FAA Part 108: What It Means for Local Communities

For the past several years, most commercial drone deliveries, long-range infrastructure inspections, and autonomous logistics operations in the US have required individual FAA waivers. The process was slow, operator-specific, and not designed for scale. Part 108 will change that.

When finalized, Part 108 will be the first formal regulatory framework for Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) commercial drone operations over populated areas. It matters for local communities not because it grants new powers to cities — it does not — but because it will significantly increase the volume of commercial drone activity happening over them.

What Part 108 Actually Proposes

The FAA published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) for Part 108 under the authority of the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024. The NPRM replaces the existing waiver-by-waiver approach with a standardized approval process based on operational risk.

Under the proposed framework, operators would not need individual waivers for each flight. Instead, they would apply for operational approvals covering defined geographic areas and operation types, provided they demonstrate they meet risk-based criteria covering aircraft performance, operator qualifications, and safety systems.

The rule introduces five population density categories for the areas where operations occur. The logic is straightforward: operations over sparse rural areas carry lower risk than operations over dense urban neighborhoods, and the approval requirements reflect that difference. Higher-density areas require more robust safety systems, tighter operational constraints, and more detailed risk documentation.

Critically, the rule requires integration with the UTM ecosystem. Operators would use Automated Drone Service Providers (ADSPs) — essentially UTM service companies — to manage flight planning, deconfliction, and real-time operational data. This is the technical layer that makes large-scale BVLOS operations manageable. It is also the layer where municipal data systems become relevant: a city with its own UTM integration can see what is happening in its airspace in real time.

What Changes for Your Community

Before Part 108, BVLOS commercial operations in most cities were sporadic, waiver-dependent, and limited to a handful of operators with the resources to navigate the FAA waiver process. After Part 108 finalization, expect something different: regular commercial drone operations at scale.

Delivery drones operating regular routes over residential neighborhoods. Infrastructure inspection companies flying power lines, pipelines, and transportation corridors on weekly schedules. Emergency medical services experimenting with autonomous blood and supply delivery. All of this will happen within defined areas that operators identify in their FAA applications. And all of it will happen whether or not local governments have prepared for it.

The FAA BEYOND program gives a preview of scale. BEYOND Phase 1, which concluded in 2024, logged more than 70,563 total drone flights, including 48,383 BVLOS flights across multiple test sites. That was a controlled research program with limited participants. Part 108 removes the participation limits.

What Local Government Authority Looks Like Under Part 108

Part 108 does not create new local authority. What changes is the volume and visibility of commercial drone activity, which changes what local authority is worth having.

Under Part 107, a city could mostly ignore commercial drone operations because there were not that many of them and most were brief, visible, and easy to address reactively. Under Part 108, that approach will not work. Cities will need systems — for situational awareness, for public communication, for coordination with operators, and for responding when things go wrong.

Specifically, Part 108 creates a stronger case for cities to:

Develop a formal coordination framework, preferably one that generates revenue for the community. Operators flying regular routes over city land have an interest in coordination agreements. Cities that offer something — streamlined permitting, ground infrastructure access, data sharing agreements — can negotiate terms rather than simply observe operations they have no visibility into.

Invest in situational awareness systems. Remote ID already broadcasts drone identity and position in real time for most drones operating under FAA rules. Under Part 108, BVLOS operators will be required to use UTM services that generate continuous operational data. A city with the right monitoring infrastructure can access that data to understand what is happening above its streets.

Build public communication capacity. The volume of questions a city manager's office receives about drones will increase significantly once BVLOS operations scale. Having clear, accurate public information about what operators are authorized to do — and what they are not — reduces friction and builds community trust.

Prepare first responders. Part 108 operations will intersect with emergency response. A Drone as First Responder (DFR) drone responding to a 911 call may share airspace with a Part 108 commercial operator flying a scheduled delivery route. That is a coordination problem that requires local planning, not just federal rulemaking.

The Revenue Question

One aspect of Part 108 that communities should understand early is the economic opportunity it creates.

Cities have authority over ground-based drone infrastructure: landing pads, nest sites, charging stations, and the ground-level facilities that make regular BVLOS operations economically viable. Operators who want to establish regular routes over urban areas need that infrastructure. Cities that own it can charge for access.

Some cities are already beginning to think through fee structures for this access. As operations scale, this becomes a meaningful revenue stream — similar in structure to right-of-way fees for telecom infrastructure or access fees for utility easements. There is precedent in other utility contexts. Cities negotiate agreements with wireless carriers for antenna placement on public structures. The same logic applies to drone infrastructure on public land.

What the Timeline Looks Like

The NPRM is currently in the comment and review phase. FAA rulemakings of this complexity typically take one to three years from NPRM to final rule. Given the congressional direction in the FAA Reauthorization Act, the FAA has strong institutional pressure to move faster. Most analysts expect a final rule in the 2026 range, with commercial operations beginning to scale under the new framework in 2027.

That timeline is short from a municipal procurement and governance standpoint. A city that starts building governance capacity in 2025 has two years to have systems in place. A city that waits for Part 108 finalization to begin planning will be starting from scratch in the middle of an operational scaling period.

The FAA is not going to manage drone operations at the local level. That coordination work falls to cities. Part 108 does not change that division of responsibility — it just makes the coordination problem significantly larger.