Berry Compliant: Covered Items, Exceptions, and Penalties

A product is Berry compliant when it was entirely grown, reprocessed, reused, or produced in the United States and is being purchased with Department of Defense funds. The rule comes from the Berry Amendment, codified at 10 U.S.C. § 4862, and it applies only to specific categories of goods. If your item is on the list, every fiber, ingredient, and component has to be domestic. There is no percentage threshold and no partial credit.

What Berry Compliance Actually Demands

The Berry Amendment is a hard ban, not a preference. DoD funds cannot be used to buy a covered item unless that item is domestic from start to finish. The raw fiber in a uniform, the thread holding it together, and the finished garment must all be American-made. A uniform that is 95 percent domestic and 5 percent foreign fails.

The requirement follows the money, not the purchasing office. It applies whether the item is bought as a finished product, a component, or a raw material, and it applies when another agency, like the General Services Administration, buys the item on DoD’s behalf.¹

Which Items Are Covered

If an item falls outside the statutory list, the Berry Amendment does not reach it, though other domestic sourcing laws may. As of January 1, 2026, covered items include:

Food, from fresh produce to prepared meals.
Clothing, including uniforms and protective gear, along with their materials and components. Electronics or sensors added to clothing that are not normally associated with it are excluded.
Tents, tarpaulins, and covers, including structural components.
Textiles: cotton and other natural fiber products, woven silk and silk blends, synthetic and coated synthetic fabrics, canvas products, and wool in any form.
Any item of individual equipment made from or containing covered fibers, yarns, fabrics, or materials.
Hand or measuring tools.
Stainless steel flatware (added effective January 1, 2026).
Dinnerware (added effective January 1, 2026).
U.S. flags.

These categories are defined in 10 U.S.C. § 4862(b).¹

Specialty metals are often confused with Berry items but sit under a separate statute, 10 U.S.C. § 4863, with its own scope, exceptions, and waivers. A contractor working with both textiles and specialty metals tracks compliance under each law separately.²

When the Requirement Does Not Apply

The statute recognizes situations where domestic-only sourcing is impossible or impractical, and a formal waiver process fills gaps that no exception covers.

Purchases at or Below $150,000

Purchases that do not exceed $150,000 are exempt. The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021 set this figure, lowering it from the Simplified Acquisition Threshold. The Simplified Acquisition Threshold is now $350,000, but the Berry exception stays fixed at $150,000.³

Overseas and Emergency Situations

Several overseas scenarios sit outside the requirement: procurements made outside the United States to support combat operations; food and hand or measuring tools bought to support contingency operations; purchases by or for vessels operating in foreign waters; perishable food bought by overseas establishments for their attached personnel; emergency procurements; and food or hand and measuring tools bought under approved non-competitive procedures due to unusual and compelling urgency.¹

Chemical warfare protective clothing may be purchased from qualifying countries when necessary to comply with foreign government agreements or to ensure interoperability with allied forces. The qualifying country list includes Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and roughly two dozen other allied nations.⁴

Domestic Non-Availability Determinations

When no domestic source can supply an item in satisfactory quality and sufficient quantity at market prices, the government can issue a Domestic Non-Availability Determination (DNAD). This is not routine paperwork. For each military department, the approval authority sits at the secretary level and cannot be delegated downward. For other defense agencies, the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment approves DNADs, with the Defense Logistics Agency holding delegated authority for its own acquisitions.⁵

A contractor requesting a DNAD works through the contracting officer and supplies market research showing no domestic source exists, an analysis of alternatives, a written explanation of why those alternatives are unacceptable, and a corrective action plan with a timeline for eventually sourcing the item domestically.⁵

How Contractors Prove Compliance

DoD builds Berry requirements into contracts through DFARS clauses, but verifying that every link in the supply chain is domestic is the contractor’s burden.

Documentation usually comes in layers. A 2021 DoD Inspector General audit found that common proof includes certificates of conformance from contractors, country-of-origin tags on individual items, order packing lists identifying the United States as country of origin, and Berry Amendment certificates listing the place of manufacture for each component.⁶ Some contracting offices ask for an “Identification of Sources” document that names the manufacturer, gives the facility address, and includes a manufacturer’s compliance certificate. Random monthly inspections using country-of-origin checklists appear in some contracts.⁷

Compliance flows down the supply chain. Prime contractors include Berry clauses in their subcontracts, and subcontractors at every tier certify that the materials and components they supply are domestically sourced. A Berry self-certification typically affirms that only compliant products will be delivered, covering all materials and components from subcontractors at any tier.⁷

This is where compliance gets genuinely difficult. A textile manufacturer may source cotton from domestic growers, spin it domestically, and weave it domestically, but if the thread used for stitching came from overseas, the finished product fails. Tracing every input back to its origin takes persistent attention that many contractors underestimate.

What Non-Compliance Costs

Penalties reach well beyond losing a single contract.

Submitting a payment claim on a contract while falsely certifying Berry compliance can trigger False Claims Act liability. The FCA imposes treble damages, meaning the government recovers three times its actual loss, plus a civil penalty for each false claim. As of 2025, per-claim penalties can reach $14,308.⁸ On a large contract with many invoices, per-claim penalties add up quickly.

A contractor that intentionally misrepresents the origin of its products can also be suspended or debarred from all federal contracting. The Federal Acquisition Regulation specifically lists affixing a “Made in America” label to a product not made in the United States as grounds for debarment. Debarment generally lasts up to three years but can be extended. Suspension is temporary, lasting up to 18 months pending investigation and legal proceedings.⁹

Gaps in the government’s own compliance checks matter to contractors too. The 2021 Inspector General audit found that some contracts went out without Berry clauses and that DCMA officials did not always document compliance checks. That does not shield a contractor. A later audit or whistleblower complaint can surface non-compliance years after the fact, when False Claims Act exposure has already built up across dozens of invoices.⁶

Berry Amendment Versus the Buy American Act

These laws are easy to mix up and work very differently. The Buy American Act applies across the entire federal government; the Berry Amendment applies only to DoD-funded purchases.

Under the Buy American Act, a product qualifies as domestic if it is manufactured in the United States and the cost of domestic components exceeds a set percentage of total component costs. For items delivered in 2026, that figure is 65 percent.¹⁰ A product can carry significant foreign content and still pass. The Berry Amendment has no percentage threshold: every input in a covered item must be domestic. That all-or-nothing standard is what makes Berry compliance uniquely demanding for manufacturers with global supply chains.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 10 USC 4862 – Requirement to Buy Certain Articles From American Sources; Exceptions
2
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 10 USC 4863 – Requirement to Buy Strategic Materials Critical to National Security From American Sources; Exceptions
3
GovInfo. Federal Register Vol 87 No 82 – Rules and Regulations
4
Acquisition.GOV. DFARS 252.225-7002 Qualifying Country Sources as Subcontractors
5
International Trade Administration. Berry Amendment DNADS
6
Department of Defense Office of Inspector General. Audit of the Department of Defenses Compliance With the Berry Amendment – DODIG-2021-033
7
DTIC. Audit of the Department of Defenses Compliance With the Berry Amendment
8
Federal Register. Adjustment of Civil Monetary Penalty Amounts for 2025
9
Acquisition.GOV. Subpart 9.4 – Debarment, Suspension, and Ineligibility
10
Acquisition.GOV. Subpart 25.1 – Buy American-Supplies