If you’ve ever tried to find a cell phone made in the USA, you probably noticed something surprising: almost none exist. Smartphones are some of the most complex consumer products ever created, built from components sourced all over the world and assembled through tightly integrated global supply chains. For decades, production has been concentrated overseas, leaving the United States with very little domestic smartphone manufacturing. But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.
In our research, we’re taking a close look at the current state of cell phone manufacturing in America, why it’s so difficult to find phones assembled here, and the one company that is doing it. If supporting American assembly and greater transparency in tech matters to you, this is what you need to know.
The Only Company Assembling Cell Phones in the USA
Purism is currently the only company assembling cell phones in the United States. Founded in 2014 and headquartered in California, Purism is a privacy-focused technology company that builds secure laptops, servers, and smartphones designed around user freedom and data protection. Its flagship phone, the Librem 5 USA, is assembled at the company’s facility in Carlsbad, California.
Unlike nearly every major smartphone brand on the market, which manufactures and assembles devices overseas, Purism performs final assembly of the Librem 5 USA domestically. The company also sources as many components as possible from U.S. suppliers, including the printed circuit board fabrication and population. That said, like virtually all electronics manufacturers, Purism still relies on some globally sourced components due to the current limitations of the U.S. semiconductor and display manufacturing ecosystem. Certain chips, display panels, and other specialized parts are not produced at scale within the United States.
The Librem 5 USA runs on PureOS, an open-source, Linux-based operating system developed by Purism. The phone is built with a strong emphasis on privacy and security, including hardware kill switches that physically disable the camera, microphone, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and cellular baseband. This approach sets Purism apart from mainstream smartphone brands that rely on Android or iOS ecosystems.
It’s important to understand that Purism offers two versions of its phone: the standard Librem 5 and the Librem 5 USA. The standard model is manufactured and assembled overseas, while the Librem 5 USA is assembled in the United States with a greater emphasis on domestic component sourcing. If you’re specifically seeking a cell phone assembled in America, the Librem 5 USA is the qualifying model.
At this time, Purism remains the only known company assembling smartphones in the United States at any meaningful commercial scale.
Why Are Cell Phones So Hard to Find Made in the USA?
A modern smartphone is basically a tightly packed bundle of specialized industries: advanced semiconductors, display panels, camera modules, batteries, precision connectors, sensors, radio components, and more. The tough reality is that many of those industries are concentrated outside the United States, not because Americans can’t do the work, but because the supply base and manufacturing clusters built up elsewhere over decades.
Let’s start with chips. The U.S. leads the world in semiconductor design and equipment, but its share of global chip manufacturing capacity has fallen sharply over time, and the most advanced chips that power high-end phones have been overwhelmingly made in Asia. The Semiconductor Industry Association notes that the U.S. share of global manufacturing capacity dropped from 37% in 1990 to about 10% by 2022.
Then there are screens. If you’re thinking, “Surely we make phone displays here,” that’s one of the biggest bottlenecks. Flat-panel display manufacturing has long been dominated by East Asia, and the U.S. has had essentially no meaningful domestic capacity for mass-market panels. Willy Shih has bluntly described the situation as “zero domestic manufacturing capacity” for flat-panel displays in the U.S. Independent supply chain research also highlights how OLED supply chains are overwhelmingly concentrated in East Asia, especially South Korea and China.
Even if you could source a U.S.-made case and assemble the final product here, you’re still importing core parts like displays and many advanced chips. That makes “Made in USA” phones extremely hard to claim honestly, and it makes the economics harder, too.
The “Made in USA” Standard is a High Bar For Electronics
A lot of people assume “Made in USA” could simply mean “assembled here.” Under U.S. rules, that’s not how an unqualified claim works. The Federal Trade Commission’s standard is “all or virtually all,” meaning all significant parts and processing must be of U.S. origin, with only a negligible amount of foreign content.
With apparel, home goods, or tools, you can sometimes build a mostly domestic bill of materials. With smartphones, the “significant parts” are exactly the parts the U.S. often doesn’t mass-produce for this category: the display, system-on-chip, memory, camera sensors, and many radio-frequency components. So even if a company does final assembly in the U.S., it usually cannot truthfully slap an unqualified “Made in USA” label on the phone, and reputable companies won’t take that risk.
There’s also a separate issue: imported goods must be marked with their country of origin so the “ultimate purchaser” can see it, unless an exception applies. That requirement comes from the Tariff Act and is implemented by Customs rules. This is why you often see careful, specific wording on electronics packaging and documentation.
Relevant Manufacturing Clusters Don’t Exist in the US
Smartphones are built inside enormous manufacturing ecosystems where you can source tooling, components, packaging, sub-assemblies, and testing services quickly, often within a short drive. The best-known example is the electronics manufacturing cluster in southern China, but similar dense networks exist across East and Southeast Asia.
When a phone design changes (and it always does), you need rapid iteration: new jigs, revised boards, different adhesives, alternate suppliers, tighter tolerances, and faster turnarounds. In established clusters, factories and suppliers are accustomed to frequent revisions and aggressive schedules. In the U.S., you can absolutely manufacture complex products, but the phone-specific supplier web isn’t as deep or as geographically concentrated, which means more shipping, longer lead times, and more friction.
This is one reason “bring iPhone manufacturing back” headlines keep running into reality. The Financial Times’ interactive breakdown of why U.S. iPhone production is so difficult emphasizes that iPhones are made through a sprawling international supply chain and that recreating the full manufacturing ecosystem domestically would be enormously challenging.
US Costs Prohibit Mass Market Phone Production
Phone manufacturing is high-volume, razor-thin margin work. The big brands can amortize tooling and R&D over tens of millions of units. They also negotiate component pricing at a scale most smaller players can’t touch. If you assemble in the U.S. without the same scale advantages, your per-unit cost rises fast.
Labor cost is part of it, but not the whole story. The more punishing factor is the cost of building and maintaining the end-to-end manufacturing system that phone companies rely on: specialized equipment, automated testing, quality systems, supply chain management, and the armies of suppliers that keep production humming.
If you’re a smaller company, you’re also fighting a market reality: many shoppers expect flagship specs at a midrange price. If your U.S.-assembled phone costs more but has fewer mainstream features, you’re targeting a niche audience that values privacy, security, and transparency. That’s a real market, but it’s not “everyone buys one,” which keeps volume low, which keeps costs high. It’s a loop that’s hard to break.
Carrier and Compliance Hurdles
Even after you build a phone, you still have to make it work reliably across U.S. networks. Cellular devices involve complicated radio certification, testing, and network compatibility processes. While the exact steps vary, the theme is consistent: it takes time, money, and expertise to get a device certified and supported.
Phones also contain encryption, secure elements, baseband firmware, and safety-critical batteries. The supply chain is not just “parts”; it also includes firmware, manufacturing test software, and ongoing security updates. The big brands have huge teams for this. Smaller brands have to prioritize ruthlessly, which is one reason you don’t see dozens of American-assembled smartphones pop up overnight.
Rebuilding Advanced Manufacturing Takes Years
The U.S. is actively trying to grow domestic semiconductor manufacturing again, and there has been substantial policy focus on doing so. But rebuilding capacity, talent pipelines, and supplier networks is not a quick flip of a switch. Congressional Research Service reporting has documented the long-term decline in U.S. fabrication capacity share and the strategic challenges tied to global competition and supply chain concentration.
Even if U.S. chip manufacturing expands, phones still need displays, camera modules, and a long list of other parts that have their own concentrated global supply chains. There are signs of U.S. display investment aimed at specialized markets like defense, automotive, and medical, but that’s different from mass-market smartphone screens.
Assembly Is Possible – But a Truly US-Made Phone Requires Much More
If you’re wondering why the “made in America phone” category looks almost empty, it’s because a phone isn’t a single product; it’s the final output of multiple large industries that have largely moved offshore or concentrated abroad. You can assemble phones in the U.S. (and one company is doing it), but building a phone that’s genuinely “Made in USA” under the FTC’s unqualified standard would mean reestablishing domestic production for several of the most important components, especially displays and advanced chips. Until that happens at scale, American assembly will remain rare, and truly U.S.-made smartphones will remain the exception, not the norm.
Cell Phones Not Made in the USA
- Apple – Designed in Cupertino, CA, but assembled in China
- Google Pixel – Designed in California, but manufactured in China
- Motorola – Formerly assembled the Moto X in Forth Worth, TX (2013-2014), but closed that factory; now manufactured in China under Lenovo ownership
- BLU Products – Designed in Miami, FL, but all manufacturing is in China
- T1 Phone (Trump Mobile) – Claimed US manufacturing, but removed those claims; appears to be a reskinned Chinese-made phone
- Pine64 PinePhone – Hong Kong-based company, manufactured overseas
