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Industry NewsDecember 23, 2025·25 min read

The FCC Restricted All Foreign Drones, Not Just DJI

The "DJI Ban" Headlines Obscured the Broader Action. Every Foreign-Made Drone and Component Went on the Covered List — and 2026 Has Been About the Exceptions — Two of Which Now Run Until January 1, 2028.

The FCC Restricted All Foreign Drones, Not Just DJI
BR
Brian Rutherford
FAA Part 107 Pilot • USMC Veteran • C-UAS Consultant

The FCC Restricted All Foreign Drones, Not Just DJI

The "DJI Ban" Headlines Obscured the Broader Action. Every Foreign-Made Drone and Component Went on the Covered List — and 2026 Has Been About the Exceptions — Two of Which Now Run Until January 1, 2028.

By Brian Rutherford | December 23, 2025

Updated September 21, 2026 — brought to the FCC's own record through its September 18, 2026 Covered List. What changed: the exemptions the FCC added on January 7, 2026, their extension to January 1, 2028, the Conditional Approval track, the toy-drone carve-out, and two pending proposals that would reach models the FCC had already authorized.

December 22, 2025. The FCC updates its Covered List.

The headlines focused on "DJI Ban." That's accurate. It's also incomplete.

The entry the FCC added begins: "Uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) and UAS critical components produced in a foreign country" — the second half, the section 1709 equipment, follows below. Not Chinese drones specifically. Not particular manufacturers. Produced in a foreign country.

That includes European manufacturers. Swiss. German. French. Allied nations.

The industry focused on DJI because it's the largest name. But the supply chain implications extend far beyond one Chinese company — and, nine months on, the story is as much about the doors the FCC and the Department of War have opened as about the one they closed.

What the FCC Actually Stated

The FCC's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau released a Public Notice on December 22, 2025 (DA 25-1086). It acted on a National Security Determination received the day before from an Executive Branch interagency body convened by the White House — in the words of the FCC's fact sheet that day, "the Commission cannot update this list on its own and is required to implement determinations that are made by our national security agency experts." Two things were added:

Category One: UAS and UAS critical components produced in a foreign country.

Category Two: The communications and video surveillance equipment and services listed in section 1709(a)(1) of the FY2025 National Defense Authorization Act — the statutory provision that named DJI and Autel.

Category Two received the attention. Category One has the broader reach.

The determination attached to that notice is where the "all foreign" language comes from. In the interagency body's words — the first sentence quoted by the FCC in its notice, the second from the determination the FCC published with it as an appendix: "UAS and UAS critical components must be produced in the United States." And: "To ensure American companies are able to meet both peacetime and wartime demand, the U.S. UAS industry cannot rely on foreign-produced UAS critical components." That is the national-security agencies speaking, not the FCC — the FCC's role under the statute is to publish and maintain the list the agencies hand it.

The Component Definition Is Comprehensive

The determination's definition: "UAS critical components" "includes but is not limited to the following UAS components and any associated software":

  • Data transmission devices
  • Communications systems
  • Flight controllers
  • Ground control stations and UAS controllers
  • Navigation systems
  • Sensors and cameras
  • Batteries and battery management systems
  • Motors

That encompasses most of what comprises a drone. The FCC's FAQ draws one line inside it: the agency "understands “UAS critical components” to mean components designed and intended primarily for use in UAS. For example, a camera with many potential functions and uses that could theoretically be attached to a drone is not a UAS critical component and so can receive FCC equipment authorization. But a camera designed and intended primarily to be a drone camera is a UAS critical component." A foreign-produced component designed primarily for a UAS is on the list unless one of the exceptions below reaches it.

What Being "Covered" Means — and Does Not Mean

The Covered List works through the FCC's equipment-authorization program — the December 22 fact sheet: "Most wireless devices require FCC equipment authorization prior to importation, marketing, or sale in the U.S. Covered equipment is banned from receiving new equipment authorizations, preventing new devices from entering the U.S. market." The December 22 fact sheet was explicit about the limit of that: the decision "does not impact a consumer's ability to continue using drones they previously purchased or acquired," nor does it "prevent retailers from continuing to sell, import, or market device models approved earlier this year or previously through the FCC's equipment authorization process." In the FCC's words, "the restrictions imposed by today's decision apply to new device models."

So the December action was a wall against new models, not a recall. That is still true as of this update. What has changed is that the FCC's bureaus have since proposed "to prohibit the continued importation and marketing" of specific previously authorized equipment — two proceedings, covered below.

The Exceptions: January 7, 2026

Sixteen days after the addition, the FCC updated the list again (DA 26-22, January 7, 2026), acting on a further determination from the Department of War. Two classes of foreign-produced UAS and components came off the list:

  1. Everything on the Defense Contract Management Agency's Blue UAS Cleared List — the platforms and the compliant-components framework list together.
  2. UAS and components that qualify as "domestic end products" under the Buy American standard, 48 CFR 25.101(a). The Department of War's memo states the test — UAS or components "must be manufactured in the United States and ensure the cost of domestic components must exceed 65 percent of the total cost of the finished product" — and tells industry to "plan for the domestic content requirement for UAS and UAS critical components to continue to increase in the following years."

Both exceptions were written to expire January 1, 2027; in the memo's words, "this national security determination shall terminate on January 1, 2027, and be reassessed to determine if the import of Blue listed UAS and UAS critical components produced in a foreign country threatens the resiliency of our domestic drone industrial base."

This is the fact that made the original version of this piece wrong for calendar 2026. A U.S. manufacturer assembling a drone from imported cameras, batteries or sensors does not, in the original's words, "now face[] the same restrictions as a Chinese import" if the finished product clears the Buy American threshold or sits on the Blue list. It faces a content test with a published number and a published expiry.

The Exemption Pathway Turned Out to Be Fast

The December notice: "If we receive a further specific determination from the Department of War or the Department of Homeland Security that a given UAS, class of UAS, or UAS critical component does not pose unacceptable risks, we will further update the Covered List." The original version of this piece predicted that process would take "months to years."

It took under three months. On March 18, 2026 (DA 26-253) the FCC announced the first four Conditional Approvals — SiFly's Q12, Mobilicom's SkyHopper series and controllers, ScoutDI's Scout 137 and Verge's X1 — and added a third exception to the list entry: devices "which have been granted a Conditional Approval by DoW." Approvals have followed roughly every few weeks since. The FCC's Conditional Approvals table on September 18, 2026 carries eighteen UAS entries dated March 17 through August 21, 2026. The FCC's table has two columns, "UAS Conditional Approvals" and "Dates of Conditional Approval"; the names in it carry U.S. and European corporate forms — an Inc., an LLC, a GmbH, an AG, a Kft. — and one LLC "doing business as" an AG.

What a Conditional Approval is, in the department's terms, matters to anyone considering one: it rides on "the onshoring plan outlined in its application." The FCC's July 21 notice summarizes the department's determination this way: the approval "will terminate and result in restoration to the FCC's Covered List if the applicant fails to adhere to the onshoring plan outlined in the application or if the U.S. Government discovers that the applicant made 'a false statement or misrepresentation' in the application." The determination itself carries a deadline: applications for a Conditional Approval must be submitted to the U.S. Government by January 1, 2028. It is a bridge to domestic production, not a permanent exemption for foreign production.

Toy Drones Came Off the List: June 15, 2026

On a June 12 determination from the Department of War, the FCC removed "Toy Drones" and "Toy Drones that contain foreign-produced components" from the Covered List (DA 26-588). The carve-out is narrow by design. A device is a toy, in the determination's words, "only if it meets all of the below criteria" — among them a maximum takeoff weight of 150 grams or less, no GPS or GNSS, no camera or other sensing, no network connectivity beyond "a dedicated radio-frequency link between controller and drone," flight time of ten minutes or less, no brushless motors, and not produced by a section 1709 entity. The determination's own framing: "unsophisticated, low-risk toys that are not capable of operating efficiently in U.S. airspace."

The Extension: July 21, 2026, Through January 1, 2028

On July 21, 2026 the FCC announced (DA 26-761) a new Department of War determination: "This new determination terminates on January 1, 2028 and supersedes the National Security Determination transmitted to the FCC on January 7, 2026." The Blue UAS Cleared List and Buy American exceptions now run "until January 1, 2028." Conditional Approvals no longer carry the December 31, 2026 end date at all — they last, in the department's words, "for as long as the applicant for Conditional Approval abides by the onshoring plan outlined in its application and pursuant to updated vetting of the products."

The FCC's own fact sheet for that day put the extension's purpose plainly: to "give certainty to industry that UAS and UAS critical components determined to not pose national security concerns will not face imminent restrictions."

As of September 18, 2026 the Covered List's UAS entry therefore reads: foreign-produced UAS and UAS critical components, except (a) Blue UAS Cleared List items until January 1, 2028, (b) Buy American domestic end products until January 1, 2028, (c) devices with a Conditional Approval from the Department of War or DHS, and (d) toy drones as defined. Section 1709 equipment and services remain listed without exception. The same page now also lists foreign-produced routers (March 23, 2026), power inverters and advanced robotic devices (July 28, 2026) under the same conditional-approval structure — the drone entry was the template.

European Manufacturers: Not the Same Restrictions as DJI

The original version of this piece said allied-nation manufacturers "face the same market restrictions as DJI." On the December 22 text alone, that was defensible. On the 2026 record it is not.

A Swiss, German or French manufacturer has three doors DJI does not: the Blue UAS Cleared List, the Buy American threshold for U.S.-assembled product, and a Conditional Approval tied to an onshoring plan. The September 18 approvals table shows the third door in use by entities with European corporate forms in their names — Air6 System GmbH's AIR4 and AIR8 families, Verity AG's Series 4 indoor system, ABZ Innovation Kft.'s L50 — with approvals dated May and June 2026. (The FCC's table lists names and dates; a Conditional Approval is, in the Bureau's words, one "granted for foreign-produced UAS and UAS critical components.")

DJI and Autel are different because section 1709 names them. Their equipment sits in Category Two, and the 2026 exceptions carve it out by their own terms: both Department of War determinations say their term "UAS and UAS critical components" "does not refer to any device listed in Section 1709," and the toy-drone criteria require that a device "Is not produced by an entity identified in Section 1709." What they have instead is litigation. On January 21, 2026 DJI filed a petition for reconsideration and Autel an application for review at the FCC; the FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology set oppositions for April 6 and replies for May 11, 2026 (DA 26-223). DJI also petitioned the Ninth Circuit for review (No. 26-1029), and on March 6, 2026 the FCC moved to dismiss that petition as "incurably premature" because reconsideration was still pending at the agency. As of this update, no Commission ruling on either filing and no court decision has been published that we could find. Autel's application argues, in its own words, that the action excludes it "from the exemption framework available to similarly situated manufacturers" — the asymmetry this section describes is the one Autel is contesting.

The "Already Authorized" Shield Is Being Narrowed — Two Proposals

The December action left previously authorized models untouched. In July 2026 the FCC's bureaus opened two proceedings that would change that for specific equipment, using a procedure the Commission adopted in October 2025 to bar continued importation and marketing of covered equipment without revoking its authorization.

PS Docket 26-184 (DA 26-742, July 17, 2026; 91 FR 48108). The bureaus propose to prohibit continued importation and marketing of previously authorized equipment from nine named entities, whose equipment they tentatively conclude is covered equipment: for seven of them — Cogito, Fikaxo, Lyno Dynamics, Skyhigh Tech, Spatial Hover, SZ Knowact and WaveGo — as "foreign-produced UAS and UAS critical components and white-labeled devices listed in section 1709"; for Xtra, as section 1709 communications and video surveillance equipment; and for XAG, simply as foreign-produced UAS. For the first eight the notice says "public reporting indicates" the equipment consists of hardware copies of section 1709 products — the footnotes behind that sentence cite trade press, DroneXL and The Verge among them. Comments closed August 31. An August 10 addendum (DA 26-832; 91 FR 54713) added Anzu, a U.S.-based company whose devices, the bureaus say public reporting indicates, are produced under a technology-sharing or licensing agreement with a section 1709 entity — and whose UAS and controllers are in any case produced in Malaysia, a foreign country — with FCC IDs 2BBYS-RAPTOR and 2BBYS-RRC01 named; comments on that addendum are due September 23, 2026.

PS Docket 26-189 (DA 26-758, July 21, 2026; 91 FR 48870). The bureaus propose to prohibit continued importation and marketing of previously authorized foreign-produced covered UAS that are "military-grade," defined by seven classes: aircraft of 55 pounds or more at takeoff; aircraft that can dispense "economic poison" under FAA Part 137; aircraft with thermal-imaging sensors; aircraft with LiDAR; docking stations; aircraft "specially designed to incorporate a defense article"; and swarming UAS, a definition the notice extends to platforms purpose-built for coordinated formations "including applications such as multi-UAS light shows." Comments closed September 2, 2026; on August 28 the bureaus denied three requests (from a fuel-industry association, DRONERESPONDERS and the Commercial Drone Alliance) to extend that deadline (DA 26-892).

Both notices carry the same limits: the prohibition would reach only equipment on the Covered List (Blue UAS, Buy American and Conditional Approval devices are outside it), would not apply to importation or marketing for federal-government use or for commercial testing and product development, and — in both notices' words — "would not affect the continued use or operation of already-purchased" equipment.

Neither is in force. Both are proposals under 47 CFR 2.939(e) with closed or closing comment periods, awaiting a decision. The precedent for how fast that can move is the bureaus' own: a parallel proposal covering equipment added to the list in 2024 or earlier was noticed March 27, 2026, decided June 26 and effective July 16, 2026.

The Supply Chain Challenge, Restated for 2026

Here is what the industry is still processing, in the Department of War's own premise (quoted below): foreign reliance for critical components is the vulnerability, and manufacturing is global; the exemptions exist because of it.

The 2026 record does not pretend otherwise. The Department of War's own January memo, while clearing the Blue list, said that "reliance on any foreign country for critical UAS components still creates significant vulnerabilities for the domestic drone industrial base," and set the exemptions to expire so it could reassess. The July extension bought another year. The direction of travel is stated in the memo: use Buy American "as a baseline with plans to increase" domestic content.

A drone assembled in Texas with Chinese cameras, Korean batteries, Japanese sensors and Taiwanese chips is therefore in one of three positions: it clears the 65 percent domestic-cost threshold and is exempt until January 1, 2028; it sits on the Blue list and is exempt until January 1, 2028; or it needs a Conditional Approval, which means an onshoring plan the applicant will be held to and an application filed by January 1, 2028. The FCC's own FAQ on the entry states the finished-product rule: "A UAS produced in the United States containing foreign produced components but that complies with the DOW Blue UAS Cleared List or the Buy American Standard shall not be considered “covered.”" Absent all three, the foreign-produced components designed primarily for UAS are covered and the product is, on the FAQ's logic, treated as covered at equipment authorization. (One caution on that FAQ page as served today: one of its answers still says the Blue UAS exemption "terminates on January 1, 2027" while another says "Until Jan. 1, 2028" — the Bureau's July 21 notice and the Covered List itself say 2028.)

Why This Was Partially Overlooked

The December 22 announcement dominated by "DJI" headlines communicated action on Chinese drones without drawing attention to the broader implications.

Legal analysts identified it. Wiley called it an "unexpected, first-of-its-kind action." Holland & Knight titled its alert on the addition of "all foreign-made drones and critical components."

But the coverage that reached most operators said "DJI ban" — the phrase this piece's own headline answers — and "foreign drone ban" took longer to register. By the time the broader implications registered, the addition was in effect — and the first exceptions were written sixteen days after it.

The National Security Rationale

The interagency determination's own sentence, quoted above, is about industrial capacity — "peacetime and wartime demand" — as much as data; and the determination names World Cup and Olympic venues as places where foreign-produced components "could enable persistent surveillance, data exfiltration, and destructive operations."

The FCC's July fact sheet frames 2026 from the other side — the extension exists to "give certainty to industry" while production onshores; the Department of War's July determination itself states the extension, the onshoring condition and the application deadline, and gives no reasons of its own — it points back to January's, "as described in the January 7, 2026 National Security Determination." The FCC's fact sheet claims over $4 billion has flowed to U.S.-based drone and related production companies since December; that is the Commission's figure, unaudited here.

For Operators

Inventory your equipment against the list as it stands today. Identify which airframes and components are foreign-produced, and whether each is on the Blue UAS Cleared List, a Buy American product, or in the Conditional Approvals table. The FCC's page carries the Conditional Approvals table; the Blue list is DCMA's own page; Buy American status rests with the maker: the FCC's FAQ says equipment-authorization applicants "will bear responsibility for certifying, in good faith" that a device was not produced in a foreign country, and separately that Buy American domestic end products "have been removed from the Covered List" — so ask the manufacturer for its basis; the FCC's page lists no Buy American product.

Already-purchased equipment remains legal to operate. The December 22 fact sheet says so, and both July proposals say so again; the January, March and June updates are silent on it and change nothing about it. Nothing proposed in dockets 26-184 or 26-189 would change it.

Watch the two dockets if you fly thermal, LiDAR, spray, docked or 55-pound-plus foreign platforms. If 26-189 is adopted as proposed, new units of those previously authorized models could no longer be imported or marketed in the United States. Plan procurement on that assumption until the bureaus decide.

Plan around January 1, 2028. That is the current expiry for the Blue UAS and Buy American exceptions. It has been extended once; it can be extended again or allowed to lapse.

For Manufacturers

Know which of the three doors you are standing in. Blue UAS listing, Buy American qualification, or a Conditional Approval. The first two are content and vetting tests; the third is a commitment.

Treat a Conditional Approval as a contract. The Bureau's summary, quoted above, is the contract: the approval lasts "for as long as the applicant for Conditional Approval abides by the onshoring plan," and "a false statement or misrepresentation" in the application restores the product to the list.

Assume the domestic-content bar rises. The Department of War said so in January: use Buy American "as a baseline with plans to increase" domestic content. July's determination is three pages — the year added to the exemptions, the end date removed from Conditional Approvals, the January 1, 2028 application deadline — and it points back to January's for its reasons. Sixty-five percent is the stated baseline.

Be accurate about lineage. Docket 26-184 exists because the bureaus proposed to bar new imports of nine named companies' previously authorized products — eight on public reporting of hardware copies of section 1709 equipment, XAG as foreign-produced — and then a tenth, Anzu, on a reported licensing agreement and Malaysian production. Customers and grant administrators will ask the same question.

For Federal Buyers and State and Local Agencies

Both proposed prohibitions exclude importation and marketing "for the purpose of use by the federal government." The Blue UAS list — which, in the Department of War's January memo, "assesses UAS and UAS components to ensure compliance with Section 848 of the FY2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), Section 817 of the FY2023 NDAA, and the American Security Drone Act included in the FY24 NDAA" — now does double duty as an FCC exemption.

State and local agencies buying with federal preparedness funds carry a separate restriction that took effect the same week as the Covered List addition. Under section 1825 of the American Security Drone Act, as FEMA's FY 2026 Homeland Security Grant Program notice states it, "beginning December 22, 2025, no federal funds awarded through a contract, grant, or cooperative agreement, or otherwise made available may be used to procure a covered unmanned aircraft system (UAS) that is manufactured or assembled by a covered foreign entity," and the notice adds that no funds may be used in connection with operating such a drone; it refers recipients to OMB Memorandum M-26-02 for the details.

What an agency writing a procurement today can and cannot read off the FCC's page: previously authorized foreign models — including DJI and Autel models authorized before December 22, 2025 — remain lawful to import, market and sell new — the FCC's FAQ: "if a UAS or UAS critical component has already been authorized by the FCC, it can continue to be imported, sold, and used" — unless the FCC acts to prohibit specific equipment, which dockets 26-184 and 26-189 propose to do for the equipment they name. For new models the fact sheet is the rule — "New devices on the Covered List, such as foreign-made drones, are prohibited from receiving FCC authorization" — so a foreign-produced model new since December 22 reaches authorization through an exception, and the Conditional Approvals table on the FCC's page lists the ones cleared through the third door; Blue-listed platforms are on DCMA's own list, and Buy American product is exempt on the maker's certification, not by appearing on the FCC's page. The Covered List is keyed to where equipment is produced — DA 25-1086: the newly covered equipment "is identified by place of production, not by entity." And the grant rule above sits on top of all of it: a model the FCC will still authorize can still be one a grant cannot pay for.

Assessment

The "DJI Ban" is real. The broader FCC action put every foreign-produced drone and component on the Covered List — and then, across 2026, the Department of War and the FCC carved out the trusted supply chain: the Blue list, Buy American product, conditionally approved onshoring manufacturers, and toys — with the Blue list and Buy American exceptions running until January 1, 2028, and Conditional Approvals open-ended for as long as the onshoring plan holds (the FCC's page says approvals with no termination date "will remain effective indefinitely"; the July determination itself says it "shall terminate on Saturday, January 1, 2028, unless superseded by a newer determination" — the FCC reads the two together as indefinite, and that is the reading on its page).

Allied-nation manufacturers do not face the same restrictions as DJI; they face a content test and an approval track that DJI and Autel, named in statute, cannot use. The platforms in operation today remain legal. The drones the FCC has already authorized are now the subject of proposals to stop new imports of specific models and classes — a procedure the bureaus applied in June to covered equipment listed in 2024 or earlier.

The distinction between "DJI ban" and "foreign drone ban" still matters. So does the distinction between the list and its exceptions.

Brian Rutherford tracks regulatory changes that reshape industries while attention focuses elsewhere.

Sources

Primary (all retrieved and hashed into DELALLi's source corpus, September 2026):

Secondary, cited for their characterizations only:

#FCC#DJIBan#DroneRegulation#CoveredList#SupplyChain#ForeignDrones#NationalSecurity#DroneIndustry#UAS#Manufacturing#BlueUAS
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