Buy American Is Moving to 75% Domestic Content in 2029: For Electronics, That’s a Process-Capability Test, Not a Label

On September 10, 2026, the U.S. General Services Administration posted on X that its review of roughly 18,000 AbilityOne products was about “the push to ensure federal purchasing lives up to Buy American standards.” Country of origin matters, “so does pricing, sourcing, & compliance.” It was a short post about one procurement category, but it points at a much larger and more concrete shift that is now written into the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR): the domestic content test that defines a qualifying product under the Buy American Act is about to get significantly harder.

Under FAR 25.101(a)(2)(i), a manufactured end product qualifies as a “domestic end product” only if it is manufactured in the United States and the cost of its domestic components exceeds a threshold percentage of the cost of all components. That threshold is 65 percent for items delivered in calendar years 2024 through 2028, and it steps up to 75 percent for items delivered starting in calendar year 2029. The same 65%→75% step appears in the DoD FAR Supplement, DFARS 252.225-7001. For any electronics supplier delivering product to the federal government – or to primes that do – the question is not whether the change is coming. It is what a factory has to prove to still call its product domestic in 2029.

Why “75% domestic content” is an engineering problem for electronics

For an electronics assembly, domestic content is not measured by where the logo is welded on. It is measured by where value-adding component cost and process work actually occur. And the frame that governs it is getting stricter on two fronts at once. As Federal News Network reported October 6, 2026, the second tranche of proposed rules under the Revolutionary FAR Overhaul both raises the domestic content requirement from 65% to 75% in 2029 and tightens the waiver path: suppliers who need to source a material or component from another country will have to run waivers through the Made in America Office at the White House, with comments on the proposed package due October 19, 2026.

Under FAR 25.103(b), a “nonavailability” exception already applies only when a class of supplies cannot be produced domestically in sufficient and reasonably available commercial quantities of satisfactory quality. The bar to invoke that exception – and the added review that now funnels through the Made in America Office – raises the incentives, and the burden of documentation, on any supplier whose domestic content runs thin. For electronics, the components that push a bill of materials under the line are frequently the ones with the least domestic sourcing: passives, connectors, substrate materials, and bare die. Which means the 10 points between 65% and 75% are often not found in the parts list – they have to be earned in the manufacturing process itself.

Where a process team closes the gap

For U.S. and North American electronics manufacturers, the practical path to a defensible 75% domestic end product runs through process capability that is real, measurable, and traceable – not through a certificate or a claim:

  • Cleaning and contamination control as a documented gate. Ionic residue, flux residue, and surface contamination are yield and reliability variables, and re-qualifying cleaning processes on domestic board and component sources – measured ionic contamination and surface insulation resistance per J-STD-001 cleanliness requirements – is part of proving a repeatable onshore process. If assembly has to happen in the U.S. to count, the cleaning, coating-prep, and final-clean steps that make that assembly reliable have to happen here too, with validated chemistry and logged parameters.
  • Solderability and component preparation. Re-sourcing components to push domestic content higher lands the same problem every alternate-sourcing program hits: tired or long-stored leads, oxide, and mixed metallizations. Solderability verification per J-STD-002, controlled re-tinning of aged or legacy parts, and repeatable lead forming and cutting are what keep first article from failing when the parts list changes.
  • Legacy component reconditioning. On long-lived defense, aerospace, and medical platforms that cannot be redesigned, keeping qualified components in service is itself a domestic-capability play. Reconditioning, tinning, and re-qualification let an existing board build stay compliant without a wholesale redesign.
  • Wire bonding and microelectronics packaging. As more advanced packaging and assembly work moves stateside – the reshaping of the U.S. microelectronics base now reaching from wafer fabs into packaging, cleaning, and back-end integration – bond integrity, die attach, underfill, and thermal/vacuum profiles become the difference between a part that is “assembled in the U.S.” and one that is qualified and reliable. Void content, thermal cycling survival, and pull/shear strength all depend on documented process windows.
  • Traceability with enough resolution to survive review. A supplier claiming 75% domestic content will be asked to show it. Equipment parameters, cleaning-bath chemistry and logs, bond and thermal profiles, and controlled rework history are the evidence base that makes a domestic-content claim defensible – to a contracting officer, to a prime, or to the Made in America Office.

Capital is not the binding constraint; process is

The financing side of reshoring is being pulled toward exactly this work. In March 2026 the SBA announced a “Made in America Loan Guarantee” – a 90% federal guarantee (versus the standard 75% for 7(a) loans), effective May 1, 2026, for manufacturers across NAICS Sectors 31-33 – explicitly for upgrading and replacing equipment, modernizing facilities and production lines, and bringing production back to the United States. The money to retool a line now exists; what it buys is only as good as the process capability it enables. A domestic-content target of 75% is met in the process, on the line, under documented control.

“Made in America,” in short, is nearing the point where failing on process is a compliance failure – a product that loses its domestic end product status and the procurement preference that goes with it. For senior electronics manufacturing and process engineers, the takeaway is a schedule question as much as a capability question: re-qualify cleaning and solderability on new domestic sources, validate contamination control, stand up wire-bonding and thermal/vacuum process windows, and build the traceability record now, before the 2029 threshold makes it mandatory.

Akrivis supports U.S. and North American electronics manufacturers building that domestic process capability – cleaning and contamination control, PCB/SMT and microassembly cleaning, vapor degreasing, component lead forming and cutting, legacy component reconditioning and tinning, solderability, wire bonding, and thermal and vacuum process equipment, backed by North American application support. Our application engineers work with EMS providers, aerospace/defense electronics suppliers, RF/microwave and hybrid microelectronics teams, semiconductor packaging groups, and medical electronics manufacturers on the process questions that decide whether a domestically made assembly is also a compliant one.

Request an application review to walk through your cleaning, solderability, reconditioning, bonding, or thermal process challenges with an Akrivis application engineer. Visit /contact/ to start.

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