Effective management of international wildlife trade is crucial to ensure sustainability. Quotas are a common trade management tool and specify an annual number of individuals to be exported, yet at present there is no global assessment of quota coverage and compliance. Using over 7,000 country–year specific reptile quotas established under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) covering 343 species, we quantify quota coverage, compliance, trade trends pre-quota and post-quota setting and whether quotas likely represent adaptive management. Quotas predominantly concerned live wild-sourced reptiles, with only 6.6% of live non-zero quotas exceeded and 4.5% of zero quotas subverted. For 62.3% of species, quotas were established higher than pre-quota trade, with traded volumes post-quota mainly unchanged or higher than pre-quota establishment, thus potentially facilitating sustainable trade. Over 38% of quota series of species remained at the same level each year, with the longest-running quotas proportionately updated the least, indicating that many quotas do not change adaptively in response to changing threats to species through time. Greater specificity in exactly what quotas cover, justification for unchanged quotas and transparency over quota determination are needed to ensure that high compliance equates to sustainable use.

有效管理国际野生动植物贸易对于确保可持续性至关重要。配额是一种常见的贸易管理工具，规定了每年要出口的个体数量，但目前还没有对配额覆盖率和合规性进行全球评估。使用根据《濒危野生动植物种国际贸易公约》（CITES） 确定的 7,000 多个国家/地区的爬行动物配额（涵盖 343 个物种），我们量化了配额覆盖率、合规性、配额设定前后的贸易趋势，以及配额是否可能代表适应性管理。配额主要涉及活体野生爬行动物，只有 6.6% 的活体非零配额被超越，4.5% 的零配额被颠覆。对于 62.3% 的物种，配额的建立高于配额前的贸易，配额后的交易量基本保持不变或高于配额建立前，从而可能促进可持续贸易。每年超过 38% 的物种配额系列保持在同一水平，运行时间最长的配额按比例更新最少，这表明许多配额不会随着时间的变化而适应性地变化。需要更具体地说明配额涵盖的内容、不变配额的合理性以及配额确定的透明度，以确保高度合规等同于可持续使用。