FCC Narrows Covered List Restrictions on Foreign Power Inverters
Agency reverses course on broad July restrictions
WASHINGTON, August 24, 2026 – The Federal Communications Commission has significantly scaled back restrictions it imposed less than a month ago on foreign-produced power inverters.
In a notice released Thursday, the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau revised the definition of “power inverters” on the agency’s Covered List, substantially narrowing the universe of inverters subject to the restrictions, while also tightening the rules for the inverters that do remain covered.
The revision comes just weeks after the FCC’s original addition of foreign-produced power inverters to the Covered List on July 28, acting on a National Security Determination that cited the risk of foreign actors exploiting the devices’ remote connectivity to disrupt or surveil the U.S. electric grid.
The August 20 notice significantly narrows that scope. Now, only ‘utility-interactive inverters,’ or those intended to operate in parallel with the electric grid to supply common loads and, at times, deliver power back to the utility, remain covered.
The July 28 determination had broadly defined a power inverter as any bi-directional device converting DC electricity to AC power, or vice versa, that contains components enabling remote communication or monitoring through Wi-Fi, cellular, Bluetooth, or similar connections.
Non-utility-interactive inverters and standalone rectifiers, which convert only AC to DC power, are excluded from the list entirely.
The underlying determination reasons that inverters incapable of connecting to the utility grid generally do not pose a risk to the broader power system, since the national security concern centers on vulnerabilities introduced into the interconnected grid rather than standalone or local systems.
At the same time, the FCC tightened the connectivity test for inverters that remain covered. The updated definition now applies to devices that “contain, or are designed, equipped, or configured to accept” a remote communication component. That differentiation extends the rule to wired connections such as Ethernet, not just wireless ones.
The August 20 notice also classified inverters eligible for the federal Advanced Manufacturing Production Credit under 26 U.S.C. § 45X, part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, as not considered foreign-produced for Covered List purposes.
The revision comes amid broader criticism from FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez over the pace and process behind the FCC’s expanding national security authority over communications and connected equipment, including routers, drones, and robotic devices.
Gomez said last week she supports efforts to protect U.S. communications infrastructure from foreign adversaries, but argued that companies need clearer rules to work with.
“What I'm hearing from American companies and industry leaders is they’re concerned about the haphazard and chaotic way that we’ve seen the rollout of these ... profound changes to the covered list,” Gomez said.
A device qualifies as a “domestic end product” under the Federal Acquisition Regulation when domestic components account for more than 65 percent of total component cost for items delivered between 2024 and 2028, rising to 75 percent for items delivered starting in 2029.
Manufacturers of covered inverters can still pursue a conditional approval from the Defense Department showing the device doesn’t pose an unacceptable national security risk.
