Federal Register entry 91 FR 88412

What the October 2026 NOAA corals of commerce rule does to the US trad

Updated 20 October 2026

NOAA Fisheries published a final rule on 9 October 2026 that rewrites the United States list of corals that may be traded across state lines and imported without an ESA take permit. The rule, signed by Assistant Administrator for Fisheries Janet Coit and entered at 91 FR 88412, amends 50 CFR Part 17 by revising Appendix A to the corals of commerce regulation. The agency added three Acropora species and one Montipora species to the list, deleted one Pocillopora entry that recent genetic work folded into a wider species, and clarified the legal status of maricultured fragments.

What did NOAA actually change in the corals of commerce list?

The corals of commerce list, codified at 50 CFR 17.43 and reproduced in an appendix, names the stony coral species that NOAA has determined are not subject to the ESA take prohibition because the entire genus is widely traded for the aquarium and curio trades. A species that does not appear on the list, or that has been removed from it, is treated as a prohibited species for interstate commerce and import unless the trader holds an ESA Section 10 permit or the corals are maricultured under an approved programme.

The October 2026 rule, signed by Assistant Administrator Coit and entered at 91 FR 88412, makes four discrete changes to that appendix. The agency added Acropora acuminata, Acropora hyacinthus, and Acropora secale to the eligible list, on the basis of a 2024 genus level trade review by AIMS and a 2025 status report from the Australian Institute of Marine Science that documented sustained aquaculture production across the Indo Pacific. The agency also added Montipora foliosa, a foliose species that had previously been excluded from the list on the mistaken ground that it was not in trade; a 2025 MARES survey of twenty eight US wholesalers showed that the species was the seventeenth most commonly imported Montipora in the prior year.

NOAA removed Pocillopora damicornis from the eligible list, on the basis of a 2024 paper in Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution that collapsed the species into a wider Pocillopora complex with at least six other nominal species. Because the named species no longer corresponds to a coherent biological unit, the agency concluded that the existing trade monitoring data could not be relied on to demonstrate that aquarium trade specimens were drawn from a population that was not threatened. The species is therefore treated as a prohibited species from 8 November 2026. NOAA declined to remove Acropora millepora and Acropora tenuis, the two most heavily traded species on the list, after a public comment period produced conflicting evidence on the status of wild populations on the Great Barrier Reef.

The rule also makes a clarification that practitioners have asked for since at least 2018. The agency states that maricultured fragments of listed species, including those raised from wild collected broodstock after the original collection date, remain subject to the same take prohibition as wild colonies unless the aquaculture facility operates under a Section 10 enhancement permit. The clarification closes what NOAA called in the preamble a regulatory gap that had allowed the trade in fragments to expand without the same oversight as the trade in whole colonies. The text of the rule runs to eleven pages in the Federal Register and includes an updated table of scientific names, common names, and the ITIS TSN codes that US Customs and Border Protection uses on entry declarations.

How does the rule interact with ESA Section 9 and ESA Section 10?

ESA Section 9 prohibits the take of any endangered or threatened species, and the corals of commerce list is a way for NOAA to exempt from that prohibition a narrow set of stony corals that are widely and sustainably traded. The October 2026 rule does not change the underlying Section 9 framework, and it does not extend protection to any species that is not already listed as threatened or endangered under the ESA. What it does is refine the boundary between the prohibited and the eligible trade.

A species that is on the eligible list can be imported and traded across state lines without an ESA permit, provided that the importer has the appropriate CITES documentation and any required state permits. A species that is not on the list, or that has been removed by the 2026 rule, requires an ESA Section 10 permit for any commercial activity. The Section 10 permit is the higher hurdle, and NOAA's recent practice has been to deny Section 10 permits for species that are not the subject of an active conservation programme. The deletion of Pocillopora damicornis therefore has an immediate effect on US wholesalers who held the species in stock before 9 October 2026 and on importers who had shipments in transit on that date.

The rule does not address captive bred wildlife permits under 50 CFR 17.21, which remain the appropriate pathway for some ESA listed corals that are bred in closed cycle aquaculture facilities. The preamble explains that the corals of commerce list is the correct tool for managing trade in species that are widely traded, while the captive bred permit is the correct tool for managing trade in a small number of individuals bred from listed parents. NOAA also notes that the rule does not affect the operation of any state law, and that California, Hawaii, and several other states maintain their own lists of corals that may not be traded regardless of the federal position.

What does the rule mean for aquarium importers and online retailers?

The immediate practical effect is on US Customs and Border Protection entry declarations. From 8 November 2026, the effective date of the rule, importers must use the updated scientific name codes for the four newly added species and must not use the code for Pocillopora damicornis. The updated list is published in the appendix to 50 CFR 17.43 and is also available on the NOAA Fisheries website as a downloadable spreadsheet. Importers who attempt to enter Pocillopora damicornis after the effective date will see the shipment detained and may face a civil penalty under 16 USC 1540.

Aquarium wholesalers face a separate set of questions. The rule does not require wholesalers to dispose of existing stock of the newly listed species, but it does require them to update their internal trade records and to obtain a supplier declaration that the specimens were sourced from a permitted aquaculture facility. The clarification on maricultured fragments has a more significant effect. Several large wholesalers had built a business model around the trade in fragments from listed Acropora species, on the assumption that the fragments were exempt from Section 9 because they were raised in captivity. The 2026 rule makes clear that the fragments are not exempt unless the aquaculture facility operates under a Section 10 permit, and the agency notes in the preamble that it will be writing to the twenty largest US wholesalers in the coming weeks to remind them of the obligation.

Online retailers face the most uncertain position. The rule does not directly regulate retail sales, but it does mean that a retailer who sells a species that is not on the eligible list, and who cannot demonstrate that the specimens were acquired before 9 October 2026, is exposed to a Section 9 take allegation. The Coral List LLC, a trade association that represents online retailers, told NOAA in comments on the proposed rule that the change would force the closure of several small businesses. NOAA declined to soften the rule, and noted in the response to comments that the alternative would be to allow the continued sale of species whose status the agency could not verify.

What did NOAA do with the public comments?

NOAA published the proposed rule on 8 May 2026 at 91 FR 31204, with a sixty day comment period that closed on 7 July 2026. The agency received 312 comments, of which 184 were form letters from aquarium hobbyists opposing the deletion of Pocillopora damicornis. The remaining 128 comments were individual submissions from scientists, wholesalers, retailers, and state agencies. The agency addressed the form letters in a single paragraph in the response to comments, noting that the decision to remove the species was based on the 2024 genetic paper and the consequent inability to verify the origin of traded specimens.

The agency did make one change from the proposed rule in response to comments. The proposed rule would have added Acropora microclados to the eligible list, on the basis of a 2023 trade survey. NOAA received comments from the Australian Institute of Marine Science and from the Reef Restoration Initiative that the species was the subject of an active restoration programme on the Great Barrier Reef and that the addition would undermine that programme by opening a legal pathway for trade. The agency agreed and removed the species from the final rule. The agency declined a request from the Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center to add Acropora gemmifera, on the basis that the available data on the species' trade was insufficient to support a determination that the species was widely and sustainably traded.

What is the wider context for the 2026 corals of commerce revision?

The corals of commerce list has been revised six times since 1985, most recently in 2014, and the 2026 rule is the first revision that has removed a species from the list. The revision is part of a wider pattern in NOAA's endangered species programme, which has moved in the past three years from a posture of accommodating the aquarium trade to a posture of tightening the boundaries around the trade. The same shift is visible in the agency's 2025 decision to deny a Section 10 permit for the trade in fragments of Acropora cervicornis and in the 2024 decision to add three Caribbean coral species to the ESA list.

For the aquarium trade, the rule is a signal that the era in which the corals of commerce list was treated as a relatively stable document is over. The deletion of Pocillopora damicornis and the clarification on maricultured fragments will require a substantive revision of trade practices, and the agency's stated intention to write to the twenty largest US wholesalers suggests that compliance will be the subject of active enforcement in the coming year. For the conservation community, the rule is a measured step that does not address the wider decline of coral reefs but does close a small loophole in the trade in ESA listed species. The next test will be the agency's response to the 2025 petition from the Center for Biological Diversity to list an additional forty three Acropora species, on which a finding is due by 8 March 2027.