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DevelopingPolicyRule watch2 min read

Part 108 has been at the White House review desk since July 7, past the FAA's own July target

OIRA's register lists the final BVLOS rule as received July 7, 2026, Pending Review, Economically Significant. The FAA's Fall 2025 agenda had promised a final rule in July.

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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 2 the final rule has sat at OIRA for 57 days of a nominal 90, with no legal deadline forcing a decision. 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 7, 2026

RIN 2120-AL82, Final Rule stage, Economically Significant

Days under review
57

As of September 2. 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, economically significant, no deadline, 57 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 7, 2026. The entry shows the stage as Final Rule, the status as Pending Review, and the rule as Economically Significant, with no legal deadline. As of September 2 that is 57 days under review. Trade reports in July put the submission on July 10; the register's own date is July 7.

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. Economically significant rules commonly use most of that window. Ninety days from July 7 is October 5.

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 speaks at Commercial UAV Expo on September 3; anything said there about timing is worth more than another month of forum speculation, and 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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