Drones over Tacoma and Federal Way: two Walmart lots, one permit deadline
A plain-language guide for the South Sound. Wing and Walmart named Seattle for 2027 on October 5. The permits came first: a Federal Way land-use application in August and a Tacoma building permit in September. The sky belongs to the FAA. The parking lot and the doorstep are the cities' and yours.
The short version
Wing and Walmart said on October 5 that drone delivery reaches the Seattle metro in 2027. The paperwork came first: a land-use application in August for the Walmart Supercenter at 34520 16th Ave. S. in Federal Way, and a building permit in September for the Supercenter at 1965 S. Union Ave. in Tacoma. Tacoma's reviewers have until October 17 to comment; the city expects to issue the permit by the end of October. Neither city has a drone delivery rule on its books.
That is the whole public process so far. The FAA's drone review index has no Wing filing for Washington, only Zipline's draft for up to 75 Seattle-area sites, unanswered since November 2025. This guide is for Tacoma, Federal Way and the neighbors inside the same six-mile circles.
Every block is marked Every US town or Tacoma.
If you remember three things
The permits are the announcement. Wing filed in Federal Way and Tacoma before it said the word Seattle. Tacoma's is a building permit for fencing and storage, checked at a counter, not at a hearing.
The city can't touch the flight. It can govern the lot, the permit and its conditions, the drop, and consent. Washington has not taken that away from its cities; the one bill that would have, in 2019, died in committee.
Your consent is required before a drone delivers to your home. It is not required for one to fly over, and a nest in Tacoma reaches Fircrest, University Place, Fife and Lakewood.
Four questions, four parts
The tabs across the top are this guide's chapters. Each card below is one of them, labeled the same way. Start with the question that is yours.
Where DroneXL stands
DroneXL is not against drone delivery. Blood and organs between hospitals, a defibrillator to a heart attack before the ambulance, medication to someone who can't get out, tools and supplies to search-and-rescue teams in terrain a truck can't reach: those flights earn their noise, and some of them already fly. Everyday packages to homes may earn it too.
What we are for is doing it the right way: the least disruptive, safest, most accountable version, with the people living under the flight paths part of the conversation before the first flight rather than after. The country is in the middle of working out what that looks like. This guide, and the survey at the end of it, exist so that this town's answer is on the record.
Three things to hold onto
The sky is federal
Since 1958 the FAA has had sole authority over the navigable airspace. A city cannot ban overflight, set an altitude, or write a drone curfew. A federal judge struck down a city that tried in 2017.
The ground is local
Where a drone lands, where a package is dropped, whether a facility can be built, and under what conditions: that is zoning and land use, and it is the city's.
The window is before the first flight
Since July 28, 2026 the FAA approves most new hubs with no public comment period. A town that writes its rules early has leverage. A town that waits finds out from a press release.
Who delivers by drone in the United States
Three companies are rolling out home delivery at scale and saying so: Amazon, Wing and Zipline. Others, among them Flytrex, Manna and Wingcopter, fly trials and small services in the US without announced rollout plans; this guide adds them the day that changes.
Four words you'll see
- Nest
- Wing's name for its base: a fenced patch of a store's parking lot where its drones take off, land, recharge, and are loaded with the order by store staff. Nothing is launched from your street.
- Hub
- The same thing for Amazon, in the parking lot of one of its own warehouses. Zipline calls its version a dock.
- Service area
- The circle around a nest or hub that the drones can reach: about 6 miles for Wing, 7.5 for Amazon. Every home inside it can order. The base sits in one town; the circle usually covers several.
- Overflight
- A drone passing above your property on its way to someone else's. The FAA controls it; no town or homeowner can refuse it.
Wing (Alphabet)
Two store filings · announced for 2027Named the Seattle metro on October 5, 2026 for 2027, after filing in Federal Way (master land-use application, August) and Tacoma (building permit, September) for drone bases in Walmart parking lots. No Washington entry under Wing on the FAA's drone review index as of October 11, 2026. Wing has not answered DroneXL's 30 written questions sent September 8.
- Aircraft
- Hummingbird, 14 lb (a 24 lb version in part of the fleet)
- Flies from
- A nest (its takeoff, landing and loading base) in a retailer's parking lot, usually a Walmart
- Reach
- About 6 miles from the nest
- Delivery
- Hovers at about 23 ft, lowers the package on a tether. Never lands at your house
- Hours (FAA)
- 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.
- Volume
- Up to 400 flights a day per nest
Amazon Prime Air
Not namedNo Washington hub in Amazon's FAA filings, no Washington row in the DroneXL tracker, and no Amazon entry for Washington on the FAA's review index as of October 11, 2026. Its nearest plan is a Portland, Oregon hub for early 2027. Amazon's hometown has no Prime Air service.
- Aircraft
- MK30, 83 lb at takeoff, no parachute
- Flies from
- Amazon's own warehouses
- Reach
- 7.5 miles from the hub
- Delivery
- Drops the package from about 13 ft
- Hours (FAA)
- 6 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.
- Volume
- Up to 1,000 flights a day per hub
Zipline
Seattle draft in FAA reviewAsked the FAA in 2025 for up to 75 sites and 500 docks across a 3,474-square-mile area that the draft says reaches Pierce and Thurston counties. Comments closed November 2, 2025; no decision posted as of October 11, 2026. No site or city has been named.
- Aircraft
- P2 Zip, 55 lb, carries a parachute
- Delivery
- Hovers at about 300 ft; a tethered "droid" lowers the package
- Reach
- About 10 miles
How a drone would actually reach your street
Wing does not launch from your street. It launches from a fenced patch of a Walmart parking lot, and the two lots on file are the Supercenter at 1965 S. Union Ave. in central Tacoma and the Supercenter at 34520 16th Ave. S. in Federal Way, 8.6 miles apart. Every home within about six miles of a nest can order, which from the Tacoma lot means most of Tacoma, Fircrest, University Place, Ruston, Fife and the north end of Lakewood, and from the Federal Way lot means Federal Way, Milton, Edgewood, Auburn and Des Moines. Walmart's Emily Bergstrom told KIRO 7 that customers within six miles of a participating store will see the option; Wing's Jessie Poole-Strang said the aircraft is built for rain and the long dark of a Seattle winter and has FAA permission to fly after sunset. Which Washington stores open first has not been said.
The map is centered on the Tacoma Walmart lot, the filing with a date on it; the two Walmart points were placed from their street addresses with the U.S. Census Bureau geocoder, and every other marker is a landmark placed from well-known coordinates and marked approximate. Distances are straight-line from the Tacoma lot. The blue ring is the six miles a Wing nest serves; the dashed ring is the ten miles a Zipline P2 site serves, drawn here only because Zipline's Seattle draft reaches Pierce County, not because any site is named. The Federal Way lot, 8.6 miles away, would carry its own six-mile circle. No flight routes are public.
How approval works now
The part most towns get wrong. Since July 28, 2026 there is usually no public comment step at all.
The operator picks a site and files with that town, if the work triggers a permit
Often it doesn't. Amazon told a Massachusetts audience that about 80% of its hubs were approved administratively, with no hearing. Northglenn, CO heard from Walmart, and Tacoma, WA received a Walmart building permit application, weeks before Wing announced either metro.
The FAA checks the site against one national environmental document
Signed July 28, 2026. A hub under 1,150 deliveries a day, at least 600 ft from homes at full volume, aircraft under 110 lb, flights under 400 ft: cleared internally. No draft, no comment period, no local hearing. Before July, each metro got its own review with about 30 days for public letters.
The company issues a press release
By then the decisions are made. Papillion, Nebraska found out when a reporter counted about 50 Amazon drone movements in an hour over a suburb whose council had never voted on any of it.
The only early warning is your own planning counter
A permit application at city hall, or a planning commission agenda item, is the first and often the last public signal. Fifteen states have sued the FAA over the national finding; the window for anyone else to challenge it closed September 26, 2026.
Full detail: How drone delivery approval works on the DroneXL tracker.
Who owns what
FederalThe FAA
- All airspace, flight paths, altitude
- Which companies may fly, and where
- Aircraft design, parachutes, in-flight noise
- Daily flight caps and hours in the air
- Whether any environmental review happens
Authority since 1958; restated by the FAA in 2018 and 2023. For a licensed air carrier, a second law also bars states from regulating its routes and services.
CityTacoma and Federal Way
- Zoning: is a hub a permitted use, and where
- Site plan, building permit, conditional use permit and its conditions
- Ground hours, lighting, screening, traffic, noise at the property line
- Consent for delivery onto private property
- General nuisance, trespass, litter and privacy law, as long as it doesn't single out drones
StateWashington
- Whether cities may regulate drones at all: Washington has not taken the subject away from them. Chapter 47.68 RCW, the state aeronautics law, has no section preempting local drone rules (checked October 11, 2026); the one bill that would have, HB 1766 in 2019, gave the state "exclusive" authority and died in committee, last action January 13, 2020
- Privacy and trespass: no drone-specific privacy or trespass section appears in the RCW aeronautics chapter (47.68) or the criminal code's voyeurism and trespass sections (9A.44.115, 9A.52), checked October 11, 2026. HB 1766 would have made using a drone to watch or record someone in a private place a gross misdemeanor; it did not pass. General law applies
- What the state does require: a commercial drone must be registered with WSDOT under RCW 47.68.250 ($15 now, $30 from January 1, 2027); operating any aircraft "in a careless manner" that endangers life or property is unlawful under RCW 47.68.220. Chapter 47.68 RCW has no provision on dropping objects from aircraft; the careless-operation standard in 47.68.220 is the closest (DroneXL state-law review, September 20, 2026)
- Could write: hub siting, resident notification, data retention, who pays when a package lands in a yard. Has done: none of it. The state's attorney general signed the January 23, 2026 letter against the FAA's national finding and joined the September 28 lawsuit to set it aside
What a city can and cannot do
The test case is Singer v. City of Newton (2017): a federal judge struck Newton's altitude limit, overflight ban and local registration, and left land use alone.
Overflight is airspace. Richardson, Texas dropped a rezoning threat on legal advice and now points residents to their senators. Source
Altitude, overflight and local registration are the rules the court in Newton struck down.
Aircraft design and in-flight noise are FAA rules. Worth asking the operator about; not something a council can order.
Land use is the city's. Most towns have not yet written a drone facility into their zoning code at all.
A rule about what happens on the ground. Every operator already requires the customer to opt in.
The same rule the delivery truck lives under. A general rule applied to drones survives; a drone-only rule invites the challenge.
Northglenn, CO's draft ordinance (first reading Oct. 12, final vote set for Oct. 26) would require any applicant to disclose hours, altitude, noise, aircraft count and flight frequency, plus an incident plan with 24-hour written notice after any crash. Source
Castle Rock and Parker, CO froze hub applications in July 2026. Legal, but it only moves the pad one town over. Source
The record so far, document by document
Neither Tacoma nor Federal Way has a drone delivery ordinance; Tacoma told KOMO it knew of no retail drone restriction in city code. What exists is a paper trail: a Zipline draft at the FAA, a state objection that lost, two Walmart parking-lot filings, a lawsuit and a press release. Newest last.
Zipline's Seattle applicationFAA draft environmental assessment, October 2025
Zipline asked the FAA for up to 75 sites and up to 500 docks across the Seattle metro, with up to 400 delivery flights per site per day, "24 hours a day, seven days per week" with about 95 percent of flights between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. The P2 flies at about 330 feet and serves a 10-mile radius; it carries a parachute. The action area is about 3,474 square miles, and the draft names "Thurston and Pierce counties" as its southern part. Comments closed November 2, 2025. The FAA has posted no decision, and no site in Tacoma or Federal Way has been named.
Washington's objection to the national reviewJoint comment letter, January 23, 2026
Washington's attorney general was one of 17, plus Harris County, Texas, who told the FAA its draft national assessment for drone package delivery analyzed no actual place and could not support a finding of no impact. Washington and New York were the two offices that had asked for more time to write it.
The national findingFAA, July 28, 2026
The FAA signed the national assessment anyway. A hub that fits it, under 1,150 deliveries a day and at least 600 feet from homes at that volume, is checked internally with no site document and no public comment. Washington joined 14 other states and Harris County on September 28 asking the Second Circuit to set the finding aside. Whether Wing's Puget Sound sites ride that document or get a Washington assessment of their own is a question Wing has not answered.
The Federal Way applicationMaster land-use application, August 2026
Wing filed for the Walmart Supercenter at 34520 16th Ave. S. for the "addition of a storage container and fencing" in the existing parking lot for drone delivery operations, a month before Tacoma. Federal Way's Land Use Notices page lists no Notice of Application for that address as of October 11, 2026, which is consistent with an administrative review. Under Process II site plan review, FWRC 19.60.070(2), the director decides and a copy goes to the applicant, anyone who submitted written comments and anyone who requested one; the code says "No other notice is required." Those same people, and no one else, may appeal within 14 days under 19.60.080. Which process the application is under is DroneXL's inference from the absence of a notice; the city's Permit Center was not asked.
The Tacoma building permitCity of Tacoma, filed September 9, 2026
A permit filed on behalf of Walmart and Wing for "the installation of fencing and storage for drone delivery operations" at the Supercenter at 1965 S. Union Ave., first reported by KOMO on September 10. City officials told KOMO they were not aware of any retail drone restriction in city code. The city sent the plans to reviewers September 11 with comments due October 17, values the work at $10,000, and a spokesperson told The News Tribune the permit will be approved and issued by the end of October if reviewers need nothing more; construction is estimated to start in November. It is a building permit, handled as a parking-lot alteration, with no hearing. The review dates, the $10,000 value and the November start come from The News Tribune, as reported by DroneXL on October 7; DroneXL could not reach the Tacoma Accela permit record, and the permit number is not on the record here.
The announcementWing and Walmart, October 5, 2026
Wing and Walmart named Denver and Seattle as 2027 metros, bringing the partnership to nearly 20. The release quotes Federal Way Mayor Jim Ferrell, "Innovation is a part of our way of life in Federal Way," and nobody from Tacoma or Seattle. No store is named. Walmart has no store inside Seattle city limits; the Seattle-area network will run from suburban lots like these two.
Read the full text: DroneXL: the Seattle announcement, both store filings and Tacoma's review schedule (October 5, updated October 7, 2026).
What's still open for the city
The Tacoma permit
A building permit for fencing and storage is checked against code, not negotiated, and the window closes when it issues, expected by the end of October. What is still open is the record: ask Planning and Development Services (253-591-5030) for the permit file and whether any condition on screening, lighting or hours on the ground was attached. The file is public. Tacoma Planning and Development Services
Standing in Federal Way
If the application is under Process II site plan review, as the absence of a Notice of Application suggests, the director's decision under FWRC 19.60 goes only to the applicant, to people who commented in writing, and to people who asked for a copy. Those are the only people who can appeal, within 14 days. One written request to the Permit Center, naming 34520 16th Ave. S., puts you on that list before the decision exists. FWRC Chapter 19.60
A ground ordinance
Neither council has written a delivery facility into its code. Both can: where a nest is allowed and with what permit, consent before a drone delivers to a home, hours that match the city's existing noise rules, and an operator disclosure before the first flight. Northglenn, Colorado requires an "operational narrative": hours, altitude, ground noise, aircraft count, flight frequency and an incident plan. Northglenn staff memo (PDF)
Olympia
Siting standards, notice to residents before a hub opens, data retention and who pays for damage are state questions, and Washington has written none of them. The one bill that would have settled who regulates drones, HB 1766 in 2019, died in committee. The session that opens in January 2027 is the last one scheduled before the year Wing has named. HB 1766 (2019)
Before the vote
A checklist. Ticks are saved on this device only.
Once drones are flying
Don't consent, if you don't want deliveries
Every operator requires the customer to opt in. It is a personal choice, not a shield: Amazon told a Westborough, Massachusetts ballroom in September 2026 there is no opting out of overflight. Read more
Keep a log, then complain with dates and times
Date, time, altitude, duration, direction. What living under it sounds like: a Richardson, Texas resident counted 52 Amazon drones over her yard in a day, and the FAA's own Baton Rouge filing puts an Amazon delivery hover at 92 decibels measured 25 feet from the aircraft. After Richardson residents complained, Amazon raised its outbound altitude to 225 ft and moved routes over commercial land. Amazon left College Station after two years of noise complaints. Read more
Ask the operator the 15 questions
Weight, parachute, what happens after a collision, sound at 50/100/250 ft, how often one street is overflown, what the cameras record, who pays for damage, who gets the call when one comes down. Zipline answered in part; Amazon and Wing have not. Read more
Report what comes down
The Drone Delivery Tracker logs every hub, market and incident on the public record. Several rows exist because a resident sent photos. Read more
Who to contact
Federal: the FAA takes drone questions at 844-359-6982 and noise inquiries at faa.gov/noise/inquiries. Neither changes a decision; both create a record. Districts 27 and 30 are the two store addresses; find your own at app.leg.wa.gov/districtfinder.
Have your say
Two minutes, anonymous. No name, no email, no address. Results are public, update live, and are feedback from people who chose to answer, not a scientific poll. Modeled on the independent Westborough, MA survey that reached 853 responses and three state legislators in six weeks, without the name and street it asked for.
Read the documents yourself
Every claim in this guide traces to one of these. If a document says something different from this page, the document is right and we want to know: send a correction.
Tacoma
Every US town
Tacoma found out from a fence permit, and that is the whole story
I reported the Tacoma permit on September 15 because it was the first sign of Wing in a state that had never been on a Wing list. Three weeks later Wing named Seattle. Permit first, press release second is the pattern twice now, in Colorado and here, and it means the only public body that has looked at the South Sound's first drone base is a permit desk checking a fence. Tacoma told KOMO it had no retail drone rule. It still doesn't, and neither does Federal Way.
My read: the Tacoma permit issues by Halloween, the Federal Way decision arrives with no notice to anyone who did not ask for it in writing, and the first Hummingbird crosses Fircrest in 2027 carrying five pounds of Walmart to someone who opted in. Nothing either council does can stop that aircraft. What they can do this month is put the operator's hours, aircraft count, noise figure and complaint line on paper before the fence goes up, the way Northglenn did. Wing has had DroneXL's 30 written questions since September 8 and has answered none of them.
I am not against this. A 14-pound Wing aircraft on a tether is the lighter end of what is coming; Amazon's roughly 80-pound MK30 with no parachute is the other end, and Amazon has nothing for Washington on the FAA's index or in DroneXL's tracker. Zipline's P2, parachute and all, has been waiting on the FAA for Seattle since November 2025. If Wing gets in on a national document while Zipline waits on a Seattle-specific one, every operator will learn which door opens faster, and the people under the drones will have had no say in either. Washington's legislature had one bill on who regulates drones, in 2019, and let it die in committee. The session that opens in January 2027 is the last one scheduled before the year Wing has named.
Spotted a mistake? Here is how to get it fixed
Every fact in this guide is meant to be checkable against a document listed above. If something is wrong, out of date, or missing (a meeting moved, a permit decided, a number that does not match the filing), tell DroneXL and it gets corrected, with the change logged below.
- Use the correction form at the bottom of this page (jump to it). Pick "Correction," name the guide (Tacoma, WA), quote the sentence, and say what it should say. A link to the document that shows the correct fact gets it fixed fastest. The form can be sent anonymously.
- Or email [email protected] with "Correction: Tacoma guide" in the subject line.
- What happens next. The claim is checked against the primary document. A confirmed error is corrected on the page and noted in the "Updates" log below with the date; a material error also gets a correction note on the DroneXL corrections page. Readers who report an error are not named unless they ask to be.
City officials, operators and residents are all welcome to use this. Disagreement with DroneXL's take is not a correction, but it is welcome in the comments.
Updates to this guide
Spotted an error, or something that changed? Every fact on this page is meant to be checkable against the documents in the Sources tab. Corrections and updates: how to report an error or the correction form below (anonymous if you want), or email [email protected]. Fixes are logged in the Sources tab with the date.
This is reporting, not legal advice. DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Editorial standards · Corrections policy
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