The Class I Change That Needs a New Grant
A US-built robot stays off the Covered List on one number, the share of its component cost that is domestic. From October 13, 2026, a supplier swap that pushes that number to 65 percent or below stops being a routine change. It needs a new grant of certification. Absent a Conditional Approval, the device that swap produces is covered equipment, which cannot obtain an equipment authorization at all.
What takes effect on October 13, 2026
FCC 26-50, the Third Report and Order in ET Docket No. 21-232, was published at 91 FR 57798 on September 11, 2026 and takes effect October 13, 2026. It adds a sentence to each of the two rules that let a manufacturer modify certified equipment without coming back to the Commission.
- Section 2.932(a) gains a closing sentence stating that its exceptions "do not apply to changes made by Covered List entities or changes that would result in the modified device being considered covered communications equipment."
- Section 2.1043(a) opens with the rule that those changes "shall not be performed without application for and authorization of a new grant of certification."
In the preamble, the prohibition applies to "a change that would cause a device to lose 'domestic end product' status." The Commission presents this as a clarification, consistent with the intent it stated in its First and Second Reports and Orders; what arrives on October 13, 2026 is the rule text. No petition for reconsideration had been filed as of September 28, 2026, and petitions are due October 13, 2026.
Three entries turn on the same status
Domestic end product status decides coverage in three places.
- Advanced robotic devices are foreign-produced unless they qualify as a domestic end product under 48 CFR 25.101(a), with a Conditional Approval from the Department of War as the one exception.
- Power inverters are foreign-produced unless they are eligible for the section 45X credit for domestic production or qualify as a domestic end product, so an inverter relying on the second prong alone is the exposed one.
- The drone entry excepts Buy American domestic end products until January 1, 2028.
The router entry does not run on this test, so nothing below reaches it. How the definition came to govern the robot and inverter entries is set out in the foreign-produced piece and the inverter entry piece.
How one substitution moves the fraction
Under 48 CFR 25.003, an end product manufactured in the United States is a domestic end product when the cost of its US components exceeds 65 percent of the cost of all its components, for items delivered in calendar years 2024 through 2028. Three parts of that definition decide what a single part change does to the number.
- Cost is the acquisition cost of a purchased part, including transportation to the place it is incorporated and any applicable duty.
- The cost of manufacturing the end product is excluded, so US assembly adds nothing to the domestic side.
- Components of unknown origin are treated as foreign.
The FCC's FAQ for robots and inverters goes further and reads the commercially available off-the-shelf exception out of the test entirely, counting off-the-shelf components toward whether the device is foreign-produced. That is the Commission's reading rather than rule text. It still closes the route a manufacturer would otherwise reach for first.
Any import that replaces a domestic part lowers the domestic share, because the domestic part's cost leaves the US side while the import's cost is added to the foreign side. The unknown-origin sentence reaches a substitute part made in the United States whose origin nobody can document. In the fraction it counts as foreign, wherever it actually came off the line.
The change that needed no filing
Under Section 2.1043(b)(1), a Class I permissive change "includes those modifications in the equipment which do not degrade the characteristics reported by the manufacturer and accepted by the Commission when certification is granted." The same paragraph says "No filing is required for a Class I permissive change." A part substitution that leaves those characteristics where they were fits that description.
So the change gated on October 13, 2026 is one that, until then, left no record at the Commission. No filing puts the new parts list in front of the Commission. The only recomputation of the fraction before a part goes in is the one the manufacturer runs on the changed bill of materials.
The Commission also said it is not imposing new component-lineage investigation obligations beyond those compliance already required. The domestic end product test already requires the cost of every component. It already treats a component nobody can place as foreign.
When the manufacturer holding the grant swaps a part on a US-built robot, or on an inverter that relies on domestic end product status alone, nobody files anything. If that swap takes the device to 65 percent or below, § 2.1043(a) forbade that change without a new grant, which covered equipment cannot receive. For the inverter, and for the robot without a Conditional Approval from the Department of War, the units built after the swap are covered communications equipment carrying the brand owner's name.