The FCC's 2028 test lab ban reaches remote analysis and report preparation, making the location of technical work part of a manufacturer's vendor decision.
Primary lensTrade policy
Sub-topicPolicy monitoring
Evidence base1 records used
Use casePolicy monitoring
A manufacturer moving its FCC testing to an eligible country could still depend on technical work the agency has decided to exclude. The order adopted on October 29 and released October 30 reaches the engineers analyzing results and preparing or approving the certification test report, including people working remotely. Moving the measurement equipment is only part of the transition.
The FCC has set December 1, 2028 as the prospective cutoff for equipment applications relying on laboratories in non-reciprocal economies. Existing authorizations and applications received before that date are protected from this change. For a manufacturer's U.S. compliance lead, the immediate decision is how to specify the next testing contract and qualify its delivery team.
The contract should establish where the substantive FCC work will happen, which tasks can remain elsewhere, and how a change of personnel or subcontractor will be reported. Those are procurement controls suggested by the rule's reach, rather than a new FCC-prescribed importer form.
Report Writers Fall Within the Geographic Rule
Eligible locations are the United States and economies covered by a mutual recognition agreement or comparable government-to-government reciprocity provisions for equipment authorization. The FCC will maintain a list of those economies. A general trade relationship is not enough.
The FCC's definition of covered activity runs from test setup and measurement through technical analysis and preparation or approval of the report used for certification. Paragraph 117 expressly includes a person performing these tasks remotely from a non-reciprocal economy. The location where the device sits therefore cannot establish the eligibility of the whole service.
Consider a laboratory that takes every measurement at a U.S. facility but sends the results abroad for technical interpretation and report preparation. If that work takes place in a non-reciprocal economy, the arrangement falls within the restriction. A U.S. letterhead and a final signature in an eligible location would not remove the earlier covered work.
The order also follows the work beyond the laboratory. For a telecommunications certification body, or TCB, covered tasks include application evaluation, technical review, the certification decision and required post-market surveillance. For an accreditation body, they include the assessment and decision used to establish the laboratory's FCC-recognized scope.
This extends the question examined in Traverse's earlier analysis of trusted-lab priority. That piece asked whether the testing arrangement qualified for preferential review. The new decision limits which locations may supply the substantive work supporting recognition. A manufacturer choosing a vendor now has to evaluate a delivery arrangement that can remain eligible when the transition ends.
Put the Division of Work in the Purchase Order
For a model expected to enter certification after the cutoff, the compliance lead should ask the proposed laboratory to describe its actual division of work before accepting the quote. The useful record connects each covered task to the responsible team and its working location. A corporate headquarters address does not answer where a contractor or remote specialist will perform an assignment.
The following procurement matrix translates the adopted activity definitions into evidence the buyer can request. The evidence column is an analytical recommendation, not a prescribed FCC filing.
Work in the proposed service
Treatment under the adopted definitions
Evidence to request
Test setup and required measurements
Covered laboratory work
Actual site and responsible laboratory
Analysis and report preparation or approval
Covered even when performed remotely
Team locations and any subcontracted technical work
TCB review and certification decision
Covered certification work
Certification body and location of substantive review
Pre-compliance experiments
Excluded only if not presented as recognized testing and not relied on in the certification application
Separation from the evidence submitted for certification
Scheduling, payroll and other ministerial support
Excluded administration
Clear division between administrative support and technical judgment
The commercial issue is continuity after the order is placed. A laboratory may change its staffing or send overflow work to another office. A notice requirement for changes affecting covered tasks would let the manufacturer reassess the service before relying on its report. The purchase order can also assign responsibility for replacement work and resulting delay if the agreed arrangement becomes ineligible.
Those terms are particularly useful when one vendor sells a global service through a single commercial contact. They let the buyer preserve ordinary administrative support abroad while identifying the technical work that needs an eligible location.
The 2028 Cutoff Follows the Application
Paragraph 39 makes the new laboratory restriction prospective for applications received on or after December 1, 2028. A testing reservation, purchase order or planned shipment date does not itself determine which side of that line the application occupies. For transition planning, the compliance lead should connect the test schedule to the expected application receipt date and preserve the corresponding evidence.
The order directs the Office of Engineering and Technology, or OET, to issue guidance on renewals and pending applications before the transition. Recognition granted during the transition will be shortened where necessary so it does not extend beyond the common deadline. A late renewal cannot buy another full two years.
The protection for existing equipment is substantial. Properly tested and authorized models may continue to be imported, marketed, sold, operated and modified under the existing authorization framework. They do not require retesting solely because the original laboratory later loses recognition under this change. Footnote 310 preserves the FCC's ability to require retesting for other deficiencies, including fraudulent or inaccurate test information.
The date also needs a boundary. Appendix A expressly attaches December 1, 2028 to the laboratory restrictions. It does not put that date into the TCB and accreditation-body amendments. Paragraph 159 sets out Federal Register publication and OMB-review steps for effectiveness. A compliance calendar should track those steps separately rather than give every participant the laboratory transition period.
Other Global Work Can Stay in Place
The exclusions in paragraph 117 leave room for international operations. Research and pre-compliance testing stay outside the rule only when neither presented as FCC-recognized testing nor relied on in a certification application. Maintenance and calibration of measurement equipment, along with ministerial administration, are also excluded. Testing for another country's authorization can also continue in a non-reciprocal economy. The distinction depends on the function being performed and whether the work supports FCC certification.
This article concerns equipment using the certification route. Extending the location restriction to Supplier's Declaration of Conformity testing remains under consideration. The order does not change existing eligibility rules for that route.
For the next contract award, verify the proposed sites against the FCC's recognition records and the reciprocal-economy list that OET will maintain. Then check the allocation of substantive work. OET's implementation guidance, changes to that list and the vendor's revised staffing plan are the records that can change the answer before the model reaches certification.
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