Florida Signs Vertiport Funding Law, Setting Up December 2026 Commercial Air Taxi Target

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed House Bill 1093 into law on April 20, 2026, authorizing the Florida Department of Transportation to fund up to 100 percent of public vertiport construction costs where federal funds are unavailable. The legislation, formally titled the Advanced Air Mobility Competitiveness and Infrastructure Act, takes effect July 1 and arrives roughly six weeks after FDOT was selected for the federal eVTOL Integration Pilot Program. A week after the signing, Joby Aviation flew the first point-to-point eVTOL flight in New York City history, JFK to Manhattan, demonstrating the commercial route format Florida is now writing infrastructure rules around.

The combination puts Florida on a credible path to host the first profitable commercial advanced air mobility operations in the United States. Whether that happens by FDOT’s December 2026 target depends on aircraft type certification timelines that the state cannot control. The bill passed both chambers of the Florida Legislature unanimously.

House Bill 1093 funds Florida vertiports at up to 100 percent

HB 1093 amends Florida statutes to add vertiports and charging systems as qualifying projects under the state’s public-private partnership framework. FDOT can now fund up to 100 percent of a public or private vertiport’s costs when federal money is not available, or up to 80 percent of the nonfederal share when it is. The full text and action history are on the Florida Senate bill portal.

The law goes further than just funding. It creates a sales tax exemption for eVTOL aircraft and the batteries and training devices placed into service for at least 36 months, plus an exemption for the electricity used in eVTOL training operations. Florida’s Revenue Estimating Conference scored a similar exemption in February 2025 at a recurring negative impact of $8.1 million annually on General Revenue. The bill also classifies vertiport operators collocated with public airports as state agencies for sovereign immunity purposes, with the same tort liability protection afforded to public airport operators. That protection sunsets July 1, 2036 unless renewed.

The most consequential structural change may be the state preemption of vertiport design and aviation safety regulation. Local zoning and reasonable noise ordinances survive only if they do not effectively prohibit FAA-authorized operations. FDOT is required to write a model vertiport siting code and to expedite approval of vertiports that adopt it.

SunTrax already has one vertiport built and a second under construction

FDOT’s research and development testing hub is the SunTrax facility in Polk County, originally a closed-track autonomous vehicle research site near Auburndale. The first AAM vertiport at SunTrax began construction in October 2025 and was anticipated to be operational by early 2026, per the FDOT October 16 announcement. A passenger terminal has been built. A second vertiport is under construction to support an aerial test track for battery-powered aircraft with ranges around 60 miles.

Phase 2 of the SunTrax expansion adds nine hangars, a 3,000-foot runway, and additional vertiports. FDOT’s broader plan identifies an 18-airport network across the state’s largest metros, with more than 30 vertiport sites drawn from analysis of 239,000 parcels. Florida’s “Aerial Highway Network” is built around eight phases, with the I-4 corridor between Tampa and Orlando as the initial focus.

Florida is one of eight states that won an eIPP slot in March

The vertiport law would not matter on this timeline without the federal pilot program that goes with it. On March 9, 2026, the U.S. Department of Transportation and FAA selected eight projects across 26 states for the eIPP, the framework created under President Trump’s June 2025 “Unleashing American Drone Dominance” executive order. As we covered when the announcement landed, the program lets pre-certified eVTOL aircraft operate in commercial airspace, including Class B and C airports, before type certification clears, under Other Transaction Authority agreements signed directly with the FAA.

FDOT was selected as one of the eight winning applicants and was specifically described as covering “various types of operations in Florida.” Both Joby and Archer Aviation are named partners on the Florida project. Operations are scheduled to begin within 90 days of OTA signing, putting the realistic start window in summer or fall of 2026.

Joby leads the certification race. Archer trails it.

The 2027 service date some early reporting referenced is conservative. The aggressive case is FDOT’s late 2026 target. Both are alive at the same time because Joby and Archer are not at the same stage of FAA certification.

Joby reached Stage 4 of the FAA’s five-stage certification framework in November 2025 after obtaining Type Inspection Authorization. Its first FAA-conforming aircraft, tail number N547JX, began flying on March 11 of this year on a separate track at the Marina, California test facility. On April 27, Joby flew tail number N545JX from JFK to West 30th Street Heliport in Manhattan, the first point-to-point eVTOL flight in New York City history. As we reported on the campaign, Joby’s 2025 acquisition of Blade Air Mobility’s passenger business gave the company an operational heliport network in NYC that no other U.S. eVTOL competitor holds.

Archer’s Midnight is behind. The company received FAA acceptance of its Means of Compliance in January 2026, which paves the way for Type Inspection Authorization activity but does not match Joby’s flight-test pace. Short-seller Grizzly Research published a report in August 2025 calling Archer “the Nikola of the Skies,” and Culper Research followed in February 2026 with claims that flight logs showed no ground or air tests for three months prior. Archer has disputed those reports. Our March 9 piece on Archer’s eIPP selection covered the gap between the company’s eIPP narrative and its actual FAA progress.

The fare question Florida cannot answer yet

No operator or state agency has published projected ticket pricing for Florida eVTOL routes. FDOT has said vendors will set their own rates and that multiple companies are expected to compete on the same routes. United Airlines CEO Michael Leskinen has suggested $100 to $150 per person for short airport hops, which would price the service as a premium alternative to ride-share rather than a mass-transit replacement. A Tampa-to-Orlando hop of roughly 80 miles at airline-grade pricing is a business-traveler product. The same route at ride-share pricing transforms commuter behavior across Central Florida.

Environmental review is the other unresolved item. No public noise impact study or grid-load analysis for high-capacity charging stations has surfaced through official FDOT channels. Those issues will dominate local zoning hearings the moment vertiport siting moves from a closed Polk County test track into populated neighborhoods. The bill’s preemption of vertiport design preserves local zoning over siting decisions, which means those fights are coming, just at the local level rather than the state one.

DroneXL’s Take

Florida’s vertiport law is the strongest state-level commitment to advanced air mobility on the books in the United States, putting public money and statutory authority behind that goal at a scale California and Texas have not matched. What this story actually changes, though, is not the timeline for first flight. It changes who absorbs the cost of a slip. Before HB 1093, a Joby or Archer certification delay into 2028 meant Florida’s vertiport could end up a stranded asset. After HB 1093, the state can keep building infrastructure regardless of which manufacturer ships first, because the funding authority is not tied to a specific operator. That is the right structural choice for a market where Joby is at Stage 4 of FAA certification, Archer is fighting short-seller reports questioning whether it certifies before 2028, and competitors like Beta Technologies and Wisk are chasing different use cases inside the same pilot program.

I called the next Joby Electric Skies Tour stop in our March 16 Bay Area piece and Joby flew NYC six weeks later. The next call is harder. Joby is partnered on five eIPP projects across 12 states. SunTrax is the most photogenic AAM venue in the program, with a 3,000-foot runway coming online and a passenger terminal already built. Watch whether Joby brings the Electric Skies Tour to Polk County before the OTA gets signed. A pre-OTA marketing flight at SunTrax would tell you Florida has won the next visibility round, even if commercial operations slip past December.

Two open questions HB 1093 did not answer. First, FDOT has not disclosed how it will allocate vertiport funding among the I-4 corridor and South Florida demand centers. The bill authorizes funding but does not require any specific dollar amount, and the staff analysis explicitly noted the state has not yet attached a budget figure. The 2026-27 fiscal year is when that becomes real. Second, no operator has signed a binding agreement to fly a specific Florida route at a specific price. Until one does, the December 2026 target is FDOT’s, not the industry’s.

Sources: Florida Senate HB 1093 bill page, U.S. Department of Transportation eIPP announcement, FDOT October 16, 2025 press release.

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo.