Buy America Requirements for Traffic Control Devices: What Changed in October 2026

Most traffic control companies have met Buy America as a line on a submittal form. A prime contractor asks for a certification, somebody in the office signs it, and the job moves on. For forty years that was a reasonable way to treat it, because the rule that mattered covered steel and iron, and almost everything else a traffic control company supplies was waived.

That waiver has ended. The Federal Highway Administration published a final rule on January 14, 2025 that terminated it in two steps. The second step applies to Federal-aid projects obligated on or after October 1, 2026, which means it is now in effect for newly obligated work.

This post explains how the rule is built, which of the things you furnish it reaches, and which it leaves alone. It is a general explanation written for owners and estimators. It is not legal advice. The state DOT, the contract documents and FHWA are the authorities on how the rule applies to a specific project, and requirements vary by state. Verify everything here with the agency that holds your contract.

Where the requirement comes from

FHWA's Buy America requirement lives in federal statute at 23 U.S.C. 313 and in regulation at 23 CFR 635.410. FHWA summarizes its policy on its Buy America page, and it publishes a set of questions and answers grouped by topic and by the date of the project.

The requirement attaches to money. It applies to Federal-aid highway construction projects. A job paid for entirely with city or private funds does not carry FHWA's rule, although the owner can write a domestic preference into its own contract. On a state DOT job, the practical question is whether federal funds are in the project, and that is something to ask the prime or the agency.

Two words in the regulation do most of the work for a traffic control company: permanently incorporated. Paragraph (c) of the regulation says no Federal-aid highway construction project is to be authorized unless the manufactured products "used and permanently incorporated" in the project are produced in the United States. The steel and iron paragraph uses the same idea. A device that stays in the road when the job ends is inside the rule. A device you pick up and take back to the yard is a different case, covered below.

The older rule: steel and iron

The steel and iron requirement has been in place for decades and did not change. For a steel or iron product permanently incorporated into a Federal-aid project, all manufacturing processes must occur in the United States, and the regulation specifically includes the application of a coating.

There is a small tolerance. Under 23 CFR 635.410(b)(4), foreign iron or steel may be used if its cost does not exceed one-tenth of one percent (0.1 percent) of the total contract cost or $2,500, whichever is greater. The cost is measured as the value of the steel and iron products as delivered to the project.

For a traffic control subcontractor the items that normally fall here are permanent ones: steel sign posts and supports for permanent signing, guardrail and its hardware, and steel components of permanent structures. Galvanizing counts as a coating, so a post rolled in the United States and galvanized abroad does not meet the requirement.

What changed: manufactured products

In 1983 FHWA decided it was in the public interest to waive Buy America for manufactured products. That decision became known as the Manufactured Products General Waiver. The final rule's preamble describes its effect: manufactured products permanently incorporated into Federal-aid projects did not need to be produced domestically, apart from their predominantly iron or steel components.

The final rule published January 14, 2025 ended that waiver and wrote a standard into the regulation in its place. The rule took effect on March 17, 2025 and phased in two tests.

Final assembly. For projects obligated on or after October 1, 2025, the product must have been manufactured in the United States.

Domestic content. For projects obligated on or after October 1, 2026, the product must be manufactured in the United States and the cost of its components that are mined, produced, or manufactured in the United States must be greater than 55 percent of the total cost of all components.

FHWA's summary of the rule states the purpose in one sentence. According to the Federal Register notice, "This final rule amends FHWA's Buy America regulation to terminate FHWA's general waiver for manufactured products and establish Buy America requirements for manufactured products with respect to Federal-aid highway projects."

The date that matters is the date the project's federal funds were obligated, which is an agency action that happens before a contractor sees the job. It is not the bid date, the notice to proceed, or the day you order material. Two jobs you are working in the same month can sit on different sides of the line. The agency or the prime can tell you which side a project is on, and it is worth asking before you price permanent items.

The preamble also says FHWA may change the start date of the 55 percent test by issuing a temporary, time-limited waiver, and that the agency would seek comment before doing so. FHWA's Buy America page is where a change of that kind would be posted, so check it at the start of a bid rather than relying on a date in an article.

How the 55 percent test is calculated

The test compares component costs. It does not look at the labour or overhead of the final assembly.

The regulation defines a component as an article, material or supply incorporated directly into the manufactured product. For components the manufacturer buys, the cost is the acquisition cost, including transportation to the place where the component is incorporated into the product and any applicable duty. For components the manufacturer makes itself, the cost is all costs associated with making the component, including transportation and allocable overhead, and excluding profit. The cost of manufacturing the finished product is not counted.

For a traffic control company this has a plain consequence. You cannot work the calculation out from the outside. Only the manufacturer knows what its components cost and where they came from. Your job is to obtain a certification from the manufacturer or supplier, and to check that it speaks to the test that applies to your project's obligation date.

A certification that says only "assembled in USA" answers the first test. It does not answer the second.

One item, one category

The regulation sorts each article into a single category. An item is an iron or steel product, or a manufactured product, or another category defined in law, and with stated exceptions it is not treated as two at once. The classification is made based on the item's status when it is brought to the work site for incorporation.

The dividing line between steel and manufactured product is cost. The regulation defines "predominantly of iron or steel" to mean that the cost of the iron and steel content exceeds 50 percent of the total cost of all its components. An item above that line is an iron or steel product and follows the stricter all-processes rule. An item below it is a manufactured product and follows the final assembly and 55 percent tests.

That makes the category of a mixed item a question of fact about its bill of materials. A sign support with steel posts, aluminum brackets and stainless hardware could land on either side. The manufacturer is again the party who knows.

The rule writes two exceptions that matter in highway work. Precast concrete products classified as manufactured products must have their predominantly iron or steel components meet the steel rule as well. So must the cabinets or other enclosures of intelligent transportation systems and other electronic hardware systems installed in the highway right of way, when the cabinet or enclosure is predominantly iron or steel. In both cases the cost of those steel components still counts in the 55 percent calculation.

Temporary traffic control: the most common question

Almost every device a traffic control company deploys is temporary. Cones, drums, barricades, portable sign stands, arrow boards, portable changeable message signs and truck-mounted attenuators arrive with the crew and leave with the crew.

FHWA addressed temporary use directly when it responded to comments on the final rule. The agency said it intends the standard for permanent incorporation of manufactured products to be the same one it already uses for steel and iron. It then wrote: "The requirements do not apply to steel, iron, or manufactured products used on a temporary basis on Federal-aid projects, meaning when contract specifications provide that the iron, steel, and manufactured products used on the project either must be removed at the end of the project or may be removed at the contractor's convenience."

Read that sentence carefully, because it turns on the contract specifications. The test is what the specifications say happens to the item at the end of the job. It follows that:

• A rental barricade you remove at demobilization is used on a temporary basis in the sense FHWA describes.
• A temporary sign that the contract requires you to remove is in the same position.
• An item described as temporary in everyday speech, but which the contract leaves in place or turns over to the agency, needs a closer look.

That last case is where traffic control companies get caught. Some examples worth checking against your contract before you buy:

Devices that stay. Temporary concrete barrier, crash cushions or sign structures are sometimes left in place for a following phase or handed to the agency. Ask who owns the item at the end.

Permanent signing in your scope. If your contract includes furnishing and installing the permanent signs, posts and delineators, those are permanently incorporated. The aluminum sign panel with its sheeting is a manufactured product. The steel post is an iron or steel product.

Permanent pavement markings. If you install them, ask the agency how it classifies the material. Some material categories are treated separately from manufactured products under other law referenced in the regulation.

Electronic equipment that becomes permanent. A portable message sign you rent to the job is temporary. A permanent dynamic message sign, a traffic signal cabinet or a detection system installed in the right of way is not.

Our post on what a lane-closure traffic control plan specifies covers how to read the plan for what you are expected to leave behind, and exclusions and assumptions in traffic control proposals covers how to say in your bid which items you priced as temporary.

Do not rely on the word "temporary" in a pay item name. Rely on what the specification says about removal, and get the agency's reading in writing where it is unclear.

Buy America is not the same as crashworthiness or the state device list

Three separate requirements often arrive on the same submittal, and they answer different questions.

Buy America asks where a permanently incorporated product was made.

Crashworthiness asks whether a device has been evaluated for how it behaves when a vehicle hits it. The MUTCD's Part 6 addresses the crashworthiness of temporary traffic control devices in Section 6A.04. Our post on MASH compliance for work zone devices covers that subject.

State approval asks whether the agency accepts the specific product. Many state DOTs publish a list. Texas, for example, publishes a compliant work zone traffic control device list on its work zone traffic control page, which we cover in the TxDOT compliant device list explained.

A device can pass one and fail another. A domestically made sign stand that has not been crash tested does not belong on the road. A crash-tested, state-listed device made abroad may be perfectly acceptable for temporary use and unacceptable as a permanent installation on a Federal-aid job.

On Texas work the same split shows up in the standard sheets, which define much of what you furnish. TxDOT traffic control standard sheets explained walks through the BC, TCP and WZ families.

Waivers and small exceptions

The steel and iron tolerance described above is in the regulation itself. Separately, FHWA lists waivers on its Buy America pages, and its questions and answers include sections on a waiver for de minimis costs and small grants, with one set of answers for projects before October 1, 2025 and another for projects on or after that date.

Two cautions apply.

First, a waiver is something the agency applies, usually at the level of the whole project or award. A subcontractor does not decide for itself that its items are too small to count. If you think a tolerance covers your item, raise it with the prime and let the agency confirm.

Second, the thresholds and conditions have changed more than once, which is why FHWA publishes them by date range. Read the version that matches your project, and do not carry a number over from an older job.

What to do in the office

None of this requires a lawyer on staff. It requires a few habits.

Ask the funding question at bid time. "Is this a Federal-aid project, and when were the funds obligated?" Put the answer in the job file. It decides which test applies.

Separate permanent from temporary in your takeoff. Mark each item you furnish as removed at the end, left in place, or turned over. That one column tells you which items need certifications. Traffic control plan quantity takeoffs covers building the takeoff itself.

Request certifications before you order. Ask the manufacturer or supplier for a Buy America certification for each permanent item, and ask it to state the standard it certifies to. For manufactured products on projects obligated on or after October 1, 2026, that means final assembly and the 55 percent component cost test. For steel and iron it means all manufacturing processes including coating.

Price the lead time. Domestic content can change who you buy from and how long it takes. A permanent sign package that used to arrive in two weeks may not. Put the assumption in your proposal.

Keep the paper with the job. A certification that lives in someone's inbox is not available when the prime asks for it eighteen months later. File it with the purchase order and the delivery ticket. Purchase orders and vendor management for traffic control covers a workable structure.

Write it into your subcontracts and purchase orders. If you buy permanent items for a Federal-aid job, the purchase order should state that the items must meet the applicable Buy America requirement and that the supplier will provide the certification. Suppliers treat a requirement on the purchase order differently from a request in an email.

Do not sign what you cannot support. If the prime sends a blanket certification covering everything you supply, read it. You can certify what your suppliers have certified to you. If the form covers items you treat as temporary, say so on the form or in a cover note.

How this affects pricing

Buy America changes costs in three places.

The first is unit cost on permanent items. Where a domestic source costs more, the difference belongs in your price. If you carry a standing price list for permanent sign installation, review it for Federal-aid work.

The second is risk. A rejected item is expensive. If an inspector finds a non-compliant permanent item after installation, the cost of removal and replacement lands somewhere, and the subcontract usually decides where. Read the clause before you sign. Subcontracting traffic control work: what to nail down covers the terms worth negotiating.

The third is administrative time. Collecting certifications is work, and on a job with a long permanent signing schedule it is real work. Estimators who account for it price more accurately than those who discover it during closeout. Bidding traffic control jobs: estimating basics covers where overhead like this belongs in a bid.

Lump sum items deserve a second look. If your traffic control lump sum quietly includes a few permanent items, the Buy America cost and risk are buried in a number nobody will revisit. Lump sum versus unit price traffic control bid items covers the trade-off.

Where software fits

Buy America is a records problem once the purchasing decision is made. You need to know which items on which job are permanent, which purchase order bought them, which supplier certified them, and where that certificate is.

Traffic OS handles the operational side of that: purchase orders tied to jobs, multi-yard inventory so permanent stock is not mixed with rental stock, and job records that keep documents with the job they belong to. It does not determine whether a product is compliant. That stays with the manufacturer's certification and the agency. Pricing is flat by tier, at $499, $949 or $1,499 per month as of October 2026 with no per-user charge, on the pricing page. The features page lists what each tier includes, and a demo shows how purchasing and job records work together.

Questions to ask the agency or the prime

Take these to the pre-bid meeting or put them in a written request for information.

1. Is this project funded with Federal-aid highway funds?
2. On what date were the funds obligated?
3. Which items in the traffic control scope does the agency treat as permanently incorporated?
4. Does the specification require removal of all temporary traffic control devices at completion, or are any to remain or be turned over?
5. What certification form does the agency require, who must sign it, and when is it due?
6. Does the agency maintain a list of products it has already accepted as compliant?
7. Is any waiver in effect for this project, and does it reach the items in my scope?
8. Who bears the cost if an installed item is later found non-compliant?

The answers belong in the job file. They are the difference between a certification you can stand behind and one you signed because it was on the pile.

The short version

• FHWA's Buy America requirement applies to steel, iron and manufactured products permanently incorporated into Federal-aid highway projects.
• Steel and iron must have all manufacturing processes, including coating, performed in the United States, with a small tolerance in the regulation.
• Manufactured products were waived from 1983. That waiver has ended. Final assembly in the United States applies to projects obligated on or after October 1, 2025, and the 55 percent component cost test applies to projects obligated on or after October 1, 2026.
• FHWA has said the requirements do not apply to products used on a temporary basis, as defined by what the contract specifications say about removal.
• Most of a traffic control company's exposure is in permanent signing, supports and electronic equipment, and in "temporary" items the contract leaves in place.
• The manufacturer certifies. You collect, check and keep the certification.

Requirements vary by state, by agency and by contract, and they have changed several times. Confirm every point with the authority having jurisdiction over your project before you rely on it.