Amazon to Expand Drone Delivery to Nearly 500 U.S. Cities by End of 2026

According to foreign media reports, Amazon recently announced expansion plans for its Prime Air drone delivery service, which will cover nearly 500 U.S. cities and towns by the end of the year, marking a 6-fold expansion of its current service footprint. Since the start of this year, the service has completed hundreds of thousands of deliveries, with thousands of orders fulfilled on a daily basis. During an internal all-hands meeting in March, David Carbon, Vice President of Prime Air, set a target of completing 1 million deliveries in 2026.

Jeff Bezos first unveiled the vision of 30-minute or faster drone delivery back in 2013, but the program has encountered setbacks throughout its development, including regulatory delays, staff cuts, technical issues and opposition from some pilot communities. Amazon received regulatory approval for remote drone delivery in 2024, and has since gradually expanded from its initial markets around Dallas and Phoenix to 11 metropolitan areas, with 6 additional regions set to launch soon. It will further roll out services to relevant areas in Georgia, Ohio, Illinois, Idaho and New York. Currently, most packages delivered via Prime Air arrive within 60 minutes of ordering, with the fastest deliveries completed just minutes after an order is placed.

Amazon's current drones can deliver packages weighing up to 5 pounds within a 7.5-mile radius of operating sites. Recent integration of drone operations into select robotic sortation centers has expanded the range of eligible goods for delivery. The program is testing a gentler delivery feature that uses a retractable cable to lower packages to the ground, replacing the previous method of dropping packages from a height of 13 feet. It is also testing delivery mechanisms suitable for fragile perishable goods such as eggs. In terms of pricing, Prime members are eligible for free drone delivery on qualifying orders over $50, while orders under $50 incur a $2.99 delivery fee. Non-Prime members are charged a $4.99 delivery fee.

Residents in some launched markets still have concerns over drone noise, privacy issues and potential negative impacts on property values. The program also faces unresolved safety risks. In October 2025, two drones crashed into a crane in Tolleson, Arizona, with related investigations by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) still ongoing. In November 2025, a drone snagged and tore a residential backyard internet cable while ascending in Waco, Texas, triggering a separate FAA investigation. In July 2026, a Prime Air drone crashed into a garden in Darlington, UK, prompting the UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch to launch an investigation. The involved drone landed safely per its designed procedures, with no injuries reported.

Prime Air holds Part 135 certification from the FAA, placing it under the same regulatory framework as commercial airlines. It is equipped with industry-leading obstacle avoidance systems, relying on on-board cameras and sensors to complete navigation, obstacle detection and delivery, and can operate in light rain and across a wide range of temperatures. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy noted in his annual shareholder letter in April that Prime Air's current design is built for scalability, with the service set to reach 30 million users by the end of the year, and is projected to deliver 500 million orders by the end of 2030, with a long-term target of 30-minute delivery.

The drone delivery space already has multiple players: Wing, a subsidiary of Alphabet, hit 1 million commercial deliveries earlier this year, covering 20 U.S. markets through partnerships with Walmart and DoorDash. Startup Zipline operates across four continents, with 2 million cumulative deliveries completed to date. Walmart announced plans earlier this year to expand its drone delivery locations in partnership with Wing to 270 sites by 2027.