewhere north of USD 1.3 billion in direct compliance spend before it even started bending behaviour on actual PFAS use. The November 2025 proposal pulls that number down by roughly two thirds and puts the burden back on the substances that genuinely warrant it. If you’re importing into the US market in 2026, this is the window where the compliance math is most favourable, and the importers who move fastest on the reclassification exercise will be the ones who come out the other side with the cleanest filing history and the lightest ongoing burden.