DeepSeek in the USA
Everything Americans need to know — free chat access, CCPA privacy considerations, US state bans, API pricing in USD and how DeepSeek stacks up against ChatGPT.
Is DeepSeek available in the United States?
Yes — DeepSeek works in every US state, from California to New York. No VPN is required. Both the consumer chat at chat.deepseek.com and the developer API at api.deepseek.com are accessible over standard US internet connections.
There is no federal ban on DeepSeek for private use. However, several US states (Texas, New York, Virginia, Tennessee) and federal agencies (US Navy, NASA, Department of Commerce, Department of Defense) have restricted DeepSeek on government-issued devices over data-sovereignty concerns. These restrictions do not affect private citizens or commercial businesses.
DeepSeek API pricing in US dollars
Native USD billing — no FX conversion required.
| Model | Input (USD / 1M) | Output (USD / 1M) | Context |
|---|---|---|---|
| DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash | $0.15 | $0.60 | 1M |
| DeepSeek-V4-Pro | $0.66 | $1.98 | 1M |
Input rates are cache-miss, off-peak prices. Peak hours (01:00–04:00 and 06:00–10:00 UTC, Monday to Friday) are billed at double these rates. The older deepseek-chat (V3) and deepseek-reasoner (R1) endpoints were switched off on 24 July 2026, so their rates no longer apply. Full breakdown on our pricing page.
CCPA and US privacy
Under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA/CPRA), California residents have the right to know what personal information is collected, to delete it and to opt out of its sale. Because DeepSeek processes data on servers in China, enforcing those rights against the operator is practically difficult.
US businesses handling consumer data should:
- Obtain explicit consent before entering customer PII
- For HIPAA, GLBA or FedRAMP workloads, never use the hosted DeepSeek API
- Self-host DeepSeek-V3 on AWS us-east-1, Azure East US or Together AI for US data residency
For personal use, treat DeepSeek like any consumer chatbot — don't paste anything you wouldn't want stored. Full analysis on our DeepSeek safety page.
Where DeepSeek is restricted in the US
Every restriction reported so far applies to government-issued devices and networks, not to private citizens or companies.
| Jurisdiction | Scope of restriction | Applies to consumers? |
|---|---|---|
| Texas | State-owned devices and networks | No |
| New York | State government devices | No |
| Virginia | Executive-branch devices | No |
| Tennessee | State government devices | No |
| US Navy / DoD | Official hardware and networks | No |
| NASA / Dept. of Commerce | Agency devices | No |
There is no federal ban on private or commercial use. Rules on government devices change frequently — check your own agency or state IT policy before installing anything.
US data residency: running DeepSeek models on American infrastructure
If your workload touches HIPAA health records, GLBA financial data or a FedRAMP boundary, the hosted DeepSeek API is the wrong choice — the request leaves US jurisdiction. Because the weights are open, you can keep the model and drop the offshore transfer:
- Self-host on a US region — AWS us-east-1 / us-west-2, Azure East US, or GCP us-central1 with vLLM or SGLang.
- US-based inference providers — Together AI, Fireworks and DeepInfra serve open DeepSeek weights from American data centres with signable data terms.
- Note the trade-off — self-hosted routes run open weights, not the newest first-party V4-Pro checkpoint, so quality is a step behind the official API.
Sizing your own GPUs? Our API guide covers throughput, and the pricing page compares hosted cost against self-hosting.
DeepSeek USA — FAQ
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