What Is BVLOS? — Drone Regulatory Glossary

BVLOS — Beyond Visual Line of Sight — is the FAA term for drone operations where the remote pilot (or a designated visual observer) cannot see the drone with unaided vision throughout the flight. The opposite is VLOS (Visual Line of Sight), where the operator can see the drone the entire time. BVLOS is the unlock for almost every high-value commercial drone use case — package delivery, long-distance infrastructure inspection, large-area mapping, search and rescue at range — because those operations can’t happen with the pilot standing next to the drone the whole time.

How BVLOS is regulated in 2026:

• Today (under Part 107): BVLOS operations require an individual FAA waiver granted case-by-case through the FAA DroneZone portal. Approval cycles range from 30 days to many months. Companies like Zipline (medical delivery), UPS Flight Forward, Amazon Prime Air, and Wing (Alphabet) operate under such waivers in specific corridors.
• Coming (Part 108): The FAA published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for Part 108 on August 7, 2025. Public comments closed October 6, 2025; final rule targeted for March 16, 2026 (timeline may slip). Part 108 replaces the case-by-case waiver model with a standardized framework for BVLOS up to 1,320-pound drones, with two approval tiers (Permitted Operations and Operational Certificate). See our BVLOS and Part 108 Explained for the deeper dive.

Why BVLOS requires special handling:

• Detect-and-avoid (DAA). A drone flying past visual range needs onboard technology to identify and avoid other aircraft. Common DAA approaches: ADS-B receivers (listening for manned-aircraft transponders), acoustic sensors, optical / computer-vision DAA, radar-based DAA, and ground-based surveillance integration.
• Remote ID broadcasting. BVLOS-capable drones must broadcast Remote ID throughout the flight so other airspace users and the FAA can identify them.
• Continuous position tracking. Part 108 will require integration with UTM (Unmanned Traffic Management) systems for real-time position reporting.
• Pre-flight risk assessment. The operator must demonstrate that the operation is genuinely safe under the specific conditions of the planned flight — weather, airspace, population density, alternative landing options.

Why BVLOS matters commercially: A drone delivery from a warehouse to a customer’s home is BVLOS by definition (the drone flies past where the pilot can see). A pipeline inspection covering 50 miles of pipeline is BVLOS. A solar-farm inspection covering 500 acres is partly BVLOS. The list of high-value commercial drone use cases that require BVLOS is much longer than the list that can run under VLOS-only operations.

Related terms: VLOS (Visual Line of Sight), Part 107 (FAA commercial drone certification), Part 108 (forthcoming FAA BVLOS rule), Remote ID, UTM (Unmanned Traffic Management), Detect-and-Avoid (DAA), ADS-B (Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast), LAANC (Low Altitude Authorization and Notification Capability), DroneZone (FAA waiver portal).

Learn more: BVLOS and Part 108 Explained, Part 107 Certification Guide, AI in Drones: The Complete 2026 Guide. Daily AI fundamentals in our free Beginners in AI newsletter.