If you fly a drone commercially within sight of the aircraft, Part 107 is your path in 2026, same as it has been since 2016. The part 107 vs part 108 question only grows teeth once you want to fly beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS). Even then, there’s a wrinkle that most explainers bury: as of July 2026, Part 108 is still a proposed rule. You cannot get approved under it today, because there is nothing on the books to get approved under yet.
What you can do right now is work out which side of the line your operation falls on, so that the day the final rule publishes, you already know whether it changes anything for you. That’s what this guide is for. MotorBytes covers this beat from the regulatory side, reading the rule text so you don’t have to. For the blow-by-blow of how the rule has moved through Washington, our coverage of the FAA Part 108 BVLOS rule tracks the docket in detail. This piece handles the decision.
Where Part 108 stands in July 2026
Status first, because every other answer depends on it.
The FAA published the Part 108 proposal on August 7, 2025; the full notice of proposed rulemaking runs hundreds of pages and drew over 3,000 comments before the window closed in October 2025. The agency then reopened the comment period in late January 2026 to ask seven targeted follow-up questions.
Then the wait. On July 10, 2026, the draft final rule reached the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, the last review stop before a rule can publish. The agency’s own agenda lists a July 2026 target date. Two caveats: OIRA review can run up to 90 days, and this rulemaking has already blown past a March 2026 target. Treat July as a hope, not a deadline.
Practical translation: Part 107 is law. Part 108 is a well-developed draft sitting one desk away from the finish line. Any decision you make this month gets made under Part 107’s rules, with Part 108 as the thing you plan around, not with. Details below describe the rule as proposed; the final version may shift.
Part 107 vs Part 108 at a glance
| Part 107 (current law) | Part 108 (as proposed) | |
|---|---|---|
| Operation type | Commercial flight within visual line of sight | Routine BVLOS flight |
| Who gets approved | You, the individual pilot | The operator (a company or organization) |
| The credential | Remote Pilot Certificate | Operating permit or operating certificate |
| Aircraft approval | Registration plus Remote ID | Airworthiness acceptance per aircraft design |
| Risk handling | Case-by-case waivers | Five population-density categories |
| Status, July 2026 | In effect | Final rule under OIRA review |
The row that surprises people is the second one. The proposal does not create a “Part 108 pilot license.” There is no new knowledge test to book, no BVLOS certificate with your name on it. As proposed, the FAA approves the operation as a whole, and the humans inside it (operations supervisors, flight coordinators) qualify through the operator’s own training program rather than through an FAA testing center. Pilot Institute’s breakdown of the proposal walks through those roles, including a minimum of five hours of experience on the specific make and model for flight coordinators.
So the question “which certificate should I go earn” has a narrow answer in 2026: the only drone certificate an individual can earn is still the Part 107 Remote Pilot Certificate.
When Part 107 is all you need
Real estate shoots, roof and cell-tower inspections, wedding aerials, construction progress photos, mapping a single field. If you or a visual observer standing with you can see the aircraft unaided (prescription glasses are fine, binoculars are not), Part 107 covers the job, and nothing about the Part 108 rulemaking changes that.
The path itself hasn’t moved. You pass the Unmanned Aircraft General knowledge test at an approved testing center, receive your Remote Pilot Certificate, and keep it current with free online recurrent training every 24 months. The FAA’s become a drone pilot page lays out the current steps and eligibility.
Part 107 also covers more than its reputation suggests. Night flight stopped requiring a waiver back in 2021, provided you’ve done the current training and the drone carries anti-collision lighting visible for three statute miles. Flight over people is allowed by aircraft category. The waiver machinery still exists for everything else, and those waivers didn’t evaporate when the Part 108 proposal landed.
One forward-looking exception worth flagging. The proposal would amend ยง107.205 so that BVLOS waivers are no longer issued under Part 107 once Part 108 takes effect; the BVLOS door would move to the new rule. If your 2026 business plan was “get a 107.31 waiver and scale from there,” read the final rule the week it publishes, because that route is slated to close.
What Part 108 would ask of your operation
Delivery networks, pipeline and power-line patrol, rail corridors, wide-area mapping where walking along under the drone defeats the purpose. These are the jobs Part 108 was written for, and the logic behind its demands is plain: when nobody on the ground can see the aircraft, the aircraft and the operation have to cover the watching.
That’s why the proposal spends so much ink on the machine. Before an aircraft design can fly BVLOS under Part 108, it needs airworthiness acceptance, which the manufacturer earns by filing a declaration of compliance against the rule’s performance standards. Those standards include detect-and-avoid capability, a command-and-control link reliable enough to hold at range, anti-collision lighting visible for three statute miles, Remote ID, and redundancy rules stating that no single power or propulsion failure may bring the aircraft down uncontrolled.
Under Part 107, your eyeballs are the detect-and-avoid system. Remove them and sensors have to fill the gap, which is a taller order than consumer spec sheets imply; our explainer on how drone obstacle avoidance sensors work covers why seeing a wall up close and seeing a Cessna two miles out are very different engineering problems. Off-the-shelf camera drones don’t meet the proposed package out of the box. That gap is a large part of why purpose-built BVLOS platforms cost what they cost.
Permit or certificate: the two tiers and five categories
The proposal sorts approvals along two axes, and together they tell you roughly how hard your application would be.
First axis: the approval tier. An operating permit is the streamlined lane for lower-risk BVLOS work such as package delivery, agriculture, surveying, and training, with fleet-size caps and a 24-month validity per permit. An operating certificate is the heavyweight lane for riskier operations, with deeper FAA scrutiny and, in exchange, generally no fleet caps.
Second axis: five population-density categories under the flight path. Category 1 sits more than a statute mile from any gathering of ten or more people; Category 5 sits within half a mile of 2,500 or more. A permit only reaches into Category 3. Categories 4 and 5 demand the full certificate, and Category 5 requires automated detect-and-avoid. A link failure over an empty quarry and the same failure over a downtown crosswalk are different problems, and the rule prices them differently.
Put the axes together and you get a grid. Rural corridor inspection in Category 1 under a permit is the easiest square on the board. Urban delivery in Category 5 under a certificate is the hardest, and there the aircraft’s spec sheet, not the operator’s enthusiasm, decides whether the operation flies.
The decision framework
Walk it in order.
- Can you or a visual observer see the drone for the whole flight? Yes: Part 107, full stop. Most commercial pilots never leave this square.
- Need night flight or flight over people, still within sight? Night is standard under Part 107 now, over-people works by aircraft category, and waivers cover the rest. Still Part 107.
- Does the job genuinely require flying where nobody can see the aircraft? Now you’re in Part 108 territory, with nothing to apply for until the final rule publishes. Use the waiting time: figure out which population-density category your routes cross, and whether any aircraft you’re eyeing has a realistic shot at airworthiness acceptance.
- Are you an individual or an operator? Because Part 108 approves operators, a freelancer’s likely BVLOS future is flying as a flight coordinator inside someone else’s permitted or certificated operation, not holding a personal BVLOS credential. A delivery or utility-inspection company, on the other hand, should be reading the proposed permit application requirements now.
The mistake to avoid is treating Part 108 as an upgrade that replaces Part 107. It isn’t and it doesn’t. The two are built to sit side by side, one certifying pilots for flight within sight, the other authorizing operations beyond it. A freelancer shooting property listings gains nothing by waiting for Part 108. A drone delivery startup gains everything by preparing for it.
FAQ
Is Part 108 in effect in 2026?
No. As of July 2026 it remains a proposed rule. The draft final rule reached the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs on July 10, 2026, with a July target on the agency’s agenda, but OIRA review can take up to 90 days and earlier targets have slipped. Check faa.gov before acting on any quoted date.
Does Part 108 replace Part 107?
No. Part 107 continues to govern commercial flight within visual line of sight. Part 108 would add a separate operator-level path for BVLOS operations. The main crossover is that, as proposed, new BVLOS waivers would stop being issued under Part 107 once Part 108 takes effect.
Is there a Part 108 pilot certificate to earn?
Not as proposed. Part 108 approves operators through permits and certificates rather than certifying individual pilots. Flight coordinators and operations supervisors qualify through the operator’s training program, so the Part 107 Remote Pilot Certificate remains the only FAA drone certificate an individual can hold.
Can my current drone fly under Part 108?
Almost certainly not without changes. The proposal requires airworthiness acceptance backed by a manufacturer declaration of compliance, covering detect-and-avoid, a reliable command-and-control link, anti-collision lighting, Remote ID, and power redundancy. Consumer camera drones don’t meet that package out of the box.
Still weighing which path fits your operation? MotorBytes keeps its regulatory coverage current across the whole Drones & UAV beat, so you can check where the rule actually stands before committing budget to the path that sounds impressive rather than the one you need.
