Chip Security Act
Latest action. Read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
Chip Security Act
This bill requires covered integrated circuit products (e.g., advanced computing chips) to incorporate certain security mechanisms.
Specifically, the bill directs the Department of Commerce to require any covered integrated circuit product to have chip security mechanisms that implement location verification before the product is exported, reexported, or in-country transferred to or in a foreign country.
Commerce must require any person that has received a license or other authorization under the Export Control Reform Act of 2018 to export, reexport, or in-country transfer a covered product to promptly report to Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security if the person obtains credible information that the product has been diverted away from its intended location or has been subjected to tampering.
Commerce must, in coordination with the Department of Defense (DOD), conduct an assessment and report to Congress on whether additional chip security mechanisms should be adopted. If Commerce determines additional security measures are necessary, then Commerce must require any covered product to include the secondary chip security mechanisms before the product is exported, reexported, or in-country transferred to or in a foreign country.
The bill authorizes Commerce to take certain enforcement actions, such as verifying the ownership and location of a covered product that has been exported, reexported, or in-country transferred to or in a foreign country.
Commerce must coordinate with DOD, within two years of the bill's enactment and annually thereafter for three years, to assess new chip security mechanisms and report to Congress.
Written by analysts at the Congressional Research Service and published on Congress.gov, not by Civibrief. Summarized at the "Introduced in Senate" stage on May 8, 2025. It describes the bill, it is not the legal text.
Where is it in the process, and what happens next?
4 steps remain before this bill could become law.
The record's latest action, on May 8, 2025: Read twice and referred to the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
- Clearing the committees it was referred to, and being scheduled for a floor vote
- Passage by the Senate
- Passage by the House
- The President's signature. If the President vetoes it, two-thirds of both chambers must vote to override.
How likely is it to become law?
Civibrief does not forecast outcomes and this page has no opinion about this one. What the record supports is a base rate, which is a fact about the whole pile, not a prediction about this measure.
In the 118th Congress (2023-24), 274 of the 16,565 bills and joint resolutions introduced became law, about 1.7 percent. That count covers every measure at every stage, including the many that never left committee.
This one is not there yet: 4 steps are still outstanding, listed above.
Has anyone actually voted on it?
No. No roll call in this Congress cites this measure. That is the ordinary outcome: most measures never reach a recorded floor vote, and a committee ends most of them simply by not acting.
A vote is not the only thing that happens to a measure. Hearings, markups, and referrals are all recorded actions, and none of them is a vote of the full chamber.
Who is behind it?
Tom Cotton (R-AR) introduced it on May 8, 2025, and 21 members have since signed on as cosponsors.
They come from both major parties: 9 Democrats, 12 Republicans.
Cosponsoring is a formal signature on the text. It is not a commitment to vote for the measure, it does not bind anyone's party, and a long list of cosponsors is a measure of attention rather than of prospects.
How long has it been in play?
It was introduced on May 8, 2025, 490 days ago. The most recent recorded action was 490 days ago, on May 8, 2025.
Measures do not carry over. Anything the 119th Congress has not finished by January 3, 2027 dies when the term ends, and has to be introduced again from the start in the next Congress.
Every answer above is assembled from this measure's own record on Congress.gov and from published counts of what Congress has passed before. Civibrief does not predict outcomes and takes no position on any measure.
Vote history
- SenateIn committee, no floor vote yet
- HouseAwaits Senate passage
- PresidentAwaits both chambers