Drone regulation
What are the drone laws in the US?
Two layers: the FAA governs flying, states mostly govern privacy. Federal rules decide whether and how you may fly: Part 107 covers small commercial drones and sets the pilot certificate and operating limits. State drone statutes generally do something different, restricting surveillance and image capture rather than granting or withholding permission to fly. Both can apply to the same flight.
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There is no single drone law, and expecting one is what makes this confusing. Two different layers apply to the same flight, and they do different jobs.
The federal layer is the Federal Aviation Administration, and it governs the flying itself. Part 107 is the one most people meet: the small unmanned aircraft rule that sets the remote pilot certificate and the operating limits for commercial flight. Part 135 is the air-carrier certification that drone-delivery operators need to run routes beyond visual line of sight.
The state layer usually is not about permission to fly at all. On DEPLOY's record the Illinois, Texas and Florida statutes are privacy and surveillance laws: they restrict capturing images of people and property, and in Illinois's case specifically govern police use. North Carolina is the hybrid, carrying both a surveillance statute and operating provisions. So a flight that is perfectly legal under Part 107 can still breach a state image-capture law, which is the trap.
DEPLOY's record holds drone statutes for four states. That is a statement about this record, not a claim that only four states have drone laws. Everything below is a live registry record with its own dated sources, so as more state statutes are recorded this page shows them without an edit.
What the record holds
The US answer, counted from the registry rather than asserted.
- Rules in force
- 6
- Federal
- 2
- States on record
- 4
- Proposed, not law
- 1
Two layers, doing different jobs
Each column is attributed to the layer it describes. The second is the one people miss.
Decides whether and how you may fly
Part 107 sets the remote pilot certificate and the operating limits for small commercial drones, and Part 135 is the air-carrier certification that delivery operators use for routes beyond visual line of sight. These are the rules that grant or constrain flying itself.
Mostly decides what you may record
On DEPLOY's record the state statutes are largely privacy and surveillance laws rather than permission-to-fly laws. That is the trap in this question: a flight that is entirely legal under federal operating rules can still breach a state image-capture statute, because the two layers regulate different things.
Four states, not fifty
DEPLOY holds drone statutes for four states. That is a statement about this record and not a finding that the other states have none. The tables below render live, so a state statute shows up here as soon as it is recorded, with no edit to this page.
Federal rules: who may fly
The FAA layer, which applies everywhere in US airspace regardless of which state you are standing in.
- FAA Part 135 air-carrier certification (United States)
The US FAA's 14 CFR Part 135 operating requirements for commuter and on-demand air carriers. Drone-delivery operators obtain Part 135 air-carrier certification to fly commercial beyond-visual-line-of-sight delivery routes; Zipline received Part 135 certification in 2022. Part 135 certification is distinct from the specific FAA BVLOS exemptions that later removed visual observers on particular routes.
- FAA Part 107 Small UAS rule (United States)
The US Federal Aviation Administration's 14 CFR Part 107, the operating-rules framework for small unmanned aircraft systems (under 55 lb) flown commercially in US airspace. Effective Aug 29, 2016, it sets the Remote Pilot Certificate, operating limits (daylight/civil-twilight, visual-line-of-sight, 400 ft AGL, one-pilot-one-aircraft), and waiver pathways. Amended Apr 21, 2021 by the Remote ID rule and the Operations Over People / night-operations final rules. Beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) operations are governed by waiver and by the proposed Part 108 framework (NPRM published Aug 7, 2025).
State statutes: mostly what you may record
The state statutes on DEPLOY's record, in Florida, Illinois, North Carolina and Texas. Each row carries its own classification, so you can see which are privacy laws and which also carry operating provisions.
- Florida Freedom from Unwarranted Surveillance Act (Fla. Stat. 934.50)
Florida's drone-privacy statute (Fla. Stat. 934.50), created 2013 and expanded 2015 and 2017 (and amended repeatedly since). Restricts both government (warrant requirement) and private-party drone surveillance of persons and real property where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy. A privacy/surveillance statute; it does not set general flight-operation rules (FAA preempts much of that).
- Illinois Freedom from Drone Surveillance Act (725 ILCS 167)
Illinois's drone statute (725 ILCS 167, effective Jan 1, 2014; P.A. 98-569). Narrower than Florida or Texas: it governs law-enforcement drone use only (warrant requirement, a 45-day retention limit, and evidence inadmissibility), and does not regulate private-party drones or general flight operation. (Illinois's biometric law, BIPA, is separate and handled under the humanoid/workplace-AI wave.)
- North Carolina UAS law (N.C.G.S. 15A-300.1 + 63-95/63-96)
North Carolina's drone law, enacted 2014 via Session Law 2014-100, covering two dimensions across two code chapters: privacy/surveillance (N.C.G.S. 15A-300.1, restrictions on UAS surveillance with a civil cause of action) and operation (N.C.G.S. 63-95/63-96, requiring an FAA knowledge test and a state permit for government and non-recreational/commercial UAS operation). Modeled here as one comprehensive North Carolina drone-law entity covering both the operation and privacy dimensions.
Proposed, and not law
Kept out of the tables above on purpose. A rule you cannot yet rely on is a different thing from a rule in force, and conflating the two is how a proposed rule gets reported as settled.
- FAA Part 108: Normalizing UAS Beyond-Visual-Line-of-Sight Operations
The FAA's dedicated BVLOS rule for unmanned aircraft. NPRM released 2025-08-07 (Docket FAA-2025-1908); comment period reopened January 2026; not finalized as of mid-2026. Will normalize routine BVLOS drone operations (delivery, infrastructure inspection) without case-by-case waivers.
How we know this
Every rule on this page is a regulation record on the DEPLOY registry, read live at page load, with its own dated status history and its own sources. The two-layer split is not editorial framing: it comes from each record's own classification, with the FAA rows recorded as operating rules and the state rows mostly as privacy statutes. Here are the sources behind them.
These are enacted rules shown as in force, and a proposed rule shown separately as not in force. DEPLOY reports what its record holds for the United States; the absence of a state from these tables means the registry has no statute for it, not that the state has none.
Common questions
Do I need a licence to fly a drone in the US?
What is FAA Part 107?
Can I fly a drone over someone's property?
Which states have drone laws?
Is flying beyond visual line of sight legal?
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