Market access, by market
Whether a robot can legally be sold depends on where it is being sold. The documents that decide it — classifications, tariffs, safety standards, equipment authorisations — differ by market. So does the shape of the work. This section is organised by market for that reason.
Markets
United States · open
The four gates into the US
Which HTSUS code the equipment takes, how Section 301 stacks on top, which safety standard applies, and what the equipment-authorisation rules now exclude.
Southeast Asia · in preparation
National certification, and how long it takes
Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia: which certification, which regulator, whether a local agent or local-content rule applies, and the weeks each one costs.
Further markets will follow the same structure — one file per market, so that nothing has to be reorganised when a new one opens.
Why the files do not look alike
The two markets above answer different kinds of questions, and pretending otherwise would make both weaker:
| Market | What the file is | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| United States | A register of documents — the constraint is legal, and it has a number | HTSUS codes, CBP rulings, Federal Register notices, standard parts, authorisation lists |
| Southeast Asia | A register of process — the constraint is time, and it has a queue | Which certification body, expected weeks, whether you need a local agent, whether local-content rules bite |
In the US the useful question is "which document says so". In Southeast Asia it is "how many weeks, and who signs". A page built for one is close to useless for the other.
What carries across markets
One layer is genuinely international, and we write it once rather than per market:
- ISO 10218-1/-2 — industrial robot safety. Adopted as a national standard in several Southeast Asian markets, and referenced in US practice.
- ISO/TS 15066 — collaborative operation, force and pressure limits
- IEC 60204-1 — electrical equipment of machines
- ISO 3691-4 — driverless industrial trucks, the standard AMR fleets are measured against
- Physical and commercial basics — payload, footprint, throughput, price bands, payback maths
Adoption and enforcement differ by country — Singapore, for instance, has given ISO 10218 national-standard standing, while some markets in the region treat compliance as voluntary. Which is exactly why the market layer has to exist separately from the standards layer.
Do not treat these pages as legal advice, and do not copy a code or a certification list into a contract without checking the primary record. Use them for what they are actually good at: knowing which documents exist, what number they carry, which regulator signs, and which questions to put to your broker or your local agent — before the shipment is on the water.