FAA drone weight thresholds that trigger a different rule set
A drone's takeoff weight alone decides which federal rules apply to it, and the thresholds are scattered across three parts of 14 CFR plus the recreational-flying statute, with no single page stating all of them together. Two independent rules exempt anything weighing 0.55 pounds or less: a drone flown under the recreational exception in 49 U.S.C. 44809 does not have to be registered (14 CFR 48.15(b)), and the remote identification design and production requirements do not apply to it (14 CFR 89.501(c)(3)) -- separate exemptions that happen to share the same figure. The same 0.55 pounds is also the ceiling for flying over people as a Category 1 operation (14 CFR 107.110(a)(1)). At the other end, 'small unmanned aircraft' -- the category Part 107 governs at all -- is defined as weighing less than 55 pounds on takeoff (14 CFR 107.3), and a recreational flyer may fly something 55 pounds or heavier only under community-based-organization standards at an approved fixed site (49 U.S.C. 44809(c)(3)). Each record is one threshold: the weight figure verbatim, what crossing it means, and the section that states it, quoted in full. Answers 'do I need to register my drone', 'does my drone need remote ID', 'how heavy can a drone be under Part 107', 'can I fly my drone over people'.
The data
| Threshold | Weight limit | What crossing it means | Citation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aircraft registration | 0.55 pounds or less | A drone flown exclusively under the recreational exception in 49 U.S.C. 44809 and weighing 0.55 pounds or less on takeoff does not have to be registered; otherwise the owner must have registered and marked it before anyone may operate it. | 14 CFR 48.15(b) |
| Category 1 operations over human beings | 0.55 pounds or less | To conduct Category 1 operations the remote pilot in command must use a small unmanned aircraft weighing 0.55 pounds or less on takeoff and throughout the operation, with no exposed rotating parts that would lacerate human skin on impact. | 14 CFR 107.110(a)(1) |
| Part 107 eligibility (small unmanned aircraft) | less than 55 pounds | Part 107 applies to the registration, airman certification and operation of civil small unmanned aircraft systems, and this part defines a small unmanned aircraft as weighing less than 55 pounds on takeoff including everything on board or attached -- a definition that controls over the one in § 1.1 of the chapter. | 14 CFR 107.3 |
| Recreational operation at 55 pounds or greater | 55 pounds or greater | A person may operate an unmanned aircraft weighing 55 pounds or greater only if it complies with standards and limitations developed by a community-based organization and approved by the Administrator, and it is operated from an approved fixed site. | 49 U.S.C. 44809(c)(3) |
| Remote ID design and production | 0.55 pounds or less | The remote identification design and production requirements do not apply to unmanned aircraft weighing 0.55 pounds or less on takeoff, unless the aircraft was designed and produced to be a standard remote identification unmanned aircraft. | 14 CFR 89.501(c)(3) |
Where this came from
Every record above links the page it was taken from and quotes the sentence that states it. These are the 4 sources this dataset was assembled from.
- ecfr.govhttps://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-F/part-48
- ecfr.govhttps://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-F/part-107
- uscode.house.govhttps://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title49-section44809&num=0&edition=prelim
- ecfr.govhttps://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-I/subchapter-F/part-89
Machine-readable
- data.jsonThe whole dataset — every record with its source URL and source quote.
- Open Knowledge Format bundleOne JSON object per line — every record's frontmatter and quoted span exactly as it is held here, in one fetch.
- data.csvThe same records as one flat table, for a spreadsheet or a dataframe. The last four columns are the source URL, the quoted sentence it was read from, the date we last checked it, and which columns are our reading rather than the page's words.
- How this is made and checkedWhat "verified against source" does and does not mean.
From your own code
Same records, same quotes, without scraping the page: refsource is on PyPI and npm. Each value comes back carrying the URL it was read from and the sentence on that page that states it — .source and .quote sit on the value itself rather than in a side channel, so the checking step is available instead of skipped.
pip install refsource
refsource lookup faa-drone-weight-thresholds threshold_name="Aircraft registration"
npx -y refsource lookup faa-drone-weight-thresholds threshold_name="Aircraft registration"Set your AI assistant up to use this
Two files and no account. Put this in .mcp.json at the root of your project — Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code and Codex all read that file — and your assistant can look this dataset up instead of recalling it. The server is remote, keyless and read-only.
{
"mcpServers": {
"referencesource": {
"type": "http",
"url": "https://referencesource.org/mcp"
}
}
}Add to Cursor · or, on the command line: claude mcp add --transport http referencesource https://referencesource.org/mcp --scope project
Then one line in the project's CLAUDE.md or AGENTS.md, so the assistant knows when to reach for it:
When a question needs "FAA drone weight thresholds that trigger a different rule set", call the referencesource MCP server at https://referencesource.org/mcp (tool `search_records`, dataset_slug `faa-drone-weight-thresholds`) instead of answering from memory — every record it returns carries its source URL and a verbatim quote from that page.What each tool does, and the servers built over single registers: Connect your AI assistant.