The Buy American Act and information technology
Other Key Information
Buy American requirements apply to goods purchased by U.S. federal departments and agencies. A general waiver exists for commercial information technology.
Blanket waiver for commercial information technology
The Federal Acquisition Regulations, Subpart 25.103 state the following:
"The restriction on purchasing foreign end products does not apply to the acquisition of information technology that is a commercial item, when using fiscal year 2004 or subsequent fiscal year funds."
To be clear, FAR Subpart 2.101 defines "information technology" as follows:
"[A]ny equipment or interconnected system(s) or subsystem(s) of equipment, that is used in the automatic acquisition, storage, analysis, evaluation, manipulation, management, movement, control, display, switching, interchange, transmission, or reception of data or information by the agency."
The term "information technology" includes:
- computers
- ancillary equipment (including imaging peripherals, input, output, and storage devices necessary for security and surveillance)
- peripheral equipment designed to be controlled by the central processing unit of a computer, software, firmware and similar procedures, services (including support services), and related resources.
The term does not include any equipment that:
- is acquired by a contractor incidental to a contract; or
- contains imbedded information technology that is used as an integral part of the product, but the principal function of which is not the acquisition, storage, analysis, evaluation, manipulation, management, movement, control, display, switching, interchange, transmission, or reception of data or information.
For example, information technology that forms an integral part of medical equipment would not be exempt from the Buy American Act.
