FAA Part 108: What Changes for Global BVLOS — and Why Non-US Drone Operators Should Care

On June 6, 2025, the White House signed an executive order directing the FAA to finalize, within 240 days, the rule the drone industry has been waiting on for nearly a decade. The FAA Part 108 BVLOS rule — the federal framework for Beyond Visual Line of Sight drone operations — is no longer a promise. It's a deadline.

And here's the part the US press keeps missing: this rule will set the pace for ANAC, EASA, CAAC and half a dozen other regulators that, frankly, don't have the technical bandwidth to redraw everything from scratch. If you fly commercial drones in Brazil, Europe or Southeast Asia, whatever hits the Federal Register in Washington over the next few months will resurface — with a local accent — in your operations manual.

What Part 108 Actually Is, in 50 Seconds

Part 108 is a new subpart of 14 CFR that creates a permanent certification pathway for BVLOS operations without case-by-case waivers. It replaces the current patchwork — Part 107 waivers stitched together with Part 135 certificates — with a risk-based framework: three tiers of aircraft qualification, mandatory detect-and-avoid performance, and required integration with certified UTM services.

In plain terms, Part 108 pulls BVLOS out of experimental limbo and turns it into a real certification path.

Why Part 108 Finally Unlocks Commercial Scale

The Part 107 waiver model was never built for scale. Zipline, Wing and Flytrex spent years stacking individual exemptions, each with a tight operational envelope. UPS Flight Forward went the Part 135 route in 2019 and got to fly — but with restrictions no last-mile delivery business can sustain on the P&L.

Part 108 flips the logic. Instead of approving operations one by one, it certifies combinations of aircraft + operator + mitigation system. You prove once that the package closes the Target Level of Safety at 10⁻⁶ or 10⁻⁷ depending on category — and you replicate. It's the same rationale as Europe's SORA, but with the regulatory teeth of the agency that still writes the global aviation playbook.

• Three certification tiers: shielded (low-altitude corridors), limited populated overflight, and long-range operations;
• Mandatory DAA with measurable performance — no more "see-and-avoid equivalent" hand-waving;
• Remote ID Broadcast plus Network ID coupled together — the "broadcast only" debate is dead;
• Compulsory integration with approved USS (UAS Service Suppliers), which reshapes the entire UTM stack.

The Domino Effect on ANAC, EASA and Asian Regulators

Here's what the US domestic press won't cover: regulators outside the US don't have the budget, technical staff or political appetite to write a BVLOS rule from scratch. What they've always done is watch the FAA and EASA, wait for the dust to settle, and adapt.

Brazil's ANAC published RBAC-E 94 back in 2017 and, eight years later, still handles BVLOS through case-by-case special authorizations that make mining operators cry into their spreadsheets. Vale, Petrobras and the utilities trying to run BVLOS transmission-line inspections deal with an endless back-and-forth of formal letters. My read: ANAC will copy the backbone of Part 108 within 24 months of final publication — probably tying it to DECEA's SARPAS for the airspace side.

EASA is moving in parallel. The Specific Category package and SORA 2.5 already talk to the Part 108 draft — the AW-Drones working group published an equivalence matrix in 2024. Convergence is already happening behind the curtain. Asian regulators (CAAC in China is the outlier — it does its own thing; Japan, Korea and Singapore track the Western standard) tend to import the text almost verbatim.

The Brazilian Case, in Practice

Anyone flying BVLOS in Brazil today — Speedbird Aero in delivery, XMobots in agriculture and defense, Nuvem UAV in inspection — knows the bottleneck isn't technology. It's the legal uncertainty of operating under experimental authorizations that expire. Part 108, once it becomes the international reference, hands ANAC a ready-made template. That's good. It also means anyone who structured their operation under a loose regime is going to have to adapt. That stings.

Insurance, UTM and the Supply Chain Shake-Up

Aviation insurers — Global Aerospace, Allianz, AIG — have already signaled they'll price BVLOS premiums against Part 108 tiers, even for operations outside the US. It makes sense: it's the most robust benchmark available. A Brazilian operator certified under a Part-108-equivalent framework will pay less than one flying under ANAC's discretionary authorization. The bill will land.

On UTM, the effect is even more direct. AirMap, ANRA, OneSky and Unifly designed their stacks around the US model. Once ANAC or EASA adopt analogous USS requirements, those platforms slide in plug-and-play — leaving local players scrambling to catch up. DECEA has a national UTM project (SARPAS-NG), but the public timeline is vague at best.

Recommendations for Operators

• Audit your operations manual against the Part 108 risk matrix — the 2024 draft gives you enough to start;
• Document actual DAA performance from real flight data, not manufacturer estimates;
• Push your USS/UTM provider for an international compliance roadmap;
• Negotiate insurance policies with a review clause tied to regulatory alignment — it can unlock retroactive discounts.

Where Part 108 Will Fail (and Where Brazil Can Do Better)

The rule has holes. ADS-B-based DAA ignores the fact that a large chunk of Brazilian general aviation doesn't squawk — same story across parts of Africa and Southeast Asia. Copying Part 108 without adapting the non-cooperative traffic envelope is a recipe for accidents.

Second point: Part 108 assumes dense cellular coverage. Flying BVLOS over the Amazon, the Pantanal, or a mining corridor in Carajás doesn't give you continuous 4G. ANAC needs to preserve pathways for satellite-link operation (Starlink, OneWeb — XMobots is already testing both) and degraded command modes, something the American text handles timidly.

Copying badly is worse than not copying. If ANAC transposes Part 108 without adapting for traffic density, network coverage and geography, it will create an unenforceable rule — and the sector goes right back to the waiver treadmill.

Final Thoughts

Part 108 becomes US law in 2026. The international impact starts earlier — in insurance contracts, in USS roadmaps, in backchannel conversations between ANAC, EASA and the FAA. Ignoring the rule because "it's American" is the kind of strategic mistake that will cost operators dearly in 2027.

• Part 108 will become the de facto template for global BVLOS — ANAC and EASA will converge whether they want to or not;
• Insurance premiums will start reflecting Part-108-equivalent compliance, even outside the US;
• UTM turns into a certified commodity — planning your USS migration now avoids rework later;
• Any Brazilian adaptation has to address non-cooperative traffic and satellite links, or it's dead on arrival.

Watch the Federal Register in Q1 2026. And the first ANAC public consultation that mentions "international harmonization" — that's when the yardstick moves.