Beyond visual line of sight over people

This is guidance as of 2026, not a clearance. Japan's Level 4, United States Parts 107 and 135, and the European Specific category are different gates. Open the primary text before you fly.

Japan's Level 4, as in force

Japan's Level 4 flight, in the rules this guide is describing, means beyond visual line of sight without assistants over a populated area, including over third parties. The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism treats that flight as Category III. The amended Civil Aeronautics Act framework that allows it has been in effect since 5 December 2022. The amending law was promulgated in June 2021. The date of effect is not a general permission to fly. The ministry's Level 4 portal says the operation needs a first-kind aircraft certification, a first-class remote-pilot certificate, permission and approval for the flight, and compliance with the operational rules. Missing any one of those leaves the flight in a lower category, or grounds it.

The pieces do different work and should not be collapsed into the phrase "we are certified." The pilot certificate is about the person and the kind of operation that person may conduct. The aircraft certification is about design, production consistency, and the individual machine. A type certificate can reduce the inspection repeated on later aircraft of the same type. The permission is about this flight: the route, the risks, the manual, and how the operation is managed, including who can abort it. Category III has been handled flight by flight rather than as a blanket an operator may stretch to a new town. Level 3, over an unpopulated area or a controlled sea crossing, is a lesser and different approval. Second-class certificates do not unlock Category III.

United States: Part 107, Part 135, and a proposal

In the United States the delivery split is between Part 107 and Part 135 of Title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations. Part 107 is the small unmanned-aircraft rule, generally for aircraft under 55 pounds, and its default is that the pilot keeps the aircraft in sight. Some limits can be waived, including beyond visual line of sight, if the applicant shows an equivalent level of safety. The FAA's package-delivery page states that Part 135 certification is the only path for small drones to carry another person's property for compensation beyond visual line of sight. Part 107 also prohibits carrying dangerous goods, and FAA hazardous-materials guidance says that prohibition is not open to waiver. A camera waiver is not a cargo airline.

Part 135 is an air-carrier certificate written for crewed aircraft. Drone applicants therefore seek exemptions from requirements that do not fit an unmanned machine, such as carrying the flight manuals on board, and they need an airworthiness path when the aircraft sits outside ordinary type certification. The certificate and the operations specifications belong to that operator. They are not a national licence inherited by every similar airframe. On 7 August 2025 the FAA and the TSA published a notice of proposed rulemaking, "Normalizing Unmanned Aircraft Systems Beyond Visual Line of Sight Operations," at 90 Federal Register 38212. Comment was later reopened on electronic conspicuity and right-of-way. That proposal is not, in this October 2026 guide, something an operator may treat as the rule in force. Read the Federal Register before you rely on it.

Europe: Specific, SORA, and U-space

European Union drone rules sort flights into Open, Specific, and Certified categories under Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/947 and the delegated rules on the aircraft. Open covers lower-risk flights inside stated limits. Certified is the high end, closer to crewed aviation, where the aircraft, the operator, and where required the pilot are certificated. Specific is the broad middle, and it is where much beyond-visual-line-of-sight delivery has actually been authorised. An operation there needs an authorisation from the competent authority unless it fits a standard scenario or the operator's light UAS operator certificate covers it. An authorisation is national. It does not become European permission by being flown near a border.

Where no standard scenario or predefined assessment fits, the applicant assesses the risk. EASA publishes the Specific Operations Risk Assessment, SORA, as acceptable means of compliance with Article 11 of Regulation (EU) 2019/947. SORA looks at ground risk and air risk, combines them into a specific assurance and integrity level, and then sets safety objectives for procedures, people, and the aircraft. A higher level demands stronger evidence. It is not a compliment. U-space is a different tool. Regulation (EU) 2021/664 has applied since 26 January 2023 and allows a state to designate airspace in which particular unmanned-traffic services are mandatory. Designation is not automatic across the Union. One city's U-space volume does not travel in the pilot's pocket.

Do not mix the countries

Do not answer a Japanese Level 4 question with a European assurance level, or an American Part 135 question with a Japanese first-class certificate. "Beyond visual line of sight" and "over people" are family resemblances, not a shared permit. Pilot licensing, aircraft approval, operator approval, airspace services, radio licensing, and local land-use permission are separate gates. A food-delivery operator can hold an aviation authorisation and still be refused planning permission for the hub, which is what Manna described when it stopped Irish deliveries in June 2026. In Japan a building owner, a local agreement, and a radio station licence can all sit on top of the aviation approval. None of those extras replaces it, and none of the foreign certificates replaces it either.

This is guidance as of 2026. It is written so a reader can tell a rule in force from a proposal, and it is not a clearance to fly. Check the primary sources before you fly. In Japan that means the Civil Aeronautics Act and the ministry Level 4 portal, including the operational rules and the permission for that day. In the United States it means the Code of Federal Regulations, the operations specifications, and the Federal Register if a new part is said to have taken effect. In Europe it means EUR-Lex and the competent national authority. If a sentence here and the primary text disagree, the primary text wins, including where the law moved after this page was written.