The FAA now says it hopes to publish Part 108 by the end of the year. The rule is on day 64 at OIRA.

Where the rule sits has not changed. The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs lists RIN 2120-AL82, Normalizing Unmanned Aircraft Systems Beyond Visual Line of Sight Operations, as received July 10, 2026 and Pending Review, checked again on September 12. That is day 64. Executive Order 12866 gives OIRA 90 days, which runs to October 8, extendable once by 30 days to November 7. There is no statutory deadline. An FAA hope for publication by December is consistent with a review that uses the full window and a signing and publication cycle after it.

Two signals now point the same direction without either being a date. TSA's September 4 Federal Register notice solicits operators for closed security roundtables to be held after the FAA and TSA final rules publish, and speaks of the forthcoming TSA final rule. The FAA's remark adds the calendar. What would publish is the framework the 2025 proposal described: standardized authorizations for routine BVLOS in place of case-by-case waivers, a permit tier and an operating-certificate tier, population-based risk categories, and the detect-and-avoid and electronic-conspicuity requirements the FAA reopened for comment in January. The final text can differ from the proposal, and no one outside the agencies has read it.