Most consumer drones only need the FAA's simple Part 107 / recreational registration (a registration number you write on the drone yourself, no public per-aircraft record). A smaller set of drones and other unmanned aircraft are registered the same way a manned airplane is — with a full N-number in the FAA Civil Aviation Registry, filed under the aircraft category code the FAA calls "Hybrid Lift."
3,054 aircraft currently carry that registration. The largest single operator by far is Zipline International, the medical and commercial delivery-drone company, with 2,768 registered aircraft — more than every other unmanned-aircraft manufacturer combined. The rest includes DJI (136), Volans-i, Joby Aero (the electric air-taxi company building toward passenger service), AeroVironment, and Textron Systems Unmanned Systems, among others.
What the public record shows for one of these N-numbers
Exactly what it shows for a manned aircraft: registrant name (almost always a corporation, not an individual), registration status and expiration, prior registrants, and any NTSB accident or incident record tied to the N-number. 161 of the 3,054 currently carry at least one NTSB event.
Why this category exists at all
An unmanned aircraft flown for commercial operations beyond what Part 107 allows — extended range, beyond visual line of sight, higher weight — needs the same type of registration a manned aircraft gets, filed the same way, in the same public registry. That's why a Zipline delivery drone or a Joby prototype shows up in the same FAA Civil Aviation Registry as a Cessna, searchable by N-number the same way.
Checking a used or surplus commercial drone
- Confirm the N-number is currently registered and to whom — a large operator retiring aircraft is the most common reason one changes hands.
- Check the NTSB record by N-number for any incident history.
- Registration alone won't tell you flight hours or maintenance history — ask the seller for those directly, same as with any aircraft.
Look up any FAA-registered N-number, manned or unmanned, with our free tail-number lookup.