Regulations

Flying a Drone Over People: Categories 1 to 4

✓ Reviewed against current FAA sources on October 11, 2026

For the first five years of Part 107, flight over people was simply prohibited without a waiver. Since January 2021 there are four categories that permit it, and they are not four grades of the same thing. Each one is a different mechanism: the first turns on weight, the next two turn on how hard the aircraft hits, and the fourth turns on an airworthiness certificate. Getting the structure right is most of the work.

Start with the baseline rule

Section 107.39 (opens in a new tab) is the rule the categories are exceptions to. No person may operate a small unmanned aircraft over a human being unless one of three things is true:

• that person is directly participating in the operation;
• that person is under a covered structure or inside a stationary vehicle that can provide reasonable protection from a falling small unmanned aircraft; or
• the operation meets the requirements of at least one of the categories in Subpart D.

Those first two exceptions are free. They need no declaration of compliance, no label and no category at all, and a great deal of real work is done under them.

Category 1: a weight limit

Under 107.110, the aircraft must weigh 0.55 pounds or less on takeoff and throughout the operation, including everything on board or otherwise attached to it, and must not contain any exposed rotating parts that would lacerate human skin on impact.

That is the whole eligibility test. There is no declaration of compliance and no label for Category 1, because weight is something you can establish with a scale. Note that 0.55 pounds is the same figure as the registration threshold, which is not a coincidence and is worth holding on to.

Categories 2 and 3: a kinetic energy limit

These two work the same way as each other and differ only in the number. The aircraft must be designed, produced or modified so that it:

• will not cause injury to a human being equivalent to or greater than the severity of injury caused by a transfer of 11 foot-pounds of kinetic energy on impact from a rigid object, for Category 2 under 107.120(a); or 25 foot-pounds for Category 3 under 107.130(a);
• contains no exposed rotating parts that would lacerate human skin on impact; and
• contains no safety defects.

Both categories also require that the aircraft be listed on an FAA-accepted declaration of compliance under 107.160 and carry a label stating its eligibility. The label must be in English, legible, prominent and permanently affixed. This is why you cannot put your own aircraft into Category 2 or 3 by measuring it: the mechanism runs through the manufacturer.

The operating difference between 2 and 3

Here is where candidates lose points. Category 2 and Category 3 are not simply a lighter and a heavier version of one permission. Category 3 carries operating restrictions that Category 2 does not.

Under 107.125, a Category 3 operator:

• must not operate over an open-air assembly of human beings at all; and
• may only fly above any human being if either the operation is within or over a closed or restricted-access site where everyone inside has been put on notice that an aircraft may fly over them, or the aircraft does not maintain sustained flight over any human being who is not a direct participant or under a covered structure or inside a stationary vehicle that can provide reasonable protection.

Category 2 has no closed-site requirement and no sustained-flight restriction. The trade is that 11 foot-pounds is a much harder target for a manufacturer to hit than 25.

Category 4: airworthiness

Section 107.140 (opens in a new tab) takes an entirely different route. The aircraft must hold an airworthiness certificate issued under Part 21, be operated in accordance with the operating limitations in its approved Flight Manual, and those limitations must not prohibit operations over human beings. It must also have its maintenance, preventive maintenance, alterations and inspections performed in accordance with 107.140(c), and the owner carries that duty unless an operator has agreed in writing to take it on.

This is the category for certificated aircraft, and in practice it is the one almost nobody reading this will use. It is examinable because it is the answer to "which category requires an airworthiness certificate."

Open-air assemblies, in every category

Three of the four category sections carry the same extra condition, in the same words. Under 107.110(b), 107.115(b) and 107.140(a)(2), no remote pilot in command may operate in sustained flight over an open-air assembly of human beings unless the operation meets the requirements of either 89.110 or 89.115(a), which is to say unless it has Remote ID. Category 3 does not have this condition because 107.125(b) bars open-air assemblies outright.

Moving vehicles are a separate rule

Flight over a human being inside a moving vehicle is governed by 107.145, not by 107.39, and it has its own conditions. The operation must qualify under one of the four categories, and then for Categories 1, 2 and 3 the aircraft must either remain within or over a closed or restricted-access site whose occupants are on notice, or must not maintain sustained flight over moving vehicles. For Category 4 the Flight Manual limitations must not prohibit flight over people in moving vehicles.

Note the asymmetry worth remembering: a person in a stationary vehicle is already covered by the free exception in 107.39(b). A person in a moving vehicle needs a category and 107.145.

Sources: 14 CFR 107.39 (opens in a new tab), 107.100 (opens in a new tab), 107.105 (opens in a new tab), 107.110 (opens in a new tab), 107.115 (opens in a new tab), 107.120 (opens in a new tab), 107.125 (opens in a new tab), 107.130 (opens in a new tab), 107.140 (opens in a new tab), 107.145 (opens in a new tab), 107.160 (opens in a new tab); 14 CFR 89.110 (opens in a new tab), 89.115 (opens in a new tab).