College Station, TX Drone Rules: Recreational Drones (2026)

The federal framework comes from the Exception for Recreational Flyers, 49 USC Sec. 44809. Register any drone over 0.55 lbs with the FAA, fly below 400 feet, keep the aircraft within visual line of sight, and stay clear of airports, stadiums, and emergency response areas. All recreational flyers must pass the TRUST test, and night flying requires anti-collision lights. Drones under 55 lbs are the ones covered by these recreational rules. City parks are a separate question: College Station parks may prohibit or restrict drone launches, so check with the parks department before treating a park as a launch site.

The Texas layer is narrower but carries criminal exposure. Under Sec. 423.003, a person commits an offense by using an unmanned aircraft to capture an image of an individual, or of privately owned real property in the state, with the intent to conduct surveillance on the person or property in the image. Intent is the hinge of the offense: the statute targets surveillance, not every rooftop that strays into a scenic shot. The offense is a Class C misdemeanor.

The statute builds in a defense with its own conditions. It is a defense to prosecution that the operator destroyed the image as soon as they knew it was captured in violation of the section, and did so without disclosing, displaying, or distributing it to a third party. Both parts must hold; deleting a photo after sharing it does not qualify.