FY2025 NDAA Section 1709: Country of Origin, Not a Safety Rule

I'm Tom Dowell. I fly commercially out of Springdale, Arkansas, for Drones Inbound, and I have held a Part 107 certificate for eight years. This is a law explainer, not legal advice. The thing people call the NDAA 2025 drone ban is not an FAA grounding and it is not a Part 107 safety rule. Section 1709 of the Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025, Pub. L. 118-159, names companies and anyone tied to them by an affiliate, a subsidiary, or a technology-sharing or licensing agreement. On December 22, 2025, FCC DA 25-1086 added a second bucket: all foreign-produced uncrewed aircraft systems and UAS critical components. Country of origin and contract paper. Not a crash report. Not an airworthiness finding on the airframe you already own. Other federal material is at DroneLaws.us /federal. Later import-and-marketing dockets sit at DroneLaws.us /fcc-alert.

Country of origin and a licensing agreement are the test

Congress did not write a flight-safety statute. It wrote a supply-chain statute. The test in §1709(a)(1) is who made the communications or video surveillance equipment, and who is tied to that maker by paper. Shenzhen Da-Jiang Innovations Sciences and Technologies Company Limited — DJI Technologies — and Autel Robotics are named. So is any subsidiary, affiliate, or partner of a named entity; any entity in a joint venture with a named entity; and any entity to which a named entity has a technology sharing or licensing agreement. Section 1709(c)(5) defines a technology sharing agreement as a named entity licensing its technology to a company directly or through an intermediary manufacturer.

That last clause is the one people miss. You can be a U.S. brand. You can assemble in a third country. If the paper is a licensing agreement with a named entity, you are in the §1709 bucket. No one has to prove your specific airframe failed a safety test. The relationship is enough.

The December 2025 Covered List update then went wider than the named-entity list Congress wrote. It added every UAS and UAS critical component produced in a foreign country. A French airframe, a Canadian controller, a Malaysian camera designed primarily for a drone — place of production, not a brand-by-brand safety docket. That is country of origin. It is not Part 107.

What Pub. L. 118-159 §1709 actually says

Pub. L. 118-159 §1709 is titled "Analysis of certain unmanned aircraft systems entities." It was enacted December 23, 2024. Subsection (a)(1) gave "an appropriate national security agency" one year to determine whether listed communications or video surveillance equipment or services "pose an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States or the security and safety of United States persons."

The list is four subparagraphs: (A) equipment produced by DJI; (B) equipment produced by Autel Robotics; (C) subsidiaries, affiliates, partners, joint ventures, and technology-sharing or licensing counterparties of those named entities; and (D) communications or video surveillance services, including software, provided by those entities or using that equipment.

If no determination arrived within one year, §1709(a)(2) required the Commission to add everything in paragraph (1) to the Covered List anyway. If a determination of unacceptable risk did arrive, §1709(b)(1) required placement on the Covered List within 30 days. The statute is a named-entity pipeline into the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act Covered List. It is not a direction to the FAA and it does not amend 14 CFR Part 107.

What FCC DA 25-1086 put on the Covered List

On December 22, 2025 — one day before the statutory one-year clock ran out — the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau released FCC DA 25-1086. The Bureau announced two additions to the FCC Covered List, based on a December 21, 2025 National Security Determination from a White House-convened Executive Branch interagency body.

The Covered List entry is one sentence with two buckets: "Uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) and UAS critical components produced in a foreign country and all communications and video surveillance equipment and services listed in Section 1709(a)(1) of the FY25 National Defense Authorization Act (Pub. L. 118-159)."

The named-entity bucket

That is DJI, Autel Robotics, their affiliates, subsidiaries, and partners, their joint ventures, and any entity with a technology-sharing or licensing agreement, plus the communications and video surveillance services those entities provide. DA 25-1086 treats the §1709 determination as entity-identified.

The foreign-produced bucket

That is all UAS and UAS critical components produced in a foreign country. The National Security Determination attached to DA 25-1086 defines UAS by 47 CFR § 88.5 and lists critical components such as flight controllers, radios, cameras, batteries, and motors. DA 25-1086 is explicit that this second bucket is identified by place of production, not by entity.

Under 47 CFR § 2.903(a), covered equipment is prohibited from receiving equipment authorizations. New models do not get a grant. Later updates carved out some categories — Blue UAS Cleared List aircraft, certain Buy American "domestic end products," Conditional Approvals, and "Toy Drones." Those carve-outs move. Read the live Covered List.

Existing authorizations stay usable

The FCC Covered List FAQs are direct. Additions to the Covered List "do not prohibit the import, sale, or use of any existing device models the FCC previously authorized." On consumer use: "Consumers can continue to use any device that has received an equipment authorization. The Covered List only prevents new devices from getting equipment authorizations." On whether the prohibition is forward-looking: "if a UAS or UAS critical component has already been authorized by the FCC, it can continue to be imported, sold, and used."

That is the line. Existing FCC authorizations stay usable. This is not a flying ban. A previously authorized airframe in Springdale is not grounded by DA 25-1086. I am not inventing a fine schedule. The documents I am citing do not publish one.

What this is not

This page is the statute and the Covered List, not a comment how-to. The later import-and-marketing proposal is How to File an FCC 26-189 Comment. The device-specific Anzu proposal is FCC Comment Deadline for the Anzu Raptor Import Ban. See also DroneLaws.us /fcc-alert and DroneLaws.us /federal.

Section 1709 plus DA 25-1086 blocked new authorizations. The 2026 comment notices are the fight over importation and marketing of gear that already had a grant.

What this means for a Part 107 operator this week

You can still fly already-authorized gear. Confirm the FCC ID on the aircraft or controller and that the grant is still on the books. Part 107, Remote ID, and airspace authorization did not change because a communications-supply-chain list got a new row. If you already bought the aircraft, DA 25-1086 is not the document that tells you to leave it on the shelf.

Import and marketing are the FCC fight. New foreign-produced models, and §1709 named-entity equipment, do not get new authorizations. Buying a model that never had a grant is a Covered List problem. Selling or importing already-authorized foreign-produced gear is the later docket work — 26-189 and the Anzu notice.

Fly the authorized aircraft you have. Read the live Covered List before you order a new one. Put import-and-marketing comments in the docket that actually asks for them.

Primary sources

• Pub. L. 118-159 §1709, Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2025 (December 23, 2024; 138 Stat. 1773, 2209-10)
• FCC DA 25-1086 (PSHSB, released December 22, 2025)
• FCC document page for DA 25-1086
• FCC Covered List FAQs: UAS and UAS Critical Components
• FCC Covered List
• 47 CFR § 2.903

This is general information about a federal statute and an FCC Covered List update, not legal advice. We are not affiliated with the FCC or the FAA. Verify the primary sources before you act.