Non-partner countries that have ordered the JSF

Countries that are not partners in the international JSF programme can, if they wish, purchase the JSF as a US export. The procedure followed for this type of transaction is the US Foreign Military Sales (FMS) procedure.

FMS

Under the FMS, the buyer buys the product in question from the US administration rather than from the manufacturer.

Which countries have ordered the JSF?

The current situation (i.e. on 1 January 2019) is that the following countries have placed orders for the JSF in accordance with the FMS procedure:

  • Israel
  • Japan
  • South Korea
  • Belgium

Number of aircraft ordered by non-partner countries

The Dutch Minister of Defence regularly informs the Lower House of the Dutch parliament about the state of progress, in the form of progress reports about the number of JSF aircraft ordered by non-partner countries.

Royalties and surcharges

Non-partner countries that order the JSF pay royalties on top of the purchase price for every aircraft they buy. The royalties are distributed among the partner countries in the JSF programme (i.e. including the Netherlands) who have together developed the aircraft.

When a non-partner country buys a JSF in accordance with the FMS procedure, the country in question also pays the manufacturer a surcharge on the purchase price to cover the cost of processing the order and maintaining a service organisation. In addition, the country pays the US government a fee known as ‘administration management costs’ to cover the cost of handling sales to non-partner countries. These royalties, surcharges and fees together amount to approximately 5% of the purchase price. Partner countries are not required to pay any of these extra charges.