FAA

It depends on why you are flying, not on whether you get paid. Purely recreational flight requires only the free TRUST certificate. Any flight that serves a business or professional purpose, including photographing your own listing or posting monetized video, requires the Part 107 remote pilot certificate.

400 feet above ground level is the standard Part 107 ceiling, with one important exception: within 400 feet of a structure you may fly up to 400 feet above that structure's uppermost limit. Higher flight is possible through a waiver, through the structure exception, or in specific authorized circumstances, and getting it wrong is one of the more expensive mistakes a pilot can make.

Part 108 is the FAA rule that would make Beyond Visual Line of Sight flight routine rather than something earned waiver by waiver. Executive Order 14307 gave the FAA 240 days to publish it, a deadline that expired February 1, 2026. The rule reached the White House regulations office on July 10, 2026, where review of major rules can run up to 90 days. DOT has said the delay was deliberate, to avoid writing today's technology into a decade-long rule.

Yes, for most drones that require registration, and Standard Remote ID is a condition of most BVLOS authorizations unless the FAA says otherwise in writing. It is also increasingly used the way it was designed to be: an Orange County fire agency identified rogue pilots by Remote ID during a chemical tank emergency in Garden Grove.

Section 2209 is the 2016 congressional instruction that finally became a proposed FAA rule in May 2026. It would create Unmanned Aircraft Flight Restrictions over fixed-site facilities such as critical infrastructure. It is not law, no restrictions exist under it today, and sites will have to apply individually and make their case. Press organizations and drone pilots both filed objections that the proposal is too broad.

More than it used to. The DETER program shortened the path from a reported violation to an enforcement action without changing any flight rule. Real cases follow: a Colorado pilot faces federal charges for flying into a wildfire TFR, and federal agents seized more than 600 drones around 2026 World Cup venues after months of no-drone-zone warnings.

Check controlled airspace and get LAANC authorization where required, check for temporary flight restrictions before every flight, and confirm the landowner's rules separately, because the FAA controls the airspace and not the ground. TFRs move: the 2026 World Cup produced venue restrictions where Part 107 authorizations stopped at the stadium ring.