FCC or CE first — which should robot exporters do?

Different markets, different rules. FCC is mandatory in the US for any radio-emitting device (third-party lab required, $8K–$25K, 8–14 weeks). CE covers 27 EU countries plus EEA, is mandatory for most product categories, allows self-declaration for some low-risk products, costs $4K–$15K, and takes 4–12 weeks. Which to do first depends on revenue: the US is the larger single market for service robots, so most Chinese exporters target FCC first. But CE opens a wider geographic footprint and tends to be cheaper. You can run both in parallel — most labs offer combined FCC + CE programs that share radio data and save 20–30% on lab costs. Bonus: a CB Scheme test report can reduce duplicate testing across both. There's no FCC↔CE mutual recognition for full equipment authorization, but lab data reuse is common.