Micro Center is now requiring photo ID and a signed no-export pledge for RTX 5090 purchases, according to Tom's Hardware. A customer in Tustin, California, said they were surprised when a store manager made them sign the form before completing the purchase of a PowerSpec AI90 Workstation with an RTX 5090 Founders Edition GPU.
The form asks for the buyer's full legal name, residential or business address, government-issued photo ID, phone and email, actual end user, installation location, and intended end use. It also states that Micro Center will not sell the product to anyone who intends to export, reexport, resell, transfer, or otherwise cause it to leave the United States.
The move comes as U.S. authorities have recently stepped up enforcement against high-end GPU smuggling. Tom's Hardware cites the arrest of three Supermicro employees, including a co-founder, suspected of shipping $2.5 billion worth of Nvidia hardware to China, as well as anecdotal reports of buyers purchasing used RTX 5090s in bulk with cash and testing rigs in their cars.
Micro Center did not explain why it introduced the form, and Tom's Hardware notes that the form does not list the GPU's serial number. That suggests the policy may be more of a deterrent for casual buyers who resell at a markup than a serious barrier to organized smuggling operations.