Drone laws UK 2026: the rules, minus the waffle
The UK drone rules in one paragraph: register with the CAA (two IDs, one small fee), keep the drone in sight, stay under 120 metres, keep your distance from people who aren’t involved, and stay out of restricted airspace unless you have permission. Heavier drones, closer flying and riskier jobs need qualifications. That’s the skeleton; the rest of this post puts the detail on it.
The legal framework, for anyone who wants to read the sources: the Air Navigation Order 2016 (as amended), the UK version of Regulation (EU) 2019/947, and the CAA’s guidance in CAP 722. Everything below comes from those.
The two IDs
Operator ID — required if you’re responsible for a drone weighing 250g or more, or any drone with a camera (toys excepted). You must be 18 or over, it costs £11.79 a year at the time of writing, and the ID has to be labelled on every drone you operate. One ID covers all your aircraft.
Flyer ID — required to fly anything 250g or over. It’s free: pass an online multiple-choice test on the CAA site, built around the Drone Code. Under-250g camera drones don’t legally require it, but the test takes under an hour and is the fastest way to learn the rules you’re already bound by.
Two IDs, two jobs: the Operator ID identifies who’s responsible for the aircraft; the Flyer ID shows the person at the controls passed the test. One person often holds both.
The three categories
UK drone flying is split by risk, not by whether money changes hands.
Open category — where almost all flying happens. No CAA authorisation needed, provided you stay inside the limits below. It splits into three subcategories:
- A1 — fly “over” people. Sub-250g drones (and certain light class-marked aircraft). You can fly over individual uninvolved people, but never over open-air crowds.
- A2 — fly “close to” people. Down to 30 metres from uninvolved people (5 metres in low-speed mode) with an eligible drone — and only if you hold an A2 Certificate of Competency (A2 CofC), a theory qualification from a CAA-recognised assessment entity.
- A3 — fly “far from” people. The default for everything heavier or unmarked: no uninvolved people within your flight area, and at least 150 metres from residential, commercial, industrial or recreational areas. In practice: open countryside.
Specific category — for flights the Open category can’t cover: closer to people with heavier aircraft, congested areas, special permissions. The standard route is a General VLOS Certificate (GVC) plus an Operational Authorisation issued by the CAA, flown under an operations manual. This is the category most professional survey work sits in.
Certified category — airliner-grade certification for large or passenger-carrying unmanned aircraft. It exists; it will not affect your Tuesday.
The hard limits (Open category)
- 120 metres (400 feet) maximum height above the surface.
- Visual line of sight, always — your eyes, not the screen, not binoculars, not a first-person-view feed (FPV needs a competent observer beside you).
- No flying over open-air crowds, whatever the drone weighs.
- Distance rules per subcategory, as above.
- One drone, one pilot, unimpaired — alcohol and flying are incompatible in the same way alcohol and driving are.
A common surprise: there has been no separate “commercial licence” since December 2020. The old PfCO regime is gone. What matters is the risk of the flight, not whether you invoice for it — though paid operators do need insurance that complies with the UK-retained version of Regulation (EC) 785/2004.
Class marks: what changed for 2026
The UK has been phasing in a class-marking scheme for drones (UK class marks, UK0–UK6), which determines where a given aircraft can fly in the Open category. The transition arrangements for older, unmarked “legacy” drones ran out at the end of 2025: from 1 January 2026, a legacy drone over 250g is restricted to the A3 subcategory — far from people — while sub-250g drones carry on in A1. If your drone is recent and class-marked, its mark tells you which subcategory it can use. Check the CAA’s Drone Code for where your specific model now sits; this is the bit of the rules most likely to have moved since you last looked.
Where you can’t fly
- Aerodrome flight restriction zones (FRZs) — roughly 2 to 2.5 nautical miles around protected aerodromes, plus extended zones off the runway ends. Flying inside one needs permission from air traffic control or the aerodrome.
- Restricted and prohibited airspace — prisons, some military ranges, certain royal and government sites, and temporary restrictions over events and emergency incidents.
- Controlled airspace at altitude isn’t your problem below 120m, but London and other cities layer restricted zones in ways that catch people out.
Check before you fly with a planning app such as Drone Assist, which maps FRZs and restrictions live. Not knowing an area was restricted is no defence.
What it costs to get it wrong
Registration offences carry fines up to £1,000. Breaching airspace restrictions or the flying rules can bring unlimited fines, and recklessly or negligently endangering an aircraft — which includes endangering crewed aircraft with your drone — carries up to five years in prison. Since the Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Act 2021, police can require a drone to be landed and search for drones they suspect have been used in an offence.
If you’re hiring rather than flying
Everything above is the pilot’s job, not yours — but it’s also your checklist for spotting a serious one. Ask for their CAA Operator ID, ask whether the flight needs an Operational Authorisation (anything near people or buildings in town usually does), and ask for proof of public liability insurance. A certified pilot answers all three without blinking.
If you want the qualification side unpacked — what an A2 CofC or GVC actually involves and costs — that’s covered in Do you need a licence to fly a drone in the UK? And if your interest in the rules started with a drone hovering over your fence, start with Can your neighbour legally fly a drone over your garden?