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Part 108 has been at the White House review desk since July 10, past the FAA's own July target

OIRA's register lists the final BVLOS rule as received July 10, 2026, Pending Review, and already past a statutory deadline of January 16, 2026. The FAA's Fall 2025 agenda had promised a final rule in July.

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More onPart 108

What changed: Correction, October 18, 2026: this report said OIRA's register lists the rule as Economically Significant with no legal deadline. The record says the opposite on both points: Economically Significant: No, and Legal Deadline: Statutory. The Unified Agenda gives that deadline as January 16, 2026, set by section 930 of Pub. L. 118-63, so the rule is already past it. The dek, takeaway, first paragraph, fact card, and section heading are corrected, and a sentence about how economically significant rules use the review window is removed. Update, October 18, 2026: day 100. The register still shows Pending Review with no conclusion date. The most recent logged EO 12866 meetings were on October 5 and October 8. Nothing has been published in the Federal Register. Update, October 8, 2026: day 90. OIRA's register, read on the morning of October 8, still shows RIN 2120-AL82 as received July 10, 2026, Pending Review. That is the ninetieth day since receipt and the end of the nominal review period described below. The row shows no conclusion date and no new entry. Executive Order 12866 allows the review to be extended, and nothing on the register says whether it has been. The rule text is still not public. Update, September 25, 2026: OIRA still lists RIN 2120-AL82 as Pending EO 12866 Regulatory Review, day 77. The nominal 90-day review period runs to October 8 and can be extended. Update, September 12, 2026: at Commercial UAV Expo the FAA's Robert Reckert said the agency hopes to see the rule published by the end of the calendar year; OIRA still lists it as Pending Review, day 64. See the September 12 report. Correction, September 3, 2026: this report originally gave July 7, 2026 as the date OIRA received the final rule, and said trade coverage citing July 10 was wrong. July 10 is correct. The July 7 date was read from a shared OIRA listing page where it belonged to another agency's rule; the record for RIN 2120-AL82 reads 07/10/2026. The day count, the 90-day arithmetic, and the headline are corrected, and the sentence disputing other outlets is removed. The URL changed from part-108-oira-review-day-57 and the old address redirects here.

Drone over a long utility corridor, the kind of route Part 108 is meant to make routine
Drone over a long utility corridor, the kind of route Part 108 is meant to make routine.

Decision brief

The rule text is still not public, so nothing about your Part 107 waivers changes today. What changed is the clock. As of September 3 the final rule has sat at OIRA for 55 days of a nominal 90, and the statutory deadline for it passed in January. Plan on late 2026 at the earliest, keep existing waivers current, and do not buy hardware on the strength of a rule nobody has read.

Received by OIRA
July 10, 2026

RIN 2120-AL82, Final Rule stage, statutory deadline January 16, 2026

Days under review
55

As of September 3. EO 12866 allows 90, extendable by 30

FAA's own target
July 2026

Fall 2025 Unified Agenda timetable

What the register says

A final rule, past its statutory deadline, 55 days in.

The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs lists the FAA's final rule, Normalizing Unmanned Aircraft Systems Beyond Visual Line of Sight Operations, RIN 2120-AL82, as received on July 10, 2026. The entry shows the stage as Final Rule, the status as Pending Review, and the legal deadline as Statutory. The Unified Agenda ties that deadline to section 930 of the 2024 FAA reauthorization, which called for a final rule by January 16, 2026. As of September 3 that is 55 days under review.

The FAA had told itself July. The Fall 2025 Unified Agenda entry for the same RIN carries a timetable that reads NPRM 08/07/2025, comment period end 10/06/2025, Final Rule 07/00/2026. OIRA review is the last step before a rule is signed and published, and Executive Order 12866 gives the office 90 days, extendable once by 30. Ninety days from July 10 is October 8.

What is being reviewed

The permit and certificate framework from the proposal, with detect-and-avoid still the open question.

What is under review is the framework the NPRM described: standardized authorizations for routine beyond-visual-line-of-sight flight in place of case-by-case Part 107.31 waivers, a permit tier and an operating-certificate tier, population-based risk categories, and detect-and-avoid and electronic-conspicuity requirements that the FAA reopened comment on in January. The final text can differ from the proposal, and until it is published the proposal is the only thing anyone outside the agency has read.

What to do

Renew what you hold. Do not build on a rule you cannot read.

For an operator the useful posture is unchanged from July. Waivers and exemptions in hand stay valid and should be renewed on schedule. Programs sized around a permit tier that does not yet exist are a bet on both timing and content. The FAA's Emerging Technologies Division was scheduled to speak at Commercial UAV Expo on September 3; anything said there about timing is worth more than another month of forum speculation. This report will be updated if the register changes.

Part 108 status, kept currentWhat the proposal contains, what changed in the reopened comment period, and what a final rule would replace.Check mission requirementsWhich authorizations a given commercial flight needs today, under the rules that actually exist.

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