World Robotics 2026: what the IFR report says, and what it means for robotics advisors

The United States installed 38,400 industrial robots in 2025, a 12% increase and, in the IFR's words, the third highest number recorded in the history of its statistics. That was enough to pass Japan, which installed 36,219 robots in a 19% decline, and move into second place worldwide behind China. The June preview had put the US figure at 38,000 and 11%; the final numbers came in slightly higher.

Jane Heffner, the IFR's president since July and a Teradyne Robotics executive, described where it came from: "US robot demand has rebounded very strongly: 2025 ranked as the third strongest year on record behind 2018 and 2022. Growth came from the food industry and sectors like warehousing, logistics or medical. At the same time automotive has stayed stable as the largest customer."

The industry table bears that out. Automotive installed 13,526 robots, down 1%, and remains the largest buyer. The food industry rose 30% to 2,930 units. Metal and machinery fell 15% to 3,014, electronics slipped 1% to 2,831, and plastics and chemicals eased 2% to 2,670. The category the IFR labels all others, which is where warehousing, logistics, medical, and most of the use cases on this site sit, grew from about 6,500 units to about 8,000. The slide the IFR used to present the US numbers carried the subtitle "Growth rather outside of traditional downstreams." Translated: the robots are going to businesses that have never bought one.

The IFR's US outlook pairs a caution with a promise: "Uncertainty and trade tensions will be a burden in the short term, but reshoring policy and labor scarcity will provide excellent opportunities for robotics in the long run." The rest of the Americas was mixed. Canada rose 5% to almost 4,000 units, Mexico fell 7% to fewer than 5,200 in its third year of decline, and Brazil jumped 38% on car plants, which the IFR attributes most likely to Chinese automakers investing there.

China installed 354,000 industrial robots in 2025, up 20% and 59% of the world total, more than every other country combined. Chinese manufacturers supplied 55% of their home market. Japan fell to third, the Republic of Korea stayed flat at about 30,000, and Germany, Europe's largest market, fell 8% to under 25,000. Among the factors the IFR lists as shaping demand are "Trade restrictions and industrial strategies gain importance" and "Supply-chain transformation drives robot demand." The US release adds a line every advisor should keep in mind: "the majority of robots in the United States are still imported from Japan and Europe."

Two policy items sit behind that line. On July 28, 2026, the Federal Communications Commission added foreign-produced advanced robotic devices to its Covered List, which, as the IFR summarized for its members in August, means mobile, ground-based robots that operate away from a human operator can no longer receive new FCC equipment authorizations if they are produced abroad. Industrial arms are explicitly excluded, previously authorized models can still be imported, sold, and updated, and a conditional approval pathway exists for suppliers who make ownership and cybersecurity disclosures. Autonomous mobile robots, cleaning robots, and humanoids are inside the scope. Separately, the Commerce Department's Section 232 investigation into imported robotics and industrial machinery, opened in September 2025, still shows no published outcome as of this writing.

For a client buying a mobile robot this is now a diligence question, not a trade policy debate. Ask the supplier where the robot is produced, whether the specific model holds a current FCC authorization, and who bears a change in import duties during the contract. A supplier worth recommending answers all three in writing. The ones who cannot answer the second question are the ones whose fleet may not be able to add units next year.

Three things to take from two volumes of statistics.

• Lead with the categories that grew. In the United States the food industry, warehousing, logistics, and medical drove the record year, and in service robots cleaning grew 40% and inspection 83%. A client in one of those categories is being sold to right now by suppliers with fresh references, which means the advisor who registers the opportunity first has the better position.
• Make origin and authorization part of the quote. For any mobile robot, ask the supplier where it is produced, whether the model holds a current FCC equipment authorization, and who carries a change in import duties during the term. For an industrial arm the FCC rule does not apply, but the duty question does.
• Propose the pilot as a subscription. The IFR now says RaaS is the dominant business model for service robots in the United States, so a client who wants to try a robot without a capital request is asking for the normal arrangement, not a favor. Register the deal before the pilot starts, so the rollout that follows is attributed to you.

The money flow does not change with the statistics: the supplier pays Robotics SD a commission on the revenue a registered deal produces, and Robotics SD pays the advisor from it. What changes is the size of the conversation. Five million robots in service, half of new demand coming from businesses outside the auto and electronics plants that used to buy all of it, and a subscription model the industry's own statisticians call dominant. That is the market this channel was built for.