Fact check: According to UCC § 9-307(h), is the United States “located” in the District of Columbia?

1. Why the UCC says the United States is in D.C. — the plain-text rule that decides choice-of-law

The Uniform Commercial Code's choice-of-law provision at § 9-307(h) contains a bright-line textual rule placing the United States in the District of Columbia for the Article 9 location analysis; that express sentence is the controlling statutory instruction for secured-transaction choice-of-law questions under the UCC framework. This is not an interpretive gloss but the codified rule that drafters included to handle federal entities and avoid circularity or ambiguity when determining which jurisdiction’s law governs perfection and priority. Multiple published versions of Article 9 in state codes and UCC compilations reproduce that precise statement, demonstrating consensus among enactments that the drafters intended a fixed situs for the federal government within the Article 9 schema rather than leaving it to variable indicia of federal presence. ^{[1] [3]}

2. State enactments mirror the uniform text — practical uniformity across jurisdictions

Several state codifications and legal information providers replicate § 9-307(h), showing that states that have adopted Article 9 treat the United States as located in D.C. for UCC purposes. The District of Columbia’s own codification and other states’ versions (for example, Delaware and New York reproductions cited) incorporate the same provision, which means that practitioners filing UCC financing statements or litigating perfection issues will generally face a uniform rule across those jurisdictions where Article 9 has the same text. This uniformity limits strategic forum-shopping based on differing definitions of a federal entity’s "location" within the Article 9 scheme and provides predictability in cross-border secured-transaction settings. ^{[2] [3] [4]}

3. What commentators and practitioners say — context but no textual contradiction

Practice-oriented discussion and question threads focus on how to apply the location rule in complex fact patterns—multi-state entities, federal instrumentalities, and property with federal connections—but do not contradict the statute’s plain statement that the United States is located in D.C. These analyses emphasize operational questions: which filings to make, which jurisdiction’s perfection law to consult, and whether specific federal instrumentalities have special status for other legal purposes. Such materials provide useful context about filing mechanics and strategic consequences without undermining the statutory text that fixes the United States’ Article 9 "location" in the District. In short, commentary refines application but does not change the codified rule. ^{[5] [4]}

4. Divergent materials and irrelevant sources — separating noise from the legal rule

Not every source encountered in web searches addresses § 9-307(h) directly; some pages are irrelevant or focus on unrelated technical content, and a few reproductions omit the specific subsection or present it without commentary. These disconnected items illustrate the risk of relying on search results without confirming whether the quoted text actually appears in the governing subsection. The clear takeaway is that relevant, enacted versions of Article 9 and authoritative code reproductions are the proper basis for answering the question, and when those are consulted they consistently reflect the same D.C. rule. Irrelevant or malformed pages should not be treated as contradicting the statute. ^[6]

5. Practical implications and where disputes might still arise

Treating the United States as located in the District of Columbia under § 9-307(h) has practical significance for perfection and priority analyses: it identifies the law that governs security interests involving federal entities within the Article 9 framework and reduces uncertainty for cross-jurisdiction filings. Litigation could still arise over whether a particular entity qualifies as a "United States" or federal instrumentality for other statutory schemes or for collateral-specific rules outside Article 9, but such disputes implicate different statutes and doctrines outside the plain text of § 9-307(h). For Article 9 questions, the statutory text and state enactments that mirror it provide a consistent answer: the United States is located in the District of Columbia. ^{[1] [2] [3]}