Walk down the TV aisle at any major retailer, and you’ll see familiar global names everywhere. What you won’t see very often is a television that’s actually assembled in the United States.
TVs are one of the clearest examples of how deeply globalized modern manufacturing has become. The most important component inside every television, the display panel, is overwhelmingly produced overseas. Final assembly for many major brands serving the U.S. market often happens in places like Mexico or Asia. Over time, America’s once-strong television manufacturing base largely disappeared as production consolidated in lower-cost, high-scale regions.
That doesn’t mean there are zero options. It just means you have to know where to look and understand the difference between full-scale manufacturing, specialty production, and simple branding.
In our research, we’re breaking down which TV brands are actually assembling products in the United States, what that really means, and why it’s so difficult to find a truly American-made television today.
Complete List of TVs Assembled in the USA
Element Electronics is headquartered in Winnsboro, South Carolina, and is one of the few TV brands still doing meaningful television assembly in the United States. The company opened its South Carolina assembly plant in 2014, and that facility is the key reason Element shows up in “Made in USA” TV research at all.
Here’s the important nuance: Element’s TVs are assembled in South Carolina, but the components themselves are sourced from overseas (with China specifically called out in our research). So if you’re shopping for Element because you want American assembly, you’ll want to pay attention to which models are actually coming off that Winnsboro line, since not every Element product is assembled domestically. Element has assembled Roku TV and Android TV models for distribution through major retailers.
MirageVision is based in Las Vegas, Nevada, and it’s not a “TV manufacturer” in the traditional sense. Instead of building televisions from scratch, MirageVision takes existing brand-name TVs (including sets from companies like Samsung, LG, and Sharp) and converts them into weatherproof outdoor displays at its Las Vegas facility.
That conversion work is real manufacturing, and it’s done in the U.S., but it’s also very different from assembling a television from a full bill of materials. MirageVision’s value is in the ruggedization: protective enclosures, anti-glare treatments, and climate-hardened components designed for permanent outdoor installation. The end result is built to handle rain, snow, humidity, wind, direct sun, and extreme temperatures, which is why you’ll see MirageVision used in both residential outdoor spaces and commercial venues like restaurants and sports bars.
Séura is a specialty display and mirror company located in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The brand started in 2003 with a “TV behind a mirror” concept and has grown into a U.S.-based manufacturer focused on custom, design-forward products for homes and hospitality projects.
Séura’s sweet spot isn’t mass-market living room TVs. It’s made-to-order TV mirrors, waterproof TVs built for shower/bath installations, outdoor televisions, and lighted vanity mirrors. Our research notes that every product is engineered and crafted to order at the company’s Wisconsin facility, with in-house design, assembly, and quality control. Séura is also certified as a Woman-owned Business Enterprise, and it typically sells through professional integrators and dealers rather than big-box retail shelves.
SkyVue is a family-owned outdoor television company headquartered in Chester, South Carolina. Since 2009, SkyVue has designed, engineered, and assembled weatherproof televisions at its Chester manufacturing plant, and it’s one of the few outdoor TV brands still manufacturing in the United States.
SkyVue’s lineup is built around permanent outdoor installation for both homes and commercial spaces. Our research highlights product lines such as the Fusion, NXG, and OBX series, with brightness levels ranging from 400 nits to 3,000 nits and an IP55 weather resistance rating. If you’re comparing outdoor TVs, those brightness and weather-resistance specs are a big deal, because they directly affect glare performance and longevity outdoors.
SunBriteTV is an outdoor TV brand with roots in Thousand Oaks, California, where it originally developed and manufactured weather-resistant televisions for outdoor use. The brand later changed hands, with SnapAV (now Snap One, a Resideo Technologies subsidiary) acquiring SunBriteTV in 2015. Today, corporate operations are based in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Its product families are organized around where you’re installing the TV: the Veranda series for shaded outdoor spaces, and the Solis and Pro series for full-sun environments that need anti-glare and heat-resistant performance, plus additional screen protection like tempered-glass shielding. SunBriteTV also has GSA certification for government procurement, which is relevant if you’re sourcing for commercial or institutional projects.
Why Are TVs So Hard to Find Made in the USA?
When you look at a modern television, the single most important and expensive component is the display panel itself. If you don’t have domestic panel manufacturing, you can assemble a TV in the U.S., but you’re still importing the heart of the product.
Right now, the flat panel display industry is heavily concentrated in East Asia, with China in the driver’s seat. The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) has reported that Chinese enterprises’ global share of LCD production reached about 72%, and their share of OLED production surpassed 50%. ITIF also emphasizes that display manufacturing has become a capital-intensive, state-backed race where China dominates investment. (See ITIF’s analysis, How Innovative Is China in the Display Industry?)
That concentration matters because TV assembly is not the same thing as TV manufacturing. Assembly is where the panel, electronics, speakers, backlight, housing, and software are integrated and tested. The panel fab is where the “magic” happens, and that’s where the U.S. largely isn’t competing at mass-market scale.
Building a Display Fab Costs…A Lot of Money
Even if a company wanted to restart large-scale U.S. panel production for mainstream TVs, the economics are brutal. Display fabs are multibillion-dollar projects that take years to build, and profitability depends on extremely high yields and very high utilization.
ITIF notes that a new display fab can cost as much as $7 billion and take three to four years to complete. That kind of capital investment is hard to justify in the U.S. market when established producers overseas already have huge scale, deeply experienced workforces, and supplier networks built around them.
This is also why the TV market has seen manufacturing leadership shift across regions over time. The pattern has been consistent: production follows the strongest, most cost-competitive manufacturing ecosystems. A recent Financial Times piece tracing the TV industry’s evolution captures how leadership moved from the U.S. to Japan, then to South Korea, and now increasingly to China as Chinese firms gained dominance in panels and cost structure.
The U.S. TV Industry Hollowed Out
It’s not that Americans forgot how to build televisions. It’s that the domestic industrial base for mass-market TV receivers and their component ecosystems steadily eroded, while imports grew.
The U.S. International Trade Commission’s industry summaries from the era document how heavily the U.S. market relied on imported televisions and parts, and how domestic production shrank. In its long-running “Industry & Trade Summary” series, the USITC reported that imports dominate the category and noted the phase-out of certain domestic receiver manufacturing over time.
Once a category becomes import-dominated for long enough, the surrounding ecosystem tends to disappear too. You lose nearby suppliers for cabinets, backlights, boards, plastics, packaging, and specialized testing. You also lose the dense concentration of engineers and production talent that helps factories iterate quickly. Rebuilding that is possible, but it’s not a “start a plant and you’re done” project. It’s a full ecosystem problem.
“Made in USA” is a High Legal Bar
A big reason this category feels so “empty” is that people often picture “Made in USA” as meaning “assembled here.” For an unqualified “Made in USA” label, the FTC sets a much stricter standard: the product must be “all or virtually all” made in the United States, meaning all significant parts and processing are of U.S. origin.
For TVs, that’s a huge obstacle. If the display panel is imported, that is not a minor component. It’s a significant part. So even if a company does final assembly domestically, a reputable manufacturer usually cannot truthfully make an unqualified “Made in USA” claim on a mass-market television.
This is why, in practice, you see more careful language (like “assembled in the USA,” “designed in the USA,” or “built in the USA with global components”) and why truly compliant “Made in USA” televisions are uncommon.
Mexico Became The Practical North American Assembly Hub
There’s another big reality: a lot of TV assembly for the U.S. market moved closer to U.S. consumers, but it didn’t land in the United States. It landed in Mexico.
There are strong practical reasons. TVs are bulky and expensive to ship long distances, especially larger screen sizes. Being closer to the U.S. market reduces freight cost, improves inventory flexibility, and shortens lead times. Under North American trade rules, TVs assembled in Mexico can enter the U.S. market with favorable tariff treatment, a major incentive for companies to locate final assembly there. Industry analysis from Omdia describes how Mexico emerged as a preferred location for assembling TVs destined for the U.S., particularly after tariff shifts starting in 2019, and highlights the shipping and logistics advantages for large-format TVs.
From a “buy American” perspective, this is frustrating because Mexico-based assembly can still be “close to home” in a supply chain sense without being U.S.-based manufacturing.
TVs are a Low Margin, High Volume Product
For mainstream TVs, price competition is relentless. The market expects larger screens, better picture tech, and smart features, while prices often trend downward over time. That squeezes margins, and when margins are tight, companies chase the lowest-cost, most efficient production base.
That dynamic also helps explain why U.S.-based TV “manufacturing” tends to show up in narrower niches instead of mass retail shelves. If you’re competing on price in the 55-inch to 75-inch mainstream segment, you’re up against enormous overseas panel makers and mega-scale assemblers. If you’re competing on specialized value, like weatherproof outdoor TVs, mirror TVs, custom architectural displays, or commercial integration, you can sometimes justify higher prices that support more domestic work.
That’s exactly why U.S.-assembled TV brands tend to cluster in specialty categories rather than in the cheapest big-box aisle.
The Global Panel Industry is Still Consolidating
Another reason this is hard is that the global display industry is still consolidating and shifting. Large producers have been exiting or restructuring LCD operations while doubling down on OLED and other advanced technologies, with a lot of that capacity centered in Asia.
For example, Reuters reported that LG Display agreed to sell its large LCD plant in Guangzhou to TCL’s CSOT, highlighting how panel production assets are changing hands and concentrating further among major Asian players. Movements like that tend to reinforce the existing global center of gravity rather than push it back toward the U.S.
You Can’t Easily Build a Truly Made in USA TV Without US-Made Panels
If you want the clearest, most honest answer, it’s this: TVs are hard to find made in the USA because the display panel supply chain is overwhelmingly offshore, and the panel is too important to treat as a minor imported part. Add in the massive capital cost of building display fabs, the decades-long decline of domestic TV receiver manufacturing, and the market’s obsession with low prices, and you end up with what you see today: very few options.
That’s also why the “American-made” TV story tends to show up through specialty brands (outdoor, mirror, custom, commercial) and through limited domestic assembly, rather than through a fully domestic, mass-market television industry.
TVs Not Made in the USA
- Samsung – Most TVs sold in North America are manufactured in Mexico. Samsung also invests in and operates major TV production in Vietnam (separate from phones), including an announced investment in a TV production plant in Vietnam.
- LG – LG says Mexico (Reynosa and Mexicali) is the primary TV source for North America, while Poland (Mlawa) supplies Europe, and Indonesia is a regional hub for Asia/Australia.
- Sony – Historically, Sony BRAVIA TVs for the region were supplied out of Mexico (Baja California/Tijuana area), with Sony shifting/outsourcing parts of TV manufacturing over time. More recently, Sony announced plans to spin off its TV hardware business into a joint venture with TCL, with TCL handling manufacturing/supply chain for Sony TVs (pending finalization).
- TCL – TCL manufactures TVs in China (with major vertically integrated panel and display operations there). In North America, TCL operates a TV plant in Mexico that produces large-screen smart TVs, using display screens supplied from its China operations.
- Vizio does not own TV factories; it relies on contract manufacturers, and its SEC filings indicate manufacturing/production is concentrated in Vietnam, China, Taiwan, Thailand, and Mexico.
- Hisense – Hisense’s major North American TV manufacturing base is in Rosarito, Mexico (HIMEX, originally acquired from Sharp), which is described as its largest TV production hub outside China.
