Baidu's ERNIE 5.5 Flash Base licence bars use in the EU, UK and Korea

Baidu's ERNIE 5.5 Flash Base licence bars use in the EU, UK and Korea

5 November 2026: Baidu's new open-weight ERNIE 5.5 Flash Base comes with a licence that grants rights only outside the European Union, the United Kingdom and South Korea, so downloadable weights do not mean a business in those markets may use them. Above $50 million in annual revenue, products anywhere need Baidu's written authorisation before commercial use.

Not yet independently verified. This comes from the licence text itself. It does not say why the three markets are excluded, we have read no Baidu statement on it, and we do not know whether other ERNIE 5.5 variants share the terms. We will update this when it can be confirmed, and remove this note.

What the territory clause covers

Clause 1.11 defines the Territory as worldwide other than those three places. Rights to use, fine-tune, create derivative models and distribute apply "solely within the Territory", and distribution to third parties is limited in the same way under clause 3.1.

That is wider than a company's own office location might suggest. A software vendor based in Singapore that hosts the model and sells to customers in Germany has a distribution problem, not only the German customer. Derivative models under clause 1.5 include those made through distillation and training on synthetic data, so a model built from this one's outputs may carry the same restriction.

The $50 million line and the notice to Baidu

Commercial use at or below $50 million of annual revenue carries no model licence charge, but two conditions apply: the product must display "Powered by ERNIE" under clause 3.2, and the user must send a one-time notice to Baidu under clause 4.2. Above that, clause 4.3 requires a separate written commercial authorisation before starting, or before crossing the threshold.

The revenue test is broader than it first looks. Clause 1.7 counts the whole product and every entity under common control over a rolling 12 months, so a feature built on the model inside a large product can bring all of that product's revenue into the count. Hosting, API services and fine-tuning all count as commercial use under clauses 1.8 and 4.4, and clause 4.5 gives Baidu an annual right to verify compliance.

What procurement and legal teams should check

"Open weights" is often treated as a single category in procurement, and this licence shows why it should not be. Teams with an approved list of models should record the licence version and territory for each, rather than noting only that weights are available.

Groups with staff or customers in Europe or Korea should check for indirect use as well. An outside supplier or a contractor may be testing or fine-tuning this model on a group's behalf, and a product shipped globally has to be able to exclude those markets or use another model for them. Companies that want a clear position should ask vendors directly which models sit behind their features and under what terms.

Trending Topics has reported the same exclusion. The licence gives no reason for it. The licence is dated 5 November and marked version 1.0, so later versions may differ.

Sources

• Baidu: ERNIE 5.5 Flash Base licence file on Hugging Face, release date 5 November 2026, 5 November 2026
• Baidu: ERNIE 5.5 Flash Base model card on Hugging Face (read 7 November 2026), 7 November 2026
• Trending Topics: report on the ERNIE 5.5 exclusion of Europe, 6 November 2026, 6 November 2026