Does a drone company hold the Part 107 or does each shooter need their own

Question

The Part 107 certificate is held by the individual pilot who passed the knowledge test, not by the company. There is no company level certification the business registers before it can bill for aerial work, but the FAA does require the drone itself to be registered, and that registration sits with the owner or operator. Only a certificated remote pilot may act as pilot in command on a commercial flight. A shooter without the certificate at the controls is a real compliance gap unless the flight runs under the direct supervision rules Part 107 allows. A general liability policy that makes no mention of aircraft will very likely exclude drone operations. A certificate of insurance for drone work requires an endorsement or a standalone aviation liability policy written for unmanned aircraft, which is worth sourcing from a broker who writes UAS coverage before the next paid shoot.

Rena Guide · Accepted Answer

The Part 107 remote pilot certificate belongs to a person, never to a company. It covers the shooter who earned it, and if your second shooter is the one manipulating the controls on a paid job, he needs his own. There's no business-level FAA license to buy.

The pieces that sit around it: the knowledge test at an FAA-approved testing center runs about $175 per sitting, and the certificate carries a recurring currency requirement you satisfy with free online training. Aircraft get registered individually, a small fee per drone, and current drones have to broadcast Remote ID. Confirm the fees and the current requirements on the FAA's own site, since these do get revised.

Insurance is a separate track. The FAA doesn't require it. Clients do. Brokerages commonly want a certificate of insurance showing liability limits, often $1M, and some want the brokerage named as an additional insured. Drone liability is sold either as an annual policy or by the hour through app-based providers, and coverage on the aircraft itself (hull) is priced separately from liability.

What catches new operators is airspace rather than paperwork. Plenty of ordinary suburban listings sit inside controlled airspace around an airport, and flying there needs authorization, usually through LAANC, which is automated and comes back in seconds through an approved app. If the grid square over that address has a ceiling of zero feet, you don't get an instant approval and you can't legally shoot it that morning. Pull the address up before you quote the job.

hannah_west29 · Answer

Two certs at 175 dollars each plus recurrent training, and aircraft registration runs around 5 dollars per drone for three years last check. The number that actually moves the cost is insurance. Annual drone liability for 1 million in coverage gets quoted in the several hundred to 1,000 dollar range depending on the carrier, and hourly app coverage runs around 10 dollars an hour. At 40 shoots a year the hourly option wins easily. At 200 it doesn't. Worth running the actual shoot count before picking a policy.

jessreyes12 · Answer

The one I'd have been too embarrassed to ask in a room: do I owe the neighbor a heads up before I fly over their yard? My understanding is the airspace isn't theirs, but privacy and nuisance rules are state and local, so parking a drone over a fence line seems like its own separate problem regardless of what the FAA thinks.

laurenkim53 · Answer

Most rural listings sit in uncontrolled airspace, so LAANC never comes up at all. The problem out there is cell signal, since the approval apps want a data connection to file anything or refresh the map.

Does a drone company hold the Part 107 or does each shooter need their own

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