Europe Wants to Register Your 135-Gram Drone: The EASA 100g Rule, Explained

EASA has asked the European Commission to drop the open-category threshold for drones from 250 g to 100 g. For working crews the registration headline is mostly old news, because any drone with a camera already needs a registered operator. The real changes are a pilot certificate for sub-250 g flyers and Remote ID with a take-off lock on new drones, and our advice is to act as if they were law already: register every operator, certify every pilot, and stop treating "under 250 g" as a compliance plan.

What has actually been published

The document is Opinion No 06/2026, a "regular update" of the two EU drone regulations, 2019/947 and 2019/945, focused on security. EASA says it responds to the Commission's Action Plan on Drone and Counter Drone Security of 11 February 2026. Unmanned Airspace dates its publication to 21 September 2026. It follows a consultation draft, NPA 2026-103, that DroneXL covered in June.

An Opinion is not law. The Commission has to adopt the text and publish it in the Official Journal, and until then the current rules apply. Quadricottero reports that this is the first of two packages. A second Opinion, expected in the last quarter of 2026, should deal with standard scenarios, a new C7 class and aligned certificate renewals. We leave that one aside here.

What the rules say today

Under Article 14(5) of Regulation 2019/947, an operator must register if the drone weighs 250 g or more, or if it carries "a sensor able to capture personal data" and is not a toy. A camera counts. So a 135 g DJI Neo (weight per its spec) flown on a shoot already requires a registered operator today.

What it does not require is a pilot test. For a C0 drone in subcategory A1, the pilot only has to be "familiarised with the user's manual". That gap is what the 100 g rule closes.

What the Opinion would change

• One mass threshold. Registration in the open category would rest on "a single mass threshold of 100 g", camera or no camera, according to Unmanned Airspace's summary of the text.
• Identity checks. Member states would have to verify an operator's identity before completing registration.
• A pilot certificate from 100 g. Quadricottero reports that pilots of 100-249 g drones would need the A1/A3 certificate, with a new security module, 12 months after the regulation enters into force.
• Remote ID from 100 g. Direct remote identification would extend to every open-category drone of 100 g or more, and to specific-category flights below 120 m.
• A take-off lock. New drones would need "a function preventing take-off" when no operator registration number has been uploaded.
• A carve-out below 100 g. Quadricottero describes a micro-drone class under 100 g and 19 m/s with no registration, certificate or Remote ID.

What happens to the drones you already own

Less than the headlines suggest. Drones placed on the market before the 12-month mark would be grandfathered, and those of 900 g or less would be exempt from the add-on Remote ID requirement. Quadricottero's explainer reads this as meaning current C0 drones such as the DJI Mini series keep flying as they are, with no motor lock and no new Remote ID. The pilot, however, still needs the A1/A3 certificate.

Two groups do face hardware changes. Legacy and C2 drones over 900 g would need an approved add-on Remote ID module within 48 months of entry into force. And self-built drones between 100 and 250 g, the cinewhoops and custom FPV rigs, would need Remote ID and the take-off lock as soon as the regulation enters into force, Quadricottero reports. If your FPV operator builds their own quads, that is the line in the text that will affect them first.

When: there is no date yet

Nobody can give an honest date today. Quadricottero says EASA asked for urgent adoption. DroneXL's June estimate, made at the draft stage, was that first effects could come from mid-2028, with the full framework not before 2031. Our own working assumption, not a published timetable, is that if the Commission adopts and publishes the text during 2027, the certificate requirement would bite about a year later. That fits DroneXL's mid-2028 estimate. Check again when the Commission acts.

The UK shows where this ends up. Since 1 January 2026, reports DroneDJ, UK pilots of drones of 100 g or more need a Flyer ID, operators of camera drones of 100 g or more need an Operator ID, class-marked drones must broadcast Remote ID, and legacy camera drones of 100 g or more have until 1 January 2028 to do the same. DroneXL puts the number of British pilots this pulled into the system at about half a million.

What a production company should do now

1. Register the company as an operator if you have not, in your country of residence. A non-EU company registers in the first EASA state where it flies. For a camera drone this is already required.
2. Certify every pilot to A1/A3 now, including the assistant who flies the Neo for behind-the-scenes clips. It is an online course and test, it will be required anyway, and it ends the "do you need a licence for that?" conversation with location managers and police.
3. Sort your kit by mass: under 100 g, 100-249 g, 250-900 g, over 900 g. Only the last bucket faces a retrofit cost under the current text. Budget for an add-on module per airframe within the 48-month window.
4. Be careful with timing when you buy. A sub-250 g drone bought after the cut-off will ship with Remote ID and the take-off lock. That is fine, but it means the drone will not arm until someone loads an operator number. Decide in the booking whose number goes in, yours or the freelancer's.
5. Flag self-built FPV rigs in your kit list. They are the only category that could need changes the day the regulation enters into force.
6. Put the Opinion number in your compliance notes and recheck it when the Commission adopts the text. The final regulation can differ from the Opinion.

None of this costs much. What costs money is a grounded drone on a location day because someone assumed 249 g meant nobody would ask.