Foreign Military Sales (FMS) is a security assistance program of the United States government, structured as a government-to-government scheme for the sale of U.S. defense articles, services, and military training to authorized foreign governments. The U.S. government acts as an intermediary, procuring items from U.S. contractors and transferring them to the foreign purchaser, which protects the buyer from contract risks. The program is authorized primarily by the Arms Export Control Act (AECA) of 1976, which succeeded the earlier Foreign Military Sales Act of 1968. The core purpose of FMS is to further U.S. foreign policy and national security objectives by strengthening bilateral defense relations and enhancing interoperability with allies.
The mechanism is managed by the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA), an arm of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). The process begins when a foreign government submits a Letter of Request (LOR), which, if approved, results in a Letter of Offer and Acceptance (LOA) that constitutes the contract between the two governments. FMS is overseen by the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Congress. It is one of two main pathways for acquiring U.S. defense equipment, the other being Direct Commercial Sales (DCS), where the foreign entity contracts directly with the manufacturer.
Recent legislative efforts aim to streamline the process, such as the proposed Streamlining Foreign Military Sales Act of 2025 (H.R. 3613). This bill seeks to raise the reporting requirement for sales from $7 million to $30 million and the limit for major defense sales from $50 million to $105 million to reduce the number of sales requiring detailed congressional review. Additionally, the Allied Defense Sales Act was passed by the House in June 2026 to facilitate joint purchases of U.S. defense equipment by allied nations.