The FCC Covered List: How a US blacklist now reaches robots, drones and routers

The Covered List is a list kept by the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) of equipment and services judged to pose an unacceptable risk to national security. Anything on it cannot get the FCC approval that nearly every electronic device with a radio needs before it is sold in the United States. Over 2025 and 2026 the list grew from a handful of Chinese telecom brands to whole product categories, including robots.

A store that stops stocking new models at the door

Think of a shopping mall with a security desk. Before a new gadget can go on any shelf, it must pass the desk. The Covered List is the desk’s do-not-admit sheet. Products already on shelves are not pulled off, but nothing new from the sheet gets in.

That desk is the FCC’s equipment authorization. Devices that emit radio signals, such as Wi-Fi routers, drones and mobile robots, generally need it before import, marketing or sale. The FCC has two routes: Certification, and a Supplier’s Declaration of Conformity, where the maker vouches for the product itself. Under rules adopted in 2022, listed equipment is blocked from both routes, and from being imported or marketed under exemptions from authorization (Benton Institute summary of the FCC order).

From five Chinese brands to whole product categories

The list rests on the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act of 2019. The Secure Equipment Act of 2021 then told the FCC to stop authorizing listed equipment, and the FCC adopted those rules in November 2022. The list at that point named communications equipment from Huawei, ZTE, Hytera, Hikvision and Dahua, plus their subsidiaries and affiliates.

The FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau publishes the list. It acts on a national security determination from a White House-convened interagency body. Sidley Austin’s August 2026 briefing describes this process for the robot listing: the body issued its determination on July 27, 2026, and the Bureau added the category the next day.

The newer entries are defined by where a product is made, not by who sells it. According to DroneXL’s timeline, the FCC listed foreign-made drones on December 22, 2025, foreign-made routers on March 23, 2026, and advanced robotic devices and power inverters on July 28, 2026.

What counts as a covered robot

Sidley’s summary gives the robot test. A device is covered if it is ground-mobile, weighs more than 4.4 pounds, and has a sensor, a network link of at least 200 kbps, and controlling software. That takes in humanoids, four-legged robots, and wheeled or tracked autonomous mobile robots. Excluded are connected cars, rail vehicles, drones, underwater vehicles, certain medical devices and fixed industrial robots.

“Foreign-produced” borrows from the Buy American Act. A device escapes the label only if it is a domestic end product: made in the US and meeting a domestic component cost share. Sidley reports 65% for items delivered through 2028 and 75% in 2029.

Automated guided vehicles (AGVs) are warehouse and factory carts that follow set routes. They fit the mobile ground robot description, which is how they ended up in Intel’s case.

Waivers, approvals and the Intel case

Listing is not a total freeze. It applies going forward, so devices authorized before July 28, 2026 are not affected by the listing itself. The catch, per Sidley, is that listed equipment is excluded from the FCC’s permissive change procedures, the usual way to modify an authorized device. Without relief, even a security patch would be off limits. So on July 28 the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology waived that restriction for certain software and firmware updates until January 1, 2029. Hardware changes were not covered.

New models have another route. Only the Department of War can grant a Conditional Approval, and applicants must make onshoring commitments such as hiring, domestic manufacturing space and investment. Applications for individual approval must arrive by January 1, 2028.

That leaves hardware changes to existing machines, which is where Intel’s request came in. DroneXL reports Intel filed on October 16, 2026, in ET Docket 26-256, saying it did not know whether its AGVs were covered and asked out of an abundance of caution. It offered the same pledges that router carriers gave: no radio changes, no marketing as new models, and no swapping US-made parts for foreign ones. The FCC granted a one-year waiver on October 22, as our news story details. Earlier one-year hardware waivers for foreign-made routers had gone to AT&T and Verizon, among others.

Trade-offs and limits

Supporters of such rules argue that connected machines with cameras, sensors and software updates are a security risk if the maker is beyond US oversight. The FCC and the interagency body make that judgment, and the full reasoning for the robot determination is in their documents, not in the sources used here.

The costs show up in practice. Intel told the FCC, as summarized in the order, that its AGVs are production-critical with no proven domestic alternative, and that replacing them would take years. That is Intel’s claim, which the FCC accepted for this waiver. The vehicle makers and models sit in a confidential appendix.

A second limit is paperwork. Each fix needs a waiver, and each waiver is narrow. DroneXL notes that no robot hardware waiver existed before Intel’s, and that the four companies cleared for Conditional Approval in the robot category so far (Husqvarna, ANSCER Robotics, Matic Robots and Volley Automation) do not make fab equipment.

What to watch

Three dates matter. Conditional Approval applications for robots close on January 1, 2028. The software and firmware waiver for already authorized robots and inverters runs to January 1, 2029. The domestic content bar rises to 75% in 2029.

Also watch for more petitions like Intel’s from factories, warehouses and hospitals that run foreign-made machines, and for whether the FCC treats them case by case or writes a general rule. Because robots now move boxes, clean floors and run AI software, the line between a telecom rule and an AI hardware rule keeps blurring. The Covered List is where it is being drawn.