“Made in America” policies are designed to increase reliance on domestic supply chains and ultimately reduce the need to spend taxpayer dollars on foreign-made goods. The Made in America Office (MIAO) will ensure that any waivers from Made in America laws are applied clearly, consistently, and transparently across federal agencies. The MIAO will analyze the information it gathers from waivers to support U.S. manufacturing and more resilient supply chains. This site will provide relevant market intelligence to those interested in doing business with the U.S. government. By centralizing information on past and pending waivers, we aim to maximize opportunities for U.S. producers to supply goods and services to the federal government.
Additional guidance and resources can be found on the Office of Management and Budget’s Made-In-America website.
Various laws and regulations establish requirements for U.S. government procurement and assistance to support American manufacturing. Exceptions to these laws and regulations are allowable under certain conditions. For example, a waiver or exception from the obligation to “Buy American” will be allowed if a needed product is not made in the U.S. in sufficient and reasonably available commercial quantities of a satisfactory quality or if it is made domestically, but not available at a reasonable cost. To ensure that waivers from Made in America laws apply clearly, consistently, and transparently, agencies will submit proposed waivers along with justification to the Made in America Office for review.
Learn More about Waivers
See a list of all submitted waivers by federal agencies. The list includes filtering options for waivers that are still under review.
See a list of federal agency websites where comments on Federal Financial Assistance waivers can be made. Please note that some agencies do not have FFA pages listed. Please reach out to the specific agency for more information.
The U.S. government seeks to maximize opportunities for small and disadvantaged businesses. There are a host of resources and free websites with information to help contractors complete the registration process and navigate the federal marketplace. The Small Business Administration (SBA.gov) website has lots of information for small businesses.
Visit SBA.govThe GSA Schedules program is one of the most popular platforms for small and large businesses to reach federal, state, and local government agencies. It supports tens of billions in sales of commercial products and services annually.
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Have questions about waivers from Made in America laws? Please reach out to the Made in America Office.
The new Made in America initiative is the result of a Presidential Executive Order (E.O.) signed Jan. 25, 2021. The E.O. created the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) Made in USA Office (MIAO) and established a requirement for agencies to submit proposed waivers to the MIAO for review. The E.O. also directed the creation of this new website for public transparency. OMB subsequently issued guidance on how to implement the Made in America E.O. Regulatory actions related to this E.O. are publicly available on the Acquisition.gov website.
You may submit comments and questions to the OMB Made in America Office at MadeInAmerica@omb.eop.gov.
Provide any comments regarding a waiver to the OMB Made in America Office at MadeInAmerica@omb.eop.gov
With $600 billion in annual procurement spending, the U.S. government is the single largest purchaser of consumer goods in the world. Almost half of that amount is spent on manufactured products. From helicopter blades to trucks to medicine, it is a major buyer in a number of markets for goods and services. Ensuring clear, consistent, and transparent implementation of Buy American policies will help the U.S. government leverage its purchasing power more effectively to advance the competitiveness of U.S. industries.
Strengthening Made in America policies will send clear market signals to give suppliers confidence that manufacturing in the U.S., with America’s workers, will provide greater opportunities. Ensuring Made in America laws are implemented clearly and consistently across government will support domestic suppliers in the six critical supply chains identified by President Biden.
No. What’s the difference? There is no single “Buy America” statute. Rather, there are a number of statutes that require those receiving federal assistance to prefer goods, products, and materials made in the United States. For example, the Federal Transit Administration’s grant-making authority requires the steel, iron, and manufactured goods used in projects must be produced in the United States. The Buy American Act (BAA) is the primary law requiring the federal government to prefer domestic goods and manufactured products when making purchasing decisions. The BAA and implementing regulations in the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) provide a two-part test for determining if a product qualifies as a domestic end product: (i) the item must be manufactured in the United States, and (ii) more than 60 percent of the cost of all the component parts must be manufactured in the United States. The FAR provides various waivers and exceptions to the BAA. By contrast, Buy America laws are applicable to federal financial assistance (such as grants), not procurement.
The domestic content threshold increased to 60 percent on October 25, 2022, further increases to 65 percent in calendar year 2024, and 75 percent in calendar year 2029. In the event no domestic products can meet the new thresholds or the cost to acquire them would be unreasonable, there is a 55 percent fallback threshold in effect from October 25, 2022 through December 31, 2029
MEP is a public-private partnership with Centers in all 50 states and Puerto Rico dedicated to serving small and medium-sized manufacturers. Supplier Scouting is a successful nationwide MEP service that identifies domestic manufacturers to produce hard-to-source and critically needed supply chain items including personal protective equipment (PPE) and medical supplies. Supplier Scouting can be applied on a national, regional or local scale. By leveraging our extensive relationships and knowledge of U.S. manufacturer capabilities, we are able to identify manufacturers’ production and technical capabilities and connect them with supply chains of larger companies and government agencies. For more information about Supplier Scouting, please contact the MEP supplier scouting team at Scouting@nist.gov.
The Made In America Office created a Backgrounder on Build America, Buy America, which includes key information and requirements that Award Recipients implementing infrastructure projects should know. For the complete provision and OMB guidance to agencies, please visit Division G – Other Authorizations, Title IX – Build America, Buy America Act of the full Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and M-22-11 Initial Implementation Guidance on Application of Buy America Preference in Federal Financial Assistance Programs for Infrastructure respectively.
