Authorised vs Independent Distributors: What's the Difference?

The component part is in your design, the manufacturer has stopped making it, and production needs it soon. Who do you call?

That call is the authorised vs independent distributor decision, and it is easier to make well when you know what each can prove about where a part has been.

Industry reporting gives some context. Of the 748 parts reported to the Electronic Resellers Association International (ERAI) as suspect counterfeit or nonconforming in 2025, 60.02% were obsolete at the time of reporting, and 36.15% were active (still in production) parts. Those figures count reports, not purchases, so they cannot show how often either channel goes wrong. They do show that obsolete and active parts both appear in counterfeit reports.

One written framework for that choice comes from the United States (US). The Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS) clause 252.246-7008 sets an order of preference for contractors on US Department of Defense contracts, and it shows the authorised-or-independent dichotomy is less rigid than it sounds. Authorised channels come first. Contractor-approved independent suppliers are the planned next step when a part is out of production and not available in stock from them, and the contractor takes responsibility for the authenticity of the parts.

The United Kingdom (UK) offers a second reference point. The UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) standard on avoiding counterfeit materiel, Defence Standard (DEF STAN) 05-135, requires that materiel be purchased only from the manufacturer or its franchised distributors, among the measures suppliers and manufacturers may consider to prevent their materiel from being misrepresented. Where a supplier does not buy directly from the manufacturer or cannot trace the material back to it, the standard treats that as an additional risk the supplier must manage. At a minimum, the supplier must demonstrate that the material meets the buyer’s specified requirements.

Authorised distributors have a contractual arrangement with the original manufacturer to buy, hold, repackage, sell or distribute its parts. Independent distributors have no such agreement for a given transaction and instead buy on the open market. Both can be legitimate routes to a genuine part. The difference lies in how each one evidences where a part has been.

What Is an Authorised Distributor of Electronic Components?

An authorised distributor is a supplier that has a contractual arrangement with the original manufacturer, or its express written authority, to sell the part. If the manufacturer still makes the component you need, this is the natural place to start. The US DFARS rule puts this group in the first tier of its order of preference, right alongside the manufacturer itself.

Counterfeit avoidance has its own standard here too. AS6496, from SAE International (SAE), covers measures to mitigate counterfeit products within the authorised distribution supply chain, according to ERAI's summary of the standards. AS6081 was written for independent distribution instead, and it excludes authorised distributors that buy directly from the original component manufacturer, as the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) explains.

What Is an Independent Distributor of Electronic Components?

Independent distributors are suppliers without a contractual agreement with the original manufacturer. The US DFARS rule calls a buyer-vetted and judged trustworthy supplier a contractor-approved supplier and allows it to be used when a part is out of production and not available in stock from authorised suppliers.

SAE AS6081 is the counterfeit-avoidance standard written for this group. ANSI describes it as covering independent distributors, brokers, and any entity performing open-market transactions, with requirements for supplier management, procurement, inspection, and testing. It does not certify individual parts, so compliance is evidence about a supplier's process, not a certificate for any one part. Our guide to AS6081 covers the standard in more detail.

Obsolete parts are the clearest reason to use an independent distributor, because the manufacturer has stopped making them. They also accounted for most of the reports in ERAI's 2025 data, which is why the checks below apply to every supplier, regardless of type.

Teams that scrub their bill of materials (BOM) before a design freezes can spot parts heading towards end of life sooner. Our guide to BOM scrubbing covers how.

Authorised vs Independent Electronic Component Distribution at a Glance

The core difference is the relationship with the manufacturer. Independent distributors hold no such agreement, so the evidence they offer about a part's history comes from their own traceability records, inspection and testing. The table shows how the standards cited here treat each.

How to Choose an Independent Electronic Component Distributor

Look for evidence of traceability, inspection and testing, because a standard sets practices and does not certify parts.

Ask whether the supplier can show where each lot came from. The US DFARS rule expects contractors that are neither the original manufacturer nor an authorised supplier to have risk-based processes for tracking parts from the original manufacturer to acceptance, and to inspect, test and authenticate when that tracking cannot be established. The UK standard sets a related requirement. When final product integrity is critical for performance and safety, the supplier must be able to trace the material through the supply chain to the manufacturer.

This is the question we are most glad to be asked. Component Sense is an independent distributor that does not buy on the open market. Every part we hold comes from the excess inventory of a tier-one OEM or EMS company, taken in directly from them via either InPlant™, Consignment, or Outright Purchase with chain-of-custody documentation.

Our inspectors check each part against its datasheet and our records, examine the outer and inner packaging, labels, barcodes, and country of origin, and then inspect the top, bottom, leads, and sides of the component under a microscope. If concerns remain, a part can be escalated to X-ray fluorescence (XRF) examination and decapping. A part that fails goes to a quarantine bay, and the customer is notified. You can read our inspection process step by step.

Finally, we guarantee every part is 100% counterfeit-free and back it with a 12-month warranty. We hold Aviation Suppliers Association Certification Body (ASACB), ISO 9001 and AS9120 certifications; we have been in business since 2001, and we have redistributed more than 74 million components.