• Early this past week, the government banned new models of all foreign-made internet routers.
• This is a vast expansion of the ban it was considering of solely TP-Link models.
• Still, there’s no need to jump to buy a new router just yet.

We’ve entered the haunted house era of U.S. regulation. New rulings leap out of seemingly nowhere to take effect overnight, without clearly defined steps for how companies will comply in a way that doesn’t rob Americans of access to newer, better technology as it comes along. It happened this past January with foreign-made drones, and now it’s happened again regarding foreign-made internet routers.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) updated its list of banned devices on March 23, 2026, to include all routers manufactured outside the U.S., and it took effect immediately. Models currently on sale in the U.S. can remain on sale and receive software updates (at least until next March), and brands can continue to manufacture new units of those existing models. But the next wave of evolved, new-and-improved routers to follow? It’s a mystery as to whether we’ll even get them, because if companies don’t start making them in the U.S., we’ll be stuck for a while with the routers we’ve already got.

Back in December 2024, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Department of Homeland Security, Department of Defense, Department of Commerce, and Department of Justice were all loudly and publicly weighing a ban on TP-Link’s Chinese-made routers. Chinese routers were a risk to Americans, they claimed.

It wasn’t entirely unprompted. A spate of cyberattacks throughout 2023 against large organizations and foreign government agencies originated in China. The FCC’s motivation for banning foreign routers included a mix of fears that foreign governments (namely, China) could pressure companies to build backdoors into their routers that allow them to spy on their users, as well as allegations that a supply chain stretching across the world could lead to security gaps in routers that enable everything from espionage to IP theft.

On March 20, 2026, the White House released a document saying that “allowing routers produced abroad to dominate the U.S. market creates unacceptable economic, national security, and cybersecurity risks.” Like the FCC ruling that came three days later, it didn’t go into specifics on how this could lead to security compromises or cyberattacks, only that they might.

When the FCC updated its Covered List on March 23, 2026, to include all foreign-made routers of all brands, the news landed like a bomb. Even tech pundits like myself hardly expected such a broad ruling. Whereas the discussion had, as of four months ago, been fairly narrowly focused on the brand TP-Link and its routers made in China, the new and vastly expanded scope sweeps up every brand and every country not represented by Uncle Sam.

Basically none. Starlink, Elon Musk’s company that beams internet to users via satellites, makes some routers in Texas. Don’t want Starlink? Don’t blame you. You need a clear view of the sky where you mount your satellite, which means those living in apartments or with trees in their yards can be saddled with poor signal or unable to mount the satellite completely, just like with TV satellite dishes.

All other routers sold in the U.S. are manufactured beyond its borders. Even American companies such as Netgear, Eero, and Linksys make their routers in a smattering of Asian countries. TP-Link Technologies, based in China, already spun off its American operations into the California-based TP-Link Systems back in 2022.

Given the ludicrous pickle this puts Americans in, I’d say that the U.S. will have to carve out exceptions sooner, rather than later. None of these companies can spool up production of compliant routers in American factories overnight. But if they don’t, then the U.S. will be stuck using increasingly outdated routers as the rest of the world gets new models in 2026, 2027, 2028, and beyond.

Manufacturers tend to introduce annual or near-annual updates and replacements to their router lineups, but between WiFi standards, their upgrades are incremental. If you already own a WiFi 7 router, there’s little reason to replace it with another, newer WiFi 7 router, unless your coverage needs change significantly. Those who prize the very fastest speeds and reliable signal strength can upgrade each time a WiFi standard advances; say, from WiFi 5 to WiFi 6 to WiFi 7. Most folks will do fine replacing their router every two standard advance cycles. Unlike a smartphone, a router is not something you need to replace frequently. If you already own a WiFi 7 router or purchase one in the near future, I’d wager that the router manufacturers will have figured out the market turmoil (or the U.S. government will have backed down) by the time you truly need to replace your router.

Even if some brands decide to begin producing routers in the good, old U.S., expect prices for them to rise significantly, because American labor ain’t cheap. There’s no major rush to upgrade your router right now if you don’t need to, but neither is there any reason to wait. WiFi 8, the next WiFi standard, isn’t any faster than WiFi 7, and we don’t even know when we’ll get them now that the U.S. has upended Americans’ access to the next generation of routers. For now, it’s business as usual.

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