---
title: "Micro Center Makes Some RTX 5090 Buyers Sign a No-Export Pledge and Show ID"
description: "A shopper at the Tustin, California, store said the new form demanded a scanned driver license and a promise the card stays in the US"
author: "rews desk"
published: 2026-10-03T16:45:13Z
modified: 2026-10-03T20:57:49Z
url: https://rews.cc/a/micro-center-makes-some-rtx-5090-buyers-sign-a-no-export-ple-83b7e1
language: en
tags: ["nvidia", "chips", "ai", "trump", "china", "tech"]
publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)"
---

# Micro Center Makes Some RTX 5090 Buyers Sign a No-Export Pledge and Show ID

*A shopper at the Tustin, California, store said the new form demanded a scanned driver license and a promise the card stays in the US*

By rews desk · October 3, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/micro-center-makes-some-rtx-5090-buyers-sign-a-no-export-ple-83b7e1

## In brief

- An RTX 5090 buyer at a California Micro Center said the store required a signed no-resale, no-export declaration
- Reddit user Krothic said a manager at the Tustin store scanned his driver license; the policy began about two days earlier
- The form asks for a home address, government ID and intended use, and demands the card stay in the United States
- Penalties for breach are unclear; another shopper reported the same form at the Columbus, Ohio, store
- The pledge comes as the Trump administration restricts consumer GPU exports to China and Nvidia builds China-only variants

A customer who bought a PC with an Nvidia RTX 5090 at a Micro Center in California this week said the store made him sign a declaration that the graphics card would not be resold, given away or taken out of the United States — and scanned his driver license to go with it.

The buyer, a Reddit user posting as Krothic, said he picked up a PowerSpec AI90 prebuilt with an RTX 5090 inside at the Micro Center in Tustin, California. “Apparently the manager required me to fill out this form and scan my driver license,” he wrote. “Said it was a new thing starting just about two days ago. Had no problem doing so but thought it was interesting.”

The single-page form, which Tom’s Hardware identified as an “Advanced Computing Product Purchaser Declaration,” asks the buyer to guarantee the card will be used for personal or business use, that it will not be resold or even given away and that it will remain in the United States. It asks for a home address, a government-issued ID and the intended use of the hardware.

What penalties a buyer would face for breaking the pledge is unclear. But tying the card to an ID would make it easy to trace. In the Reddit comments, other shoppers described similar scrutiny at other stores; one said a manager grilled him to prove he was really a gamer, photo evidence required. Another poster said the same form had turned up at the Columbus, Ohio, store.

The paperwork arrives as Washington tightens the flow of high-end chips. Trump administration policies restrict exports of consumer GPUs to countries like China, where RTX cards carry steep resale prices, and Nvidia has built China-market variants, the RTX 5090D and 5090D V2, in response. The enforcement pressure is real enough: federal prosecutors this week [accused a California man of smuggling $300 million in Nvidia chips to China](https://rews.cc/a/california-man-is-accused-of-smuggling-300-million-in-nvidia-40e38f).

Retailers like Micro Center appear to be reacting to that pressure on their own, and other stores may adopt their own measures. In the meantime, AI demand has already pushed prices on PC and console hardware well past what buyers were paying a few years ago.