The U.S. plans to legislate to force allies to tighten restrictions on lithography machines to China. ASML(ASML.US) stock price comes under pressure and declines.

Zhittong Finance APP learned that, due to a new draft legislation targeting the export of advanced process equipment proposed by the U.S. Congress last week, the shares of semiconductor equipment giant ASML (ASML.US) fell by as much as 4.7% in European stock markets at one point. Its U.S. stock ADR fell by more than 1% at one point in the U.S. pre-market trading session. Market panic sentiment was mainly driven by the proposed “Multilateral Alliance for Hardware Technology Controls Act” (abbreviated as the MATCH Act), which the U.S. side plans. The bill aims to force allied countries to implement export restrictions on China in sync through legislative means, thereby eliminating the competitive disadvantages previously faced by U.S. domestic companies due to different policy paces among countries.

This bill, jointly initiated by lawmakers from both U.S. parties, not only marks a further upgrade of export controls, but also touches the core service link of the semiconductor industry supply chain. The MATCH Act explicitly requires that if allied countries such as the Netherlands and Japan fail to establish export review systems that are equally stringent with the United States within 150 days, the U.S. Department of Commerce will have the authority to exercise long-arm jurisdiction. The specific scope of restrictions in the proposal has expanded from the most cutting-edge extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines to widely used immersion deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography equipment.

More severely, the bill intends to prohibit equipment suppliers from providing routine maintenance, software upgrades, and replacement of key components for restricted equipment that has already been sold. This “cutoff of supply for after-sales service” provision has been viewed by market analysts as a blade that could potentially deal a major blow to China’s capability in manufacturing chips using mature processes.

Financial data shows that although ASML had previously warned in its financial reports about policy risks, the impact of the proposed bill still exceeded investors’ expectations. In 2025, the China market contributed about 33% of ASML’s global sales, making it the company’s most important revenue growth engine. The company also expects that in 2026, its sales in China will account for 20% of total sales, but sales of older machine models will not be affected.

Regarding the financial impact, analysts’ views differ. Degroof
Petercam analyst Michael Rogh estimates that the new restrictions could reduce ASML sales by a “single-digit” percentage. JPMorgan analyst Sandeep Deshpande, in his latest assessment report, stated that if the bill is ultimately signed into law, ASML’s annual earnings per share (EPS) could face up to a 10% reduction, and its business share in the China market could further slide from the expected 20%.

Deshpande further pointed out that ASML’s sales to other regions will “grow significantly,” but will not be enough to offset the lost China revenue, because non-China chip manufacturers will add capacity as compensation. In a report, he wrote that the most affected would be the global market. He said: “The current situation in which chip production capacity is tight across multiple markets will deteriorate sharply with the implementation of these restrictions.”

Meanwhile, affected by expectations for this policy, the share prices of global leading semiconductor equipment suppliers such as Tokyo Electron and Applied Materials (AMAT.US) also fell across the board, indicating that this bill could deeply disrupt the stability of the global semiconductor supply chain.

At present, ASML’s official response to this legislative development has refused to comment, while the Netherlands’ Ministry of Foreign Affairs reiterated that trade policy should be independently regulated by sovereign states. China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has also stated on multiple occasions that it firmly opposes the U.S. side from broadly expanding the concept of national security and misusing export control measures to maliciously block Chinese companies.

Although the bill is still in the early stages of the legislative hearing process and needs to take effect only after votes in both houses of Congress and the president’s signing, market participants generally believe that, because it has received cross-party support, the likelihood of the bill being passed in the second half of 2026 is relatively high.