Made in USA fitness equipment claims are unusual among marketing claims, because the federal agency that polices them uses a treadmill as one of its teaching examples. The Federal Trade Commission’s compliance guidance walks through a treadmill assembled domestically from mostly imported parts and concludes that one qualified label on it would be deceptive.
- The FTC uses a treadmill as its own example
- The rule that governs Made in USA fitness equipment labels
- How the Commission weighs foreign content
- Assembled in USA has a bar of its own
- Customs marking is a separate test, not a safe harbor
- A supplier questionnaire for Made in USA fitness equipment claims
- What exposure actually looks like
- A worked content calculation
- Warning signs on a line card
- Questions dealers ask
- Does domestic assembly on its own support a Made in USA label
- Is a qualified claim safer than no claim at all
- We only repeat the manufacturer’s language, so are we exposed
- The short version
That example should land hard on anyone running a line card. Dealers lift origin language out of supplier catalogs into quotes, bid responses and showroom signage without ever asking what substantiates it. The claim travels, and the exposure can travel with it.
The practical question is not whether to support domestic manufacturing. It is whether the words on the sticker, the spec sheet and the proposal match the actual bill of materials, and whether you could prove it if a competitor or a customer asked.
The FTC uses a treadmill as its own example
In its guidance on complying with the Made in USA standard, the Commission sets up a case in which “A treadmill is assembled in the U.S.” and the domestic parts “account for approximately three percent of the total cost of all the parts.”
Its conclusion is blunt. On that treadmill, a claim that it is “Made in USA of U.S. and Imported Parts” is deceptive, while “Made in U.S. from Imported Parts” or “Assembled in U.S.A.” would not be.
This is not semantic hair-splitting. Two phrases that read almost identically to a club owner sit on opposite sides of a federal line, and the only thing separating them is the direction each one points the reader.
The rule that governs Made in USA fitness equipment labels
Since 2021 this has been a standalone rule rather than policy alone. 16 CFR 323.2 makes it an unfair or deceptive practice under Section 5(a)(1) of the FTC Act to label a product Made in the United States unless three conditions are all met:
- “the final assembly or processing of the product occurs in the United States”
- “all significant processing that goes into the product occurs in the United States”
- “all or virtually all ingredients or components of the product are made and sourced in the United States”
All three, not two of three. Final assembly is necessary and nowhere near sufficient, which is precisely the trap waiting for a domestic assembler of imported subassemblies.
The definitions reach past the physical sticker. 16 CFR 323.1 defines Made in the United States as any unqualified representation, express or implied, of U.S. origin. It defines mail order catalog and mail order promotional material to cover materials used in the direct sale or direct offering for sale of a product, including solicitations by mail, telephone or electronic mail without the buyer examining the actual product.
Under 16 CFR 323.3, a Made in USA seal, mark, tag or stamp in those materials must meet the same standard as a physical label. For a dealer, that can reach the line sheet emailed to a club chain and the product page on your own site, and other origin claims in those materials remain subject to Section 5 of the FTC Act.
How the Commission weighs foreign content
Cost share matters, but it does not settle the question by itself. The FTC says it considers how much of the total manufacturing cost comes from U.S. parts and processing, how far removed the foreign content is from the finished product, and how important that content is to the product’s form or function.
The third factor is the one that catches equipment. A low-cost foreign part can still defeat an unqualified claim when the product cannot function without it. The agency’s illustration is an imported watch movement, which makes an unqualified claim likely deceptive because the watch cannot keep time without it. Imported raw materials count too, depending on their share of the product’s cost and how far removed they are from the finished product; the guidance’s example is imported gold in a ring.
Map that onto a cardio machine and the analogy writes itself. A domestically welded frame paired with an imported drive motor, an imported console board and an imported belt is unlikely to support an unqualified Made in USA claim.
For made in USA fitness equipment claims, then, the controlling question is rarely the weight of the steel. It is whether the parts that make the machine work were made and sourced here.
| Label wording | What it asserts | What has to be true |
|---|---|---|
| Made in USA, unqualified | All or virtually all U.S. origin | All three conditions in 16 CFR 323.2, with little or no foreign content |
| Made in USA of U.S. and imported parts | A meaningful share of U.S. content | Substantiated content share; the FTC calls this deceptive on a treadmill at roughly three percent |
| Made in U.S. from imported parts | Domestic manufacture, foreign inputs | The FTC says this wording would not be deceptive on that same treadmill |
| Assembled in USA | Principal assembly here | Principal and substantial assembly in the U.S., with the last substantial transformation here |
| 60 percent U.S. content | A specific measured share | A documented calculation you can produce on request |
Assembled in USA has a bar of its own
The assembly claim is the usual landing spot, and it is not automatic. The FTC permits an unqualified “Assembled in USA” claim where principal assembly takes place in the United States, that assembly is substantial, and the last substantial transformation also occurs here.
Simple screwdriver assembly of foreign components generally does not qualify. The accepted example in the guidance is a lawn mower “composed of all domestic parts except for the cable sheathing, flywheel, wheel rims and air filter,” which the FTC puts at “15 to 20 percent foreign content,” assembled in the United States. The rejected example is a computer whose major components are imported and merely put together here.
A rack whose imported uprights arrive already cut, drilled and powder-coated and are simply bolted together in a warehouse likely sits closer to the computer than to the lawn mower.
Customs marking is a separate test, not a safe harbor
Importers routinely merge the two systems in their heads. U.S. Customs and Border Protection generally requires imported goods to carry a foreign country-of-origin mark, with origin usually determined by where the last substantial transformation occurred. The FTC states that an exception from a CBP marking requirement does not by itself permit a Made in USA claim, because the Commission applies its own standard.
The guidance also warns that origin claims in advertising and promotional materials, online ones included, that differ from the CBP-required mark may mislead or confuse consumers, and that marketers should clearly disclose foreign manufacture. A carton marked with a foreign country and a web page implying domestic manufacture is exactly that conflict.
Dealers who already manage import entry paperwork hold the documents needed to get this right, and frequently never connect that file to the marketing file.
A supplier questionnaire for Made in USA fitness equipment claims
- Ask for the claim in writing, per model. Not per brand, not per catalog. Origin shifts with model year and subassembly source.
- Ask where final assembly happens. Get the plant address, not the country name.
- Ask for the content calculation. Request the share of total manufacturing cost attributable to U.S. parts and processing, plus the method used to compute it.
- Ask which components are imported. Name them: motors, controllers, display boards, belts, bearings, cables, castings. Those are the parts that carry form and function.
- Ask what mark the cartons carry. Then set it beside the marketing language you were handed and look for the conflict.
- Ask who indemnifies you. If you republish a supplier claim and it fails, the contract should say who carries that cost.
- Re-ask every year. The FTC notes that a marketer needs a reasonable basis and must update the claim when sourcing changes.
What exposure actually looks like
When the Commission announced the Made in USA Labeling Rule on July 1, 2021, it said the rule lets it seek civil penalties of up to 43,280 dollars per violation along with redress, damages and other relief, per the FTC announcement of the rule. Penalty maximums of this kind are adjusted over time, so read that as the figure stated at announcement rather than a current one.
The Commission also said the rule codifies its 1997 enforcement policy statement and imposes no new requirements on businesses, and that it will keep acting under Section 5 against deceptive U.S.-origin claims that sit outside the rule.
For most dealers the realistic risk is not a federal penalty. It is a competitor complaint, a lost institutional bid with a domestic preference, or a buyer who reads the carton mark on delivery day and stops trusting the rest of your spec sheet.
A worked content calculation
The figures below are assumptions built for illustration, not industry data. Use your own bill of materials.
Assume a selectorized machine with a total parts cost of 1,000 dollars: a domestic welded frame at 260 dollars, domestic shrouds at 40 dollars, an imported weight stack at 300 dollars, imported bearings and cables at 180 dollars, imported pulleys at 120 dollars and imported upholstery at 100 dollars.
Domestic content is 300 dollars, or 30 percent of parts cost, and final assembly happens in the United States. Against the three conditions, an unqualified claim fails on the third, because 30 percent is not all or virtually all. A qualified claim stating the documented domestic share, or an assembly claim where the assembly is genuinely substantial and the last substantial transformation happens here, is the honest ground to stand on.
Warning signs on a line card
- A supplier that answers an origin question with a flag graphic instead of a percentage.
- Catalog language nobody on your team can trace to a supplier document.
- A brand that changed contract manufacturers and never reissued its claim.
- Showroom signage and a product page that disagree about the same model number.
- Co-op funded advertising repeating a claim you never substantiated, when the discipline that governs co-op advertising claims already tells you to check.
- Any origin claim attached to a private label program where you are the named seller and the factory is offshore.
Questions dealers ask
Does domestic assembly on its own support a Made in USA label
No. Under 16 CFR 323.2, final assembly in the United States is one of three conditions, and the third requires all or virtually all components to be made and sourced here. The treadmill example turns on exactly that gap.
Is a qualified claim safer than no claim at all
A qualified claim is only as strong as its substantiation. The FTC says qualified claims must be truthful and substantiated, and that a claim about a specific process or part has to clearly refer to that process or part. A documented percentage is defensible. A vague gesture at domestic content is not.
We only repeat the manufacturer’s language, so are we exposed
Possibly. The rule covers product labels and any Made in USA seal, mark, tag or stamp in catalogs and online or other mail order promotional materials, and the FTC can pursue other deceptive origin claims under Section 5 of the FTC Act. FEX is not a law firm and this is not legal advice, so have counsel review the claims you republish.
The short version
Pull every origin claim you publish into one sheet with the model, the exact wording, the source document and the date. Anything without a source document comes down until a supplier substantiates it, the same way you would handle an unverifiable surface or hygiene claim.
Treat origin as a specification rather than a flourish. Made in USA fitness equipment claims reward the dealer who asks per model, keeps the paper, and matches the words on the page to the mark on the carton.
