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On August 7, 2026, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) published a Third Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (FNPRM) proposing a broad set of additional measures to strengthen the security and integrity of its equipment authorization program. The FCC requires an equipment authorization before most electronic devices that emit radiofrequency energy — from phones and routers to drones and robot vacuums — can be imported, marketed, or sold in the United States. Comments to the FNPRM are due on or before September 8, 2026.
The FNPRM’s proposed measures include reorganizing the FCC’s “Covered List” around a production-location approach and adopting new “white labeling” rules, which address arrangements in which a company markets equipment certified by someone else under its own brand — potentially obscuring who actually produced the equipment. Equipment on the Covered List — the FCC’s public list, published under Section 2 of the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act of 2019, of communications equipment that poses an unacceptable risk to U.S. national security — cannot receive the required authorization. The FNPRM also would tighten importation, marketing, and liability requirements for anyone bringing covered equipment to the U.S. market, including a new requirement that every FCC certification applicant designate a U.S.-based liable party.
Originally, the FCC asked a simple question with respect to the Covered List: who made this? If the answer was one of a handful of specific, named companies, the equipment could not be imported, marketed, or sold in the United States. Beginning in December 2025, the FCC began asking a different question as well: where was this made? That shift now defines both the new rulemaking and the FCC’s two recent, consequential Covered List actions: the July 28, 2026 additions of foreign-produced connected power inverters and foreign-produced advanced robotic devices.
The Covered List Already Reaches Power Inverters and Robots
The FCC’s FNPRM did not create the production-location-based approach. The FCC first applied this approach in December 2025 to uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) and UAS critical components and then to consumer-grade routers in March 2026. Most recently, on July 28, 2026, the FCC extended that approach to power inverters and advanced robotic devices, implementing two national security determinations issued the previous day by a White House-convened panel of executive branch national security agencies, because the FCC cannot add equipment to the Covered List on its own initiative.
Because the production-location-based approach reaches entire categories of foreign-produced equipment rather than any named company, the definitions in the underlying national security determinations — which the FCC reproduced in its July 28, 2026 Public Notice — do most of the work in determining what is actually covered. The term “foreign-produced” turns on the Buy American Act’s “domestic end product” test, which asks where a device is actually made, not where the company that sells it is headquartered. In practice, that means a U.S.-owned manufacturer gets no special treatment. If it assembles its robots or inverters overseas, its products are covered by the listing exactly as a foreign competitor’s would be, and it faces the same choice: obtain a Conditional Approval or shift enough production onshore to meet the domestic-content threshold. A Conditional Approval, granted by the Department of Defense for robotic devices and from either the Department of Defense or the Department of Homeland Security for inverters, allows continued importation while a company transitions to U.S. production, but the process demands a detailed onshoring plan and full supply chain disclosure.
The advanced robotic device definition covers any ground-based mobile device over 4.4 pounds, including any dock or ground station, that operates at a distance from a human operator and combines a sensor, network connectivity, and control software. This definition sweeps in not only humanoid robots and quadrupeds, but also robot vacuums, pool cleaners, and lawn mowers. (Models with existing equipment authorizations are exempt.)
On August 20, 2026, following a further national security determination from the Department of Defense, the FCC revised the inverter entry. “Power inverters” now reaches only utility-interactive inverters that contain — or are designed to accept — a component enabling remote communication, control, sensing, data collection, or monitoring through Ethernet, Wi-Fi, cellular, Bluetooth, or similar connections, whether wired or wireless. Inverters that cannot connect to the utility grid fall outside the listing.
Data Center Import Ban May Be Next
The same production-location mechanism may soon extend to a very different, and commercially significant, category of equipment. The Trump administration reportedly is drafting a ban on imports of Chinese-produced optical transceivers — hardware critical to data center buildout — and any such ban likely would be implemented through the Covered List. The FCC has not announced any such addition, but, as recently as June 2026, the Department of Defense added at least one major transceiver producer to its list of Chinese military companies under Section 1260H of the FY2021 National Defense Authorization Act. Section 1260H requires the Department of Defense to publish annually a list of entities it identifies as Chinese military companies operating directly or indirectly in the United States.
If the pattern set by UAS, routers, robots, and inverters holds, a transceiver designation likely would reach any foreign-produced transceiver regardless of the manufacturer’s nationality, including U.S.-designed transceivers assembled abroad. Conditional Approvals have been available for every production-location category to date, and the Department of Defense or the Department of Homeland Security has been granting them, with the FCC announcing the resulting exemptions: first UAS approvals in March 2026 and router approvals near-monthly since April 2026. A transceiver designation likely would come with the same pathway, even if the timing and criteria are not yet clear. The FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology also has issued blanket waivers for software and firmware updates to previously authorized equipment in each category, and the FCC rules allow any party to seek a waiver for good cause. Data center operators and networking equipment manufacturers should start assessing their exposure now.
Taken together, these developments point to a single, consistent trend: for certain types of strategically important equipment, the FCC’s equipment authorization regime is increasingly organized around where equipment is produced rather than who produces it, and it is reaching further into the commercial and consumer technology sectors with each new action.
What This Means for Manufacturers and Importers
Companies that manufacture, import, market, or sell communications equipment — particularly equipment with any foreign-sourced components or production — should review the FNPRM closely. Given the breadth of the proposals and the relatively short comment window, affected companies should begin assessing impact now rather than waiting for a final rule.
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