Drone in the USA: FCC Seeks Comment on New Flight Plan for UAS and C-UAS Commercialization in the United States

Through this Public Notice, the FCC seeks to plot a path towards a framework that can provide American drone manufacturers streamlined access to spectrum, licensing, and test sites; relief from burdensome and incompatible rules and policies; improved coordination; and the long overdue regulatory clarity and certainty necessary to support scaling production and securing investment in U.S.-manufactured technologies. Given the scope of the issues under consideration and their potential impact on the U.S. drone industry, stakeholders are encouraged to participate and offer targeted input on matters affecting their investment in, as well as the development, production, integration, and deployment of, American-made UAS and counter-UAS technologies.

The Lead Up
The June 2025 EOs reflect a coordinated national strategy—and a sweeping policy shift—aimed at prioritizing U.S. leadership in the development, deployment, operations, and production of drone technologies. They underscore the Trump administration’s position that establishing and sustaining superiority across commercial, tactical, and dual-use UAS platforms is a critical economic, technological, competitive, and national security imperative.

Collectively, the EOs established a whole-of-government mandate to accelerate drone commercialization, expand domestic production, and promote export of U.S. technologies, while simultaneously tightening restrictions on foreign-produced UAS operating within the United States and requiring a phased transition to domestically or ally-produced UAS across the federal and critical infrastructure sectors. The FCC and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration were instructed to update their respective regulatory frameworks to, among other things, prioritize spectrum access and facilitate deployment of next-generation UAS technologies; develop a national drone corridor; and establish an interagency coordination mechanism for certification, export approvals, and integration into the national airspace. The agencies were also instructed to “prioritize the integration of UAS manufactured in the United States over those made abroad to the maximum extent permitted by law.”

In December 2025, the FCC, acting on a National Security Determination (NSD), added all “UAS and UAS critical components produced in a foreign country” to its Covered List (see Pillsbury Client Alert). Following a subsequent NSD from the U.S. Department of War (DOW) in January 2026, the entry was revised to exclude any UAS or UAS critical components that were included on the Defense Contract Management Agency’s Blue UAS list or that qualify as “domestic end products” under the Buy American Standard, 48 CFR 25.101(a), until January 1, 2027. The DOW also established a process by which individual entities could seek “conditional approval” from DOW or the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to exempt specific products or components from the Covered List.

The Public Notice: Creating an Ecosystem for UAS Commercialization
With the restriction on foreign UAS and UAS critical components firmly in place, U.S. drone developers, manufacturers, and operators must accelerate testing and production to leverage the government commitment towards advancing American UAS innovation and prevent any shortfalls or gaps from emerging in the domestic supply chain. Seeking to fulfill its mandate under the directives of the June 2025 EOs, the FCC now solicits public comment on the following issues:

Expanding Spectrum Access: As most UAS operating in the United States currently rely on unlicensed spectrum (including the same frequencies used by Wi-Fi and other consumer end products), the FCC is broadly seeking comment on “any and all non-Federal spectrum resources” that could be necessary to achieve the Administration’s objectives. As a way of directing the inquiry, the FCC seeks to refresh the record on several frequency bands considered in previous UAS and Advanced Air Mobility rulemakings and asks whether it should relax restrictions in certain flexible-use bands to permit aeronautical mobile use, particularly in bands where terrestrial networks support UAS operations. The FCC also seeks input on:

-What additional technical considerations and coordination mechanisms may be necessary when integrating these technologies into the national airspace;

-What steps it can take to facilitate UAS and C-UAS spectrum access in the context of interagency proceedings, including those to create the National Training Center and as directed by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026 to establish Western and Eastern Regional Range Complexes; and

-A proposal to adopt incentive programs to encourage the establishment of a secondary market for underutilized spectrum to be purchased for UAS operations and testing.

Reforming Experimental Licensing: Much development of domestic UAS and C-UAS technologies is constrained by the limitations of the FCC’s experimental licensing framework, which was not designed for modern UAS operations involving beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) links, command and control (C2) systems, detect-and-avoid (DAA), and multiband spectrum use. The Public Notice seeks comment on how to best adapt the experimental licensing process to accommodate UAS testing, including consideration of dedicated UAS experimental license categories, tiered licensing regimes, pre-cleared test corridors, and blanket authorizations with modular pre-approved parameters. The FCC also seeks comment on whether its current rules, which limit C-UAS testing to research and development purposes (and do not allow for operational mitigation or enforcement), unduly inhibit commercial C-UAS development.

Adapting Innovation Zones: The FCC’s experimental licensing regime provides for the establishment of “Innovation Zones” for qualified licensees to test new technologies and prototypes outside the campus/laboratory setting and within larger bounded geographic areas. The Public Notice seeks comment on whether and how to adapt the Innovation Zone concept for defense and commercial UAS development.

Enabling C-UAS Operations: The FCC recognizes that while it does not specifically regulate C-UAS as a distinct technology category, many of its rules and regulations may prevent testing and commercial deployment of these platforms. The Public Notice inquires how the Communications Act and FCC rules—namely Section 333 of the Act—may hamper C-UAS deployment, and invites suggestions on how to reform these regulations without introducing risk or harm to the public that such rules are intended to prevent.

Modernizing Coordination Mechanisms: The FCC acknowledges that the existing coordination notifications intended to mitigate against harmful interference may be overly burdensome and stifling to UAS and C-UAS operations. The Public Notice invites comment on the accuracy of this view and how the agency can streamline these procedures to enable more intensive aerial operation without disrupting higher-priority technologies.

Creating UAS and C-UAS Resources: To facilitate deployment and incentivize investment, the FCC makes several proposals to provide user-friendly resources on UAS and C-UAS licensing and equipment authorization processes. The FCC seeks comment on whether to create a UAS/C-UAS dedicated resource page on its website, publish a trusted UAS list, or issue public safety guidance. The FCC also generally inquires how it can help partner with industry and other Federal agencies to foster a robust U.S. drone workforce.

Procedure, Participation, and Comment Dates
This Public Notice is a first step towards the development and adoption of regulations, including service rules and technical standards, for a given radiofrequency band or radiofrequency-based technology at the FCC. As seen here, the FCC uses the Public Notice to solicit information from the public on a wide array of issues, which it can then distill down into a Notice of Inquiry (seeking further input and information on specific issues) or a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (setting out actual draft language and justifications for new or modified regulations). After a sufficient record has been established through the rulemaking process, the FCC can proceed to issue one or more orders adopting service and technical rules and spectrum allocations.

As a result, this Public Notice provides a critical opportunity for interested stakeholders to vocalize their positions across a wide range of issues (including those not expressly identified by the Public Notice), thereby providing input that can help shape the entire rulemaking proceeding. Given the breadth of the issues under consideration, interested stakeholders across the drone ecosystem, including manufacturers, operators, service providers, and investors, are strongly encouraged to participate and provide specific input and insight on the areas that have or will impact their investment in or commercialization of American-made UAS and C-UAS technologies.

Comments are due May 1, 2026, with reply comments due May 18, 2026.

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For more information about the FCC’s public notice, or for assistance in preparing and submitting comments, please contact the authors.