Blue Drone List: Requirements, Costs, and How to Buy

The Blue UAS Cleared List is the federal government’s official roster of drones approved for purchase and operation by federal agencies, vetted for cybersecurity and supply chain integrity. If you are buying a drone with federal money — whether you work for the Department of Defense, another executive agency, or a state or local body spending federal grant funds — this is the list you buy from. As of the late-2025 handoff to the Defense Contract Management Agency, 81 companies had been processed onto the program.

Who Has To Buy From the List

The obligation reaches further than most buyers expect.

Every branch of the Department of Defense — Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Space Force — must purchase drones from the Blue UAS Cleared List or the Blue UAS Framework.
Every federal executive agency faces the same procurement ban on drones made or assembled by a covered foreign entity under the American Security Drone Act.¹
Recipients of federal grants and cooperative agreements are also bound. That sweeps in state and local police, fire departments, emergency management offices, and research universities that may not think of themselves as federal buyers.

An OMB memorandum issued in November 2025, M-26-02, formalized the wider reach. It treats drones as both aircraft and information technology systems, requires cybersecurity risk assessments before purchase, and directs grant-issuing agencies to write these requirements into funding notices, evaluate applications against them, and monitor recipients. Agencies had 180 days to implement.²

Organizations spending only non-federal money on drones are not legally bound, though many follow the list voluntarily as a security benchmark.

The Laws That Require It

Three overlapping statutes drive the list. Section 848 of the FY2020 National Defense Authorization Act blocked DoD from buying drones made in a covered foreign country or by a company based there, and the ban reaches beyond airframes to flight controllers, radios, cameras, gimbals, data links, and network storage. Section 817 of the FY2023 NDAA extended the restriction to any contractor that operates equipment from a covered UAS company.

The American Security Drone Act, enacted in the FY2024 NDAA, is the broadest. It applies to every executive agency, not just DoD. Two years after enactment, agencies cannot even operate existing covered drones, and federal funds passing through grants or cooperative agreements cannot be spent on them. It also immediately banned the use of government purchase cards to buy covered drones.¹

For grant recipients, 2 CFR 200.216 already bars federal funds from paying for covered telecommunications equipment.³ The Drone Act stacks a drone-specific prohibition on top. A local department that bought a covered drone with grant funds before these rules took effect should look at the specific grant’s terms to see whether it can keep flying the aircraft; federal policy is moving toward full phase-out, and agencies that ignore the requirements risk losing future funding or having to return money already spent.

What’s Actually on the List

The program maintains two separate rosters, and the difference matters at procurement time.

The Blue UAS Cleared List holds fully assembled, ready-to-fly drones that have completed the entire vetting process and received an Authority to Operate. These are compliant with Section 848, Section 817, and the American Security Drone Act, and they can be bought and flown immediately.⁴

The Blue UAS Framework is a separate roster of NDAA-compliant components and software — flight controllers, sensors, communication modules, development tools. Framework parts let developers build custom platforms from vetted pieces, and any Blue component can be combined with other Blue components without additional paperwork.⁴

Cleared platforms cover a wide range of missions. Skydio’s X10D and X2D handle autonomous inspection and reconnaissance. Teal’s Teal 2 fills the small tactical role. Parrot’s ANAFI USA and ANAFI UKR provide lightweight imaging. Freefly’s AltaX and Astro carry heavier payloads for cinematography and industrial work. Wingtra runs fixed-wing mapping and survey work, and Shield AI’s V-BAT combines vertical takeoff with long-endurance fixed-wing flight. Specialized entries include the Teledyne FLIR Black Hornet 4 nano-drone and the Krause Hamdani K1000ULE for extended-endurance missions. Models are periodically re-evaluated, so always verify a specific model’s current standing before ordering.

What Blue UAS Drones Cost

Budget accordingly. Compliant platforms cost several times what commercial foreign-made drones cost at retail. A DJI Mavic 3 Multispectral runs roughly $7,000. A Parrot ANAFI USA runs around $14,000. The Skydio X10D starts above $35,000. An Inspired Flight IF800 with accessories can push past $40,000.

The gap reflects domestic manufacturing, smaller production runs, and the overhead of maintaining supply chain documentation and cybersecurity certifications. Performance has closed considerably; price has not. Agencies moving from consumer DJI equipment to compliant platforms need to plan for that reality in their procurement budgets.

How To Buy a Blue UAS Drone

Federal buyers most often go through the GSA Advantage! portal, the government’s online marketplace for commercial products. Some agencies also buy directly from manufacturers or through authorized government resellers. Before you finalize anything, confirm the specific model’s current status on the DCMA Blue List website at bluelist.dcma.mil, because models can be added or removed between catalog updates.

The paperwork uses standard federal purchasing documents, including Standard Form 1449 for commercial products and services.⁵ Once the model is confirmed cleared and the paperwork is submitted, the purchasing entity obligates funds through its departmental accounting system.

Grant recipients pick up an extra layer of compliance documentation. OMB M-26-02 requires a Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 199 impact assessment before procurement, to confirm the drone is appropriate for the sensitivity level of federal information it will handle.² Skipping that step creates audit risk later.

One narrow exemption exists. If the head of an agency determines in writing that no compliant drone can meet a mission-critical performance requirement, that particular procurement can be exempted from the security assessment requirements. The determination has to document the factual and logical basis and it requires top-level sign-off, not a program manager’s call.²

How Manufacturers Get on the List

Getting on the Cleared List is not quick, and the bar is high. Two areas are evaluated: cybersecurity of the drone’s hardware and software, and the integrity of the supply chain that produced it.

Manufacturers submit through the Blue UAS Portal. A supply chain review requires documentation that every component traces back to the United States or an approved allied nation. Reviewers examine country-of-origin records, component-level sourcing, and software and firmware artifacts to confirm nothing originates in a covered foreign country. A cybersecurity assessment then targets the flight controller, data transmission links, encryption, and any cloud connectivity. A product that clears both reviews receives an Authority to Operate, globally applicable, and lands on the Cleared List.⁴

Recognized Assessors

The government no longer performs every evaluation itself. DIU authorized six third-party Recognized Assessors to conduct NDAA compliance assessments on behalf of manufacturers. Companies contract directly with an assessor, receive a cost estimate and timeline, and the assessor submits standardized findings to the government for a certification decision. The current assessors are the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), Dark Wolf Solutions, Edgesource Corporation, Legion X, Modern Technology Solutions Inc. (MTSI), and SpiderOak.⁶

Green UAS Pathway

Since July 2025, manufacturers have had an alternative route through the Green UAS certification program run by AUVSI. DIU recognizes Green UAS certification as an authorized pathway to Blue UAS Cleared status.⁷

The program has two tiers. Green UAS Cleared is a streamlined assessment aligned with Blue UAS Cleared standards, covering product and device security plus supply chain risk management; achieving it makes a drone eligible for the Cleared List. Green UAS Certified adds corporate cyber hygiene and remote operations and connectivity requirements on top of that baseline, and is aimed at organizations supporting defense or federal missions that need deeper assurance. For buyers, a Green UAS Cleared product carries the same procurement eligibility as any other Blue UAS Cleared drone.⁷

Where the List Lives Now

The program changed hands in late 2025. On December 3, 2025, management transferred from DIU in Mountain View, California, to the Defense Contract Management Agency’s new Unmanned Systems–Experimental Command (US-X) in Palmdale, California. All online resources moved to bluelist.dcma.mil.⁸

DIU stays on as a partner on standards and checklists, but DCMA runs day-to-day list management and expansion, and inherited the 81 companies DIU had already processed, the military partnerships, and the Recognized Assessor cohort. For buyers, that means a new website to check and a new point of contact for list questions. The standards and vetting process have not changed.⁸

1
Congress.gov. S.473 – American Security Drone Act of 2023
2
The White House. M-26-02 Ensuring Government Use of Secure Unmanned Aircraft Systems and Supporting United States Producers
3
eCFR. 2 CFR 200.216 – Prohibition on Certain Telecommunications and Video Surveillance Equipment or Services
4
Defense Innovation Unit. Blue UAS Refresh List and Framework Platforms and Capabilities Selected
5
General Services Administration. Standard Form 1449 – Solicitation/Contract/Order for Commercial Products and Commercial Services
6
Defense Innovation Unit. DIU Names Recognized Assessors to Support Blue UAS NDAA Compliance
7
AUVSI. Green UAS
8
Defense Innovation Unit. DIU’s Blue UAS List To Transition to DCMA