Checked against the regulators: Part 108 and the UK dates

A working pilot plans around rules, and the rules you plan around come from whatever you last read. Some of what you last read is wrong.

That is not really a complaint about the trade press. It is how a fast moving subject decays. A proposal gets written about when it is announced, the coverage stays online, and somewhere between the first article and the fortieth the language slips from "proposed" to "the new rule", and then to requirements described as though they already bind you. Nobody decides to mislead anyone. The words just drift.

Here is a live example, checked on 24 August 2026, along with the rules that are genuinely settled and getting less attention than the one that is not.

The rule that has not been issued

Several industry sites currently describe the FAA's Part 108 rule for beyond visual line of sight operations as finalised. It has not been issued.

The FAA's own newsroom page on the subject calls it "the FAA's proposed rule for safely normalizing Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) drone operations". That page is dated 6 August 2025. The word on it is proposed, and the phrase "final rule" does not appear on it at all.

The Federal Register is the authoritative record of what has actually been issued, and it agrees. The rulemaking carries the identifier RIN 2120-AL82, under docket FAA-2025-1908. Four documents have been published under it:

• 7 August 2025, the notice of proposed rulemaking, with comments due by 6 October 2025
• 29 September 2025, a denial of a request to extend that comment period
• 28 January 2026, a reopening of the comment period, with comments due by 11 February 2026
• 10 February 2026, a further reopening, together with the denial of another extension request

Every one of those four is classified as a proposed rule. No final rule has been published under that identifier.

There is one more published fact, and it is the one most worth knowing. A draft final rule was received by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs on 10 July 2026 and its status on 24 August 2026 is "Pending Review". That is a real step and it is further along than a proposal sitting in a comment period. It is not the same thing as a rule. Until that review concludes and a final rule is published in the Federal Register, there is nothing to comply with, no compliance date to plan against, and no guarantee that the published text matches the text that was proposed.

What "proposed" actually means for your operation

Nothing in a proposal is operative. You cannot fly to it, you cannot be authorised under it, and you cannot be penalised for ignoring it, because there is no it yet.

The practical consequence is about attention rather than compliance. A proposal is useful for knowing where a regulator is heading and poor for building a business plan, because the details deciding whether you qualify are the ones most likely to change before a final text. Reading the comment periods as a countdown is the specific error. A comment period that is reopened, and extension requests that are denied, tell you that a regulator is managing a heavy volume of responses. They do not tell you a rule is close, and they never tell you what it will say.

The deadlines that are real, and are being missed

While a great deal of attention goes to an American rule that has not landed, the UK Civil Aviation Authority has published dates that are in force or scheduled, and they get a fraction of the coverage. A pilot who tracks the first and misses the second has it exactly backwards.

From the CAA's own news and updates, read the same day:

From 1 January 2026, new rules apply to all drone users in the UK. The CAA lists two: a requirement for anyone flying a drone over 100 g to have a Flyer ID, and the introduction of Remote ID functionality. These are in force now, not proposed.

Night flying requires a green flashing light. In the CAA's words, to fly at night in the Open Category in the UK a drone "must be equipped with a green flashing light", and all Open Category aircraft "must display a green flashing light at all times when flying at night". The CAA also states that where an aircraft does not have one fitted, one can be retrofitted in line with their guidance without invalidating the aircraft's class marking. That last clause matters, because the fear of voiding a class mark is what stops people fixing it.

The class marking transition ends on 31 December 2027. The CAA states that between 1 January 2026 and 31 December 2027 its Market Surveillance Authority honours EU class marking as a transition arrangement, and that from 1 January 2028 a UK class marked aircraft would need a green flashing light to comply with UK class marking where specified. If you are buying an aircraft intended to still be earning in 2028, that date belongs in the purchase decision now.

Class marks are being actively checked. In an update headed May 2026, the CAA reports that its Market Surveillance Authority has received a number of reports of suspected non-compliance with UK class marking in the Open Category, and describes investigating those reports directly with manufacturers. This is worth knowing before you assume a marking on a box is the end of the question.

The method, because it is the point

Every claim above comes from the regulator's own page. The FAA newsroom page for the proposed rule, the Federal Register record for RIN 2120-AL82, the reginfo.gov listing showing the draft final rule under review, and the CAA's news and updates page. No claim here rests on anyone's summary of those sources, including ours.

That is not a boast about diligence. It is a habit that takes about five minutes and is available to every reader of this article. The reason to describe it is so you can repeat it rather than trust us.

Where to look

For the United States, the agency newsroom for the plain language position and the Federal Register docket for what has actually been issued. A rule exists when it appears there as a rule, and not before. For rules still in the pipeline, the OIRA review listing shows what has been sent for final review and when.

For the United Kingdom, the CAA's news and updates page, which carries the dated changes, and the Drone and Model Aircraft Code for the current operating rules.

For anywhere else, the national aviation authority's own site, in preference to anything written about it.

The general point survives the specifics. A regulator's own site is the only source that cannot be out of date about itself. Everything else, this article included, is a snapshot of a day.

Terasor is a platform for professional drone services and aerial content. We had to check these rules for our own purposes, so we have written down what we found and where we found it.