Every party must report RINs owned that have expired as of the end of the fourth quarter of each year. This report is due on February 28 of the following year and will identify RINs that expired in the fourth quarter of the previous calendar year. Since RINs always expire at the end of a calendar year, all expired RINs will be reported.

Since obligated parties have until February 28 to submit their annual compliance demonstrations to EPA (or, for 2007 compliance only, May 31), we allow RINs to be traded between January 1 and February 28 even if they were generated two year previous. This means that RINs that are reported by a party as expired on December 31 can still be transferred to another party after December 31. Designating a RIN as expired is only a means of categorizing the RIN and does not mean that the RIN has been relinquished, frozen, or surrendered to the EPA. Since this requirement may cause some confusion, we intend to promulgate a technical correction to the RFS rule to eliminate the requirement that RINs be reported as "expired."

Question and Answer was originally posted at: Questions and Answers on the Renewable Fuel Standard Program (PDF) (55 pp, 221 K, EPA420-F-07-041a, August 2007, About PDF)