More than a year after the fall of President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, Syria's civil society organisations are navigating an uneasy transition as a revived central government begins reclaiming functions — clinics, schools, water supply — that civic groups spent over a decade performing in the state's absence. Registration of associations has become markedly easier under the new authorities, but legal ambiguity persists: groups are still bound by a 1958 law requiring prior government approval for foreign funding, prompting 31 organisations to jointly protest a ministerial circular enforcing the rule, calling it a return to repressive practice. Activists warn that the boundaries of permissible civic work are being drawn now, making the defence of an independent civil society space more urgent than it may be once those boundaries solidify.