Micro Center is requiring customers who want to buy an RTX 5090 gaming GPU to present government-issued photo identification and sign a form pledging that the card will not leave the United States. The retailer's form asks for a buyer's full legal name, residential or business address, phone number, and email address. It also requests the actual end user if that person differs from the purchaser, the location where the product will be installed, and the intended end use of the card.
The form states that Micro Center will not sell the product to anyone who plans to export, reexport, resell, transfer, or otherwise cause it to leave the United States, regardless of destination. The policy is labeled as having no exceptions. Micro Center has not explained why it recently began requiring the form, particularly since commenters in a Reddit post said they were not asked to complete one previously. One person in that thread said they had filled out a similar but longer form when buying a GPU from Central Computers last summer.
The requirement arrives amid heightened U.S. scrutiny of GPU smuggling. Graphics processors with the processing power of RTX 4090s or higher were first banned for export to China in November 2023, but U.S. authorities only recently began seriously cracking down on smuggling operations. One major arrest so far involves three Supermicro employees, including co-founder Yih-Shyan "Wally" Liaw, who are suspected of illicitly shipping $2.5 billion worth of Nvidia hardware to China.
There have also been anecdotal reports of people buying used RTX 5090s in the U.S. in large quantities. According to those accounts, buyers arrived with testing rigs built into their cars and paid sellers in cash.
It remains unclear how the Micro Center forms would stop or prevent RTX 5090 smuggling. The forms do not list the serial number of the GPU being sold. The policy may instead serve as a deterrent for people who casually purchase high-end equipment and then sell it to another buyer at a higher price, whether that buyer intends to use it locally or export it illegally.
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