Tempe, AZ Drone Rules: Commercial Drones (2026)

Arizona statute, not a Tempe code section, supplies the operative rule for commercial drone flights in Tempe. Section 13-3729 sorts every drone into one of two groups. A model aircraft is a hobby craft flown within the operator's visual line of sight. A civil unmanned aircraft is any unmanned aircraft or system operated for a purpose other than strictly hobby or recreation, including commercial purposes, or in furtherance of or incidental to any business or media service or agency. The statute defines commercial purposes as use in return for financial compensation and names aerial photography, aerial mapping and geospatial imaging. A paid real estate shoot over a Tempe neighborhood, a survey crew mapping a parcel and a news team filming from the air all fly civil unmanned aircraft.

Three flight rules bind those operators. Subsection A makes any operation unlawful if federal aeronautics law or FAA regulations prohibit it, or if it interferes with a law enforcement, firefighter or emergency services operation. Subsection B bars using a drone to intentionally photograph or loiter over or near a critical facility in the furtherance of any criminal offense; the list in subsection H covers refineries, water and wastewater treatment plants, substations, railroad infrastructure, courts, jails, public safety facilities and hospitals that receive air ambulance services. Subsection C creates a 5,280-foot buffer, measured horizontally and straight up, around a ticketed entertainment event. That means a music, sporting or performing arts event with gated entries or barriers, evidence of the right of entry issued by the owner, operator or lessee, and a setting that is outdoors, under a retractable roof, or in a facility holding at least 1,000 attendees.

The buffer has four exceptions: written consent from a person with legal authority over the event, an employee of the event property on official business, an employee of a public or regulated utility on official business, and an owner flying over their own private property. The owner exception closes to anyone flying commercially, because it excludes commercial purposes and recording for commercial broadcasting or publication.

Subsection E removes any person or entity authorized or allowed by the FAA from the whole section, but only while the flight complies with that authorization or FAA rules. Subsection E also exempts first responders and any city, town, county or state employee acting in an official capacity. Subsection D, the school-property rule, reaches only hobby and recreational flights.