Part 107, Remote ID, TRUST, waivers, and the rulemaking that shapes what every pilot in America is allowed to fly.
The Federal Aviation Administration writes the rules every American drone pilot flies under, and 2026 is the year several of them moved at once. The foundation has not changed: Part 107 is the certificate for any flight that is not purely recreational, TRUST covers the rest, and the ceiling is 400 feet above ground, or 400 feet above a structure when you are within 400 feet of it. What is changing is everything built on top of that foundation.
The rule the industry is actually waiting for is Part 108, which would turn Beyond Visual Line of Sight flight from a waiver into a routine authorization. Executive Order 14307 gave the FAA 240 days to publish it, that clock ran out on February 1, 2026, and the text has sat in White House review since July 10. DOT says the delay is deliberate, meant to avoid hard-coding today’s technology; operators say the uncertainty freezes investment. Public safety did not wait. The FAA’s expedited public safety waiver cleared more than 1,000 agencies in ten months, more than the previous seven years combined, and the agency has separately cleared drone delivery’s environmental path nationwide over the objections of 16 state attorneys general, while DoorDash earned Part 135 certification.
Two other threads decide what flying feels like day to day. The first is airspace: Section 2209, ordered by Congress in 2016 and finally proposed in May 2026, would let fixed-site facilities apply for restrictions overhead, and press organizations told the FAA the draft ignores newsgathering. The second is enforcement, which has sharpened: the DETER program shortened the road from a reported violation to a real penalty, a Colorado pilot faces federal charges over a wildfire TFR, and federal agents seized more than 600 drones at 2026 World Cup venues. We report the rulemakings, the comment deadlines, and the enforcement cases in the same place, because pilots have to live with all three. The feed below carries every FAA story as we publish it.
Last updated September 14, 2026 — the feed below updates with every new story.
I sat down with revenue operations specialist Amy Wiegand to talk through the drone market squeeze, the Part 108 question mark, and the decisions drone service providers should be making today.
Dexa, the Dayton drone delivery operator with a Part 135 certificate, made TechCrunch's Startup Battlefield 200 and pitches at Disrupt in October.
Amazon displayed its MK30 at a Tracy car show before launch. The FAA has published no environmental assessment for the site, and no comment period opened.
Amazon told Baton Rouge its delivery drones beat an idling truck. Its own FAA noise filing puts the delivery hover at 92.1 decibels.
Amazon promises drone delivery in nearly 500 US cities by December. An FAA approval run and one national document explain how it got there this fast.
Amazon has the DJI Mini 3 at $315 for Labor Day, $104 off list. The base package is a real discount. The DJI RC and Fly More bundles are not.
Military officials say cartel drone flights over the Rio Grande Valley fell about 75% after an Army laser began downing them. The baseline is undisclosed.
A real estate photographer's DJI Mavic 4 Pro is shot out of the sky in Athens, Alabama, GoPro hands 90% of the company to Starman Optical, and UAS Sentry unveils the $1,595 Nexus Observer portable Remote ID detector.
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.
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