This paper studies the changing and evolution process of the negative lists in U.S. BITs and FTAs, and investigates the relevances and differences of the negative lists of the two kinds of agreements. After more than 30 years of development, the U.S. negative lists are getting more and more concrete and concise. The policy transparency of the new generation of negative lists is also highly improved. The negative lists of BITs and FTAs are highly consistent both in forms and in contents, but the most important difference is the negative lists of FTAs have extra restrictions on services trade. The negative lists of FTAs have a few extra non-conforming measures on services trade and some extra clauses on the non-conforming measures concerning services trade. Based on the above analysis, this paper summarizes the experiences from the U.S. negative list regime, and some policy implications on legislation mode, legislation content and institutional system building for China’s negative list mode reform.