The place is your Wi-Fi router made? You would possibly assume China, however a brand new report says the US imports a comparatively small share of routers from the nation.
US router imports from China have basically “collapsed” as most manufacturing has migrated to Vietnam, Mexico, Thailand, and Taiwan, in accordance to a examine from the International Electronics Affiliation, previously the IPC.
The affiliation—which spans 3,000 member corporations within the IT trade—revealed the report final week to look at the potential affect of the FCC’s controversial ban on foreign-made shopper routers, since almost all are made abroad. “Just about no shopper router bought in america is manufactured domestically,” the group famous; the one exception seems to be SpaceX, which has a big facility in Texas churning out Starlink {hardware}.
The affiliation examined US import knowledge on community switching and routing tools, which might cowl each shopper and enterprise merchandise; the FCC’s ban solely covers the patron class. The numbers present that in 2019, China got here in second with a 24.4% share of imports by unit, whereas Mexico was primary with a 25.1% share.
(Credit score: International Electronics Affiliation)
However since then, router imports have shifted away from China, possible due to tariffs in the course of the first Trump administration. In 2025, solely about 4 p.c of router imports by unit got here from China. Vietnam was really primary with a whopping 47% share, whereas Mexico got here in second with a 12.7% share.
“Chinese language-origin imports accounted for simply 1.1% of the full US router import worth in 2025, regardless of widespread assumptions on the contrary,” the affiliation added. (That stated, it is potential some foreign-made routers used parts from Chinese language suppliers.)
(Credit score: International Electronics Affiliation)
The FCC’s ban on foreign-made routers follows longstanding issues about Chinese language manufacturing secretly compromising Wi-Fi merchandise. However the precise order doesn’t explicitly name the Chinese language provide chain a menace. Somewhat, it factors to hackers, together with Chinese language state-sponsored teams, exploiting susceptible foreign-made routers to gasoline their assaults.
Get Our Finest Tales!
Your Every day Dose of Our Prime Tech Information
Join our What’s New Now e-newsletter to obtain the newest information, finest new merchandise, and knowledgeable recommendation from the editors of PCMag.
Join our What’s New Now e-newsletter to obtain the newest information, finest new merchandise, and knowledgeable recommendation from the editors of PCMag.
By clicking Signal Me Up, you affirm you might be 16+ and conform to our Phrases of Use and Privateness
Coverage.
Thanks for signing up!
Your subscription has been confirmed. Keep watch over your inbox!
After toying with bans on particular corporations, like TP-Hyperlink, the White Home determined to go in any case overseas manufacturing of Wi-Fi routers, successfully pushing all the trade emigrate the provision chain to the US.
“The International Electronics Affiliation estimates over 100 million shopper routers are in energetic use throughout america. The FCC’s motion impacts the substitute cycle for each one in every of these units,” the report says.
Beneficial by Our Editors
The issue is that it will take years for the trade to maneuver router manufacturing to the US, which might require “a home provider community for the lots of of discrete parts that go into a contemporary router,” the affiliation says. In any other case, corporations must import the parts from overseas markets, defeating the FCC’s coverage.
To stop disruption, the FCC has created a “Conditional Approval” course of that may exempt Wi-Fi router distributors from the ban, which applies solely to new router fashions. Netgear and Adtran, each US corporations, had been the primary to safe the exemption on Tuesday. However for now, the reprieve solely provides the distributors 18 months to safe FCC authorization for his or her new merchandise.
Within the meantime, the International Electronics Affiliation fears the FCC’s order and exemption course of will sluggish the arrival and improvement of Wi-Fi gear.
“Chipset distributors and OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] working on international product roadmaps might start to deprioritize the US marketplace for preliminary product launches if the certification pathway turns into materially slower or much less predictable than equal processes in Europe and Asia, a dynamic that would depart US customers with fewer decisions and later entry to significant efficiency enhancements,” the report provides.
About Our Knowledgeable
Michael Kan
Principal Reporter
Expertise
I have been a journalist for over 15 years. I received my begin as a faculties and cities reporter in Kansas Metropolis and joined PCMag in 2017, the place I cowl satellite tv for pc web providers, cybersecurity, PC {hardware}, and extra. I am at present based mostly in San Francisco, however beforehand spent over 5 years in China, masking the nation’s expertise sector.
Since 2020, I’ve lined the launch and explosive development of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite tv for pc web service, writing 600+ tales on availability and have launches, but additionally the regulatory battles over the enlargement of satellite tv for pc constellations, fights with rival suppliers like AST SpaceMobile and Amazon, and the hassle to increase into satellite-based cellular service. I’ve combed via FCC filings for the newest information and pushed to distant corners of California to check Starlink’s mobile service.
I additionally cowl cyber threats, from ransomware gangs to the emergence of AI-based malware. In 2024 and 2025, the FTC compelled Avast to pay customers $16.5 million for secretly harvesting and promoting their private info to third-party purchasers, as revealed in my joint investigation with Motherboard.
I additionally cowl the PC graphics card market. Pandemic-era shortages led me to camp out in entrance of a Finest Purchase to get an RTX 3000. I am now following how the AI-driven reminiscence scarcity is impacting all the shopper electronics market. I am at all times desirous to be taught extra, so please bounce within the feedback with suggestions and ship me ideas.
Learn Full Bio
