Which Countries Are TAA Compliant?

TAA compliant countries are the United States and the countries the US government designates under the Trade Agreements Act of 1979. A product is TAA compliant only if it was wholly made, or substantially transformed, in one of them. The list is set out in the definitions at FAR 25.003 of the Federal Acquisition Regulation, and federal buyers apply it through the FAR 52.225-5 “Trade Agreements” clause.

Countries reach the list in four ways: by signing the World Trade Organization Government Procurement Agreement (WTO GPA), by holding a free trade agreement with the US, by being classed as a least developed country, or by qualifying under the Caribbean Basin trade program. The list changes when countries join agreements, so a live tender should always be checked against the version in force on the day.

Each group reaches the list by a different route, but for procurement purposes they count the same.

Most industrial and embedded hardware is built in a handful of Asian and European countries. The table shows where the common ones stand. It is a guide, not legal advice, and the official list always wins.

The “no” answers surprise buyers most often, because Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam are large electronics exporters. Products made there do not qualify, even when the brand is Taiwanese, Japanese or American. The reverse also happens: a product from a small brand can qualify simply because it is built in Taiwan, Japan, South Korea or Europe. When two otherwise similar products are on the table, the factory location can decide which one is eligible for a federal order.

TAA looks at where a product was made, not where the company is based. Origin is decided by substantial transformation: the last country where manufacturing turned the parts into a new article with a new name, character or use. For electronics, US Customs and Border Protection rulings often turn on where the main board is assembled and where the defining firmware is loaded.

That makes origin a property of the part number and the factory. Many manufacturers build the same model in more than one country, so one ordering code can be TAA compliant while its twin from another plant is not. A change of factory partway through a program can change the answer too.

Because the list and the factories both change, origin is worth checking at three points: when the bid is written, when the order is placed and when a later batch is called off. A short checklist covers most programs.

NVIDIA manufactures Jetson modules across the US, Taiwan, Vietnam and China. The US and Taiwan-made part numbers are the compliant ones, and the determination comes down to the specific part number and its country of manufacture. The module is only part of the picture: the carrier board and the finished system also need a designated-country origin for the computer as a whole to qualify.

Our guide to TAA-compliant NVIDIA Jetson part numbers lists which module codes to order for federal programs.

For federal and defense programs, we source rugged Jetson computers and military computers from designated-country part numbers, integrate and validate each system as standard, and supply the country of origin declaration with it.