Updated October 2026

Do I need a licensed drone pilot?

Yes. In the United States, any drone flight for business, including photos of a house you are selling or a roof you are repairing, must be flown by a remote pilot who holds an FAA Part 107 certificate. The drone must be registered and broadcast Remote ID, and near airports the pilot needs FAA airspace authorization before taking off.

Do I need a licensed pilot for my property?

Yes, if the flight is for business. The FAA's rule for commercial drone flying is 14 CFR Part 107, and section 107.12 says nobody may act as remote pilot in command without a remote pilot certificate. Marketing a listing, documenting a roof for a repair quote or filming a venue for a client all count. The National Association of Realtors tells its members that drones used in their business should be registered under Part 107.

The duty, and the penalty, sit on the pilot. The FAA can propose civil penalties of up to $17,062 per violation against an individual pilot or small business (up to $75,000 against a larger company), and it can suspend or revoke certificates; recent cases include $32,700 for flying at night without a certificate near a sheriff's helicopter and $18,200 for flying in Class D airspace under a temporary flight restriction without authorization. What lands on you is the fallout: a flight that gets stopped, a dispute over footage you cannot use, and no insurance behind a mistake over your neighbor's car.

One rule that surprises people: a drone registered under the recreational exception cannot be flown under Part 107. A friend with a hobby drone, or a drone under 250 grams registered for recreation, is not a substitute for a licensed pilot on a business flight.

What is a Part 107 certificate?

The Part 107 Remote Pilot Certificate is the FAA's license for flying small drones commercially. To get one a person must be at least 16, read, speak and understand English, pass a knowledge test at an FAA testing center with photo ID, and clear a TSA security check. The card never expires, but the holder must complete the FAA's free online recurrent training every 24 calendar months to keep flying.

Thinking of getting certified yourself? Our free drone license course covers the rules and the FAA's steps in five short videos.

• Recency, not expiry. Under 14 CFR 107.65 the pilot must have passed the initial test or completed recurrent training within the previous 24 calendar months. The recurrent course is ALC-677 on the FAA Safety Team site and costs nothing. "Calendar months" means the window runs to the end of the 24th month, not to an anniversary date.
• Carry it. Under 107.7 the pilot must keep the certificate and identification in their physical possession and show them on request to the FAA, the NTSB, the TSA or any federal, state or local law enforcement officer. A pilot who cannot show you the card should not be flying for you.
• What the test covers. Thirteen areas under 107.73: regulations, airspace, weather, loading, emergency procedures, crew resource management, radio communication, performance, the effects of drugs and alcohol, decision-making, airport operations, maintenance and preflight inspection, and night operations.
• Accidents. Under 107.9 the pilot must report to the FAA within 10 calendar days any operation that causes serious injury, loss of consciousness, or damage over $500 to property other than the drone.

What else must a legal commercial pilot have?

The certificate is one of five things. The drone must be registered under Part 107 ($5 per drone for three years) and carry the registration number on the outside. It must broadcast Remote ID, enforced since March 16, 2024. In controlled airspace the pilot must hold an FAA authorization before the flight. And the pilot must stay inside the operating limits: daylight, 400 feet, 3 miles of visibility.

What changes for you with a licensed pilot?

A Part 107 pilot has passed a knowledge test on airspace and weather, is accountable to the FAA by name, can get airspace authorization for your address, and can be insured. A hobby flyer cannot legally fly for your business at all, cannot hold a LAANC authorization for commercial work, and will struggle to find an insurer; BWI, a drone insurance broker, says none of its carriers quote operators without a Part 107 certificate.

How do I check a pilot myself?

Ask to see the certificate, then search the pilot's name in the FAA's public Airmen Inquiry. The FAA does not display or search by certificate number, so a number typed into an email proves nothing on its own; the verifiable signals are the card and the name match. A new certificate can take weeks to appear in the public record, and the legal name on file may differ from the name a pilot uses.

1. Look at the card. Front and back, or the IACRA temporary certificate for a newly certified pilot. The name on it is the name you search.
2. Search the name. The FAA Airmen Inquiry asks for your own name and address first, then shows the pilot's certificate and ratings. It will not show a certificate number or date of birth. Pilots can withhold their address, and have 90 days to opt out, so a missing address means nothing.
3. Ask for the recency date. The ALC-677 completion certificate shows when the pilot last completed recurrent training. Count 24 calendar months from the end of that month.
4. Check the drone. The registration number should be marked on the outside of the aircraft and match the registration certificate on the pilot's phone.
5. Ask about insurance and recent work. Redfin's September 2026 seller guide tells sellers to confirm the Part 107 certificate, ask whether the pilot carries liability insurance, and look at recent real estate listing work rather than scenic clips.

Enforcement history is separate: the FAA's Airmen Inquiry page points to its Accident, Incident and Enforcement system, which takes a submitted request rather than a name search, and most buyers will not need it.

Does the pilot need insurance?

The FAA does not require it, and most states do not either, but you may require it, and most professional clients do. SkyWatch, a drone insurance agency, says $1 million per occurrence is the floor almost every real estate client asks for and that $2 million is now common for brokerages, developers and government work. Ask for a certificate of insurance, and ask to be named as an additional insured if your brokerage requires it.

• What it costs the pilot. Drone U's insurance guide puts liability-only cover at around $500 to $650 a year for $1 million, or $5 to $15 an hour on demand; Adorama's guide says $500 to $1,000 a year. It is not an unreasonable thing to ask for.
• What the certificate shows. The carrier, the limit per occurrence, the policy period and any additional insureds. Check the expiry date against your flight date.
• What it does not cover. The pilot's own drone (that is hull cover, the pilot's business), and anything the pilot does outside the policy's terms. No platform, including Astral Pic, insures the flight for you.

What are the airspace rules near my house?

Within roughly five to ten miles of a major airport, and within about four and a half miles of a smaller towered airport, your address is probably in controlled airspace, and the pilot needs an FAA authorization before flying there. LAANC issues most of them in near real time at hundreds of airports. Where the local ceiling is low or LAANC is not available, a manual request takes at least 72 hours and can take up to eight weeks.

• Dallas-Fort Worth. Class B airspace surrounds DFW International and Dallas Love Field, both LAANC-enabled, so most suburbs get near-real-time authorization. Class D rings sit around Alliance, Meacham, Addison, Arlington, Dallas Executive, Denton, Grand Prairie, McKinney and Spinks. Where a facility map ceiling is low the pilot may need the 72-hour route, so give a window of three days or more.
• What LAANC does not do. It grants airspace authorization only. The pilot still checks NOTAMs, temporary flight restrictions and the weather on the day.
• Night and twilight. Allowed under 107.29 with anti-collision lighting visible for 3 statute miles and the post-April 2021 training. Astral Pic flights are daylight only.
• Over people. Flying over people who are not part of the job needs an aircraft that meets one of the Category 1 to 4 standards under 107.39, or an FAA waiver, and hovering over an outdoor crowd is limited to Category 1, 2 or 4 aircraft broadcasting Remote ID. For a house this rarely matters; for an event it is the first thing the pilot checks.

Who has to consent to the flight?

The person who owns or lawfully occupies the property. In Texas, Government Code chapter 423 makes it lawful to capture an image of private property with the consent of the owner or lawful occupant, and separately allows a licensed real estate broker to capture images for marketing when no individual is identifiable. In Florida, statute 934.50 requires written consent to record private property or the people on it where they expect privacy.

That is why a good pilot or platform asks who you are in relation to the property, asks you to tell any tenants or occupants, and keeps the camera on the subject parcel rather than the neighbors. The National Association of Realtors also advises members to put indemnification for privacy, injury and property damage claims into any contract with a hired operator. If you are launching from a shared driveway or common area, check your HOA's rules: boards can regulate take-off and landing on their property even though they cannot regulate the airspace.

Who owns the photos and video?

The pilot, by default. Under US copyright law the person who creates a photo or video owns it, and a commissioned drone video is not a "work made for hire" unless it fits one of nine statutory categories and both sides sign a written agreement saying so. A transfer of copyright must also be in writing and signed. So get a written license that says what you may do with the files, for how long, and whether you may share them with your agent, broker, insurer or contractor.

On Astral Pic the license is in the terms you accept at booking: once the delivery is approved, the pilot grants you a perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive license to use the files to market, sell, lease, finance, insure, inspect, repair, build or document that property, including sharing them with agents, brokers, MLS services, contractors and insurers. The pilot may show the work in a portfolio without the address. See the footage license.

What Astral Pic checks

Every pilot showed us a current FAA Part 107 certificate, the FAA registration label on their drone and a liability insurance certificate of at least $1 million before they could accept a job. A person checked each one. We also record the recency date and the insurance expiry, and a pilot whose recency or insurance has lapsed cannot accept jobs until it is renewed.

• Certificate. A photo of the front and back of the Part 107 card, and the pilot's legal name as printed, which a person matches in the FAA Airmen Inquiry. The FAA does not publish certificate numbers, so nobody can confirm a number against FAA data; we check the image and the name.
• Recency. The ALC-677 completion certificate or the initial knowledge test report, with the date. We compute the last day of the 24th calendar month and block job acceptance after it.
• Aircraft. A photo of the registration label on the airframe, the registration number and the Remote ID method for each drone. A drone without Remote ID cannot be listed.
• Insurance. A certificate of insurance showing a limit of at least $1 million and the expiry date. We record the carrier, the limit and the expiry, and show the limit and expiry month on the pilot's card.
• Airspace, per job. We flag likely controlled airspace at the address when you book, and the pilot records their LAANC or DroneZone reference on the job before flying.

What we do not do: we do not run criminal record checks, we do not insure the flight ourselves, and we do not promise that a flight is legal at a given address, because that decision belongs to the pilot in command on the day. How we check pilots, and how your money moves has the full list.

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How we built this guide

The rules come from 14 CFR Part 107 in the 2025 edition of the Code of Federal Regulations and from the FAA's own pages on becoming a remote pilot (updated June 9, 2026), registration (updated March 18, 2024), Remote ID, LAANC (updated September 29, 2026), airspace authorizations and the Airmen Inquiry, all read in October 2026. Penalty figures are from the FAA's August 2024 enforcement release. Insurance norms come from an insurance agency (SkyWatch), a broker (BWI), two secondary guides (Drone U, Adorama) and the National Association of Realtors. State consent rules are quoted from the Texas and Florida statutes as published in 2026. Copyright rules are from 17 U.S.C. 101 and 204. Where a point rests on a secondary source we name it in the text. Nothing on this page is legal advice; check the current rule before you rely on it.

Sources

1. FAA, Become a certificated remote pilot (page updated June 9, 2026).
2. 14 CFR Part 107, 2025 edition via govinfo: 107.7, 107.9, 107.12, 107.29, 107.39, 107.41, 107.51, 107.65, 107.73.
3. FAA, Airmen Inquiry (page updated March 20, 2023) and Releasable airmen download (October 1, 2026 upload).
4. The Drone Girl, FAA Part 107 certified remote pilot database (updated January 27, 2025): the 90-day opt-out and name mismatch notes.
5. V-1X, How to read an FAA airmen certificate (March 6, 2026): new certificates appear in the public database within 30 to 60 days.
6. FAA, How to register your drone (page updated March 18, 2024) and Remote identification of drones.
7. FAA newsroom, FAA ends discretionary enforcement policy on Remote ID (March 15, 2024) and FAA proposed $341,413 in civil penalties against drone operators (August 2024).
8. FAA, UAS Data Exchange (LAANC) (page updated September 29, 2026), Part 107 airspace authorizations and Operations over people.
9. National Association of Realtors, Drones.
10. SkyWatch, Drone insurance for real estate aerial photography and Is $1 million in drone liability insurance still enough? (2026).
11. BWI, Drone insurance: carriers do not quote operators without a Part 107 certificate.
12. Drone U, Drone insurance guide; Adorama, Do I need drone insurance?.
13. DroneXL, Redfin drone shoot checklist (September 27, 2026).
14. Texas Government Code, Chapter 423 (text as of April 2026); Florida Senate, Statute 934.50 (2025).
15. FirstService Residential, Drones and your association: HOA take-off and landing rules.
16. 17 U.S.C. 101 and 204 via Cornell LII.

Common questions