IDC: FCC robot rule leaves US humanoid revenue 58% below baseline by 2030

The US rule meant to keep Chinese robots out may hit hardest the category it most wants to grow at home. IDC said in an analysis published on Oct 22 that the Federal Communications Commission's decision of July 28 to add foreign-made advanced robotic devices to its Covered List will leave US humanoid robot revenue 41% below its pre-restriction baseline in 2027 and 58% below in 2030. Household cleaning robots, often assumed to be the most exposed, end up 4% and 18% below.

The reason, according to IDC analysts Navkendar Singh and Ryan Reith, is model turnover. Already-certified models can keep shipping and receive software and firmware updates through at least January 1, 2029, which gives robot vacuums and mowers a deep bench of approved products. Humanoid makers replace models so often that they have almost no such cushion. In total IDC puts foregone US robotics revenue at more than $6 billion between 2026 and 2030, over $2 billion of it in 2030 alone, and expects annual growth across the categories it modelled to slow from about 13% to about 9%.

The firm also restated the market's lopsided supply. Vendors shipped about 25,000 humanoids in the first half of 2026, more than the roughly 18,500 shipped in all of 2025, and Chinese vendors accounted for about 95% of units. On the buying side IDC puts China at about 21% of consumption across its modelled categories and the US at about 18%, with Europe buying more than twice the US share. It expects Chinese vendors to send blocked volume to the UK, France, Germany and Eastern Europe. US builders such as Figure AI and Apptronik still depend on China for motors, actuators, batteries and rare-earth materials, IDC wrote, and will not reach scaled production before the end of 2028. Fortune reported the same figures on Oct 23.