Blue UAS Cleared List 2026: Every Cleared Drone by Manufacturer, and How the DCMA Process Works

The Blue UAS Cleared List is the Pentagon's roster of small drones that have passed cybersecurity and supply chain vetting and can be bought and flown by US military units. Since December 3, 2025 it has been run by the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA), not the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU). As of November 14, 2026, it covers more than 50 cleared aircraft.

This page explains where the official list lives now, which platforms are on it by manufacturer, how the three Blue lists differ, why the list suddenly matters to every drone buyer in the United States, and how a company gets a platform added. It is written for buyers, founders and investors who keep finding stale pages that still point to DIU.

Where is the official Blue UAS list now?

The Department of Defense (DoD), which has also styled itself the Department of War since September 2025, created the list at DIU in 2020. A July 2025 memo by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered it moved to DCMA, and DIU completed the handoff on December 3, 2025, ahead of a January 1 deadline. List management moved from DIU's Mountain View, California, headquarters to DCMA's Unmanned Systems Experimental Command (US-X) in Palmdale, California, led by Air Force Col. Dustin Thomas. DIU stays on as a partner that helps shape standards and update checklists.

The official list is now published on the DCMA Blue List portal (bluelist.dcma.mil). The older portal address (bluelist.appsplatformportals.us) now points visitors to the DCMA site. The official pages are web tables, not a PDF: any "Blue UAS cleared list PDF" you download from a third-party site is a snapshot and may already be out of date. At the time of the transfer, ExecutiveGov reported that the program had cleared more than 39 systems and 165 components since 2020 and involved 81 vetted companies.

Blue UAS Cleared List vs Select List vs Framework

"Blue UAS" is really three related lists, and searchers often mix them up:

• Blue UAS Cleared List: complete aircraft (platforms) cleared for DoD purchase and operation. This is the list most people mean.
• Blue UAS Select List: platforms added through partner-driven or competitive processes and maintained under an existing authority to operate (ATO), according to ExecutiveGov's July 2026 account of the DCMA process.
• Blue UAS Framework: individual components and software (flight controllers, radios, cameras, compute modules) found compliant with the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) drone sourcing rules, so that smaller builders can assemble compliant aircraft from vetted parts. The Drone Girl lists makers such as ARK Electronics, CubePilot, ModalAI, Silvus Technologies, Teledyne FLIR, NVIDIA, Doodle Labs and Panasonic among Framework suppliers.

Blue UAS cleared list 2026: platforms by manufacturer

The table below groups cleared platforms by maker. It is compiled from a reproduction of the official table published by inspection company MFE Inspection Solutions (50 platforms from 34 manufacturers, including a July 2026 Skydio update), cross-checked against The Drone Girl's list (updated April 17, 2026) and 2026 additions announced by the companies and reported by DroneLife. The live DCMA portal could not be loaded for this article, so treat the table as a guide and confirm a specific model on bluelist.dcma.mil before you buy. Companies with a profile in our directory are linked.

Two things stand out. First, the list is not only American: Parrot (France), Quantum Systems (Germany) and Wingtra (Switzerland) are cleared because the rules target components from covered countries, principally China, rather than the nationality of the maker. Second, the 2026 additions skew toward one-way attack and FPV aircraft, a direct result of the Pentagon's push to buy drones at scale. For the wider market of US manufacturers, see our directory of US drone startups.

Why the Blue UAS list matters beyond the military in 2026

Until late 2025 the list mattered mostly to military buyers and to agencies that copied it. That changed when the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) acted on a national security determination. On December 22, 2025, the FCC added uncrewed aircraft systems and critical components produced in a foreign country to its Covered List, the list of equipment that cannot receive new FCC equipment authorizations.

On January 7, 2026, a public notice from the FCC's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau (DA 26-22) carved out two exemptions based on a new determination from the Pentagon: drones and critical components "included on DCMA's Blue UAS Cleared List now and until January 1, 2027," and drones and components that qualify as "domestic end products" under the Buy American standard, also until January 1, 2027. The FCC defines "Blue UAS Cleared List" to include both the platform list and the Framework list of compliant components.

In practice, a place on the Blue list now shields a foreign-built platform or part from the FCC restriction at least through the end of 2026. That is one reason the number of companies seeking clearance has grown, and why buyers outside DoD (police departments, utilities, state agencies) now ask for Blue status.

What the executive order and the Pentagon memo changed

Executive Order 14307, "Unleashing American Drone Dominance," signed June 6, 2025, told the Secretary of Defense to let Blue list platforms operate on all military installations and ranges without an exception to policy, to expand the list within 90 days to include drones and components compliant with section 848 of the fiscal 2020 NDAA "to the fullest extent practicable," and to update it monthly.

Hegseth's July 10, 2025 memo treated small drones as consumables rather than durable aircraft and pushed purchasing authority down to units. Together with the move to DCMA, the goal was a larger list that grows faster. The Pentagon's Drone Dominance Program leans on it directly: its official leaderboard states that all drones it orders "must pass NDAA/Blue UAS compliance verification by the DCMA," and companies that did not win Gauntlet I orders are working with the program "for Blue List accession."

How to get on the Blue UAS list

DCMA has not published a public fee schedule or a fixed timeline. Based on ExecutiveGov's July 28, 2026 description of the DCMA process and DIU's 2025 announcements, the path for a platform looks like this:

1. Check compliance first. Make sure no covered components (flight controller, radios, cameras, gimbals, batteries, ground control station, software) come from covered countries. Using parts already on the Blue UAS Framework reduces work.
2. Submit a checklist packet through the DCMA Blue List portal (bluelist.dcma.mil). DCMA launched the portal in December 2025 as the first stage of a six-phase plan.
3. Hire a Recognized Assessor. The vendor contracts directly with an approved third-party assessor that evaluates the system against NDAA and cybersecurity requirements. In July 2025, DIU named MTSI, AUVSI and Dark Wolf Solutions as recognized assessors, DroneLife reported. Vector says its Longbow was assessed by Dark Wolf Solutions.
4. The assessor files its report through the portal, and DCMA reviews it.
5. The platform is added to the Cleared List, or to the Select List if it came through a partner or competitive process.

There is also a Green UAS route. AUVSI's Green UAS program validates product security and supply chain risk for commercial and public-sector drones. In July 2025 DIU said Green UAS certified platforms would be added to the Blue UAS Cleared List automatically. Trade outlet Unmanned Aerial Online cautions that Green UAS status is not identical to Blue clearance, so check how DCMA treats a given Green certificate.

Finally, "NDAA compliant" on a spec sheet is a vendor claim, not a certification. Only the DCMA list confirms Blue status.

Blue UAS makers in our directory

Several cleared manufacturers are venture-backed US startups with profiles in our directory: Anduril (Ghost), Shield AI (V-BAT), Skydio (X10D and X10 family), Neros (Archer), Performance Drone Works (C100), Vector (Longbow and Hammer), ModalAI (Seeker and Stinger FPV, plus Framework components), Hoverfly Technologies (Spectre) and Auterion. Many smaller cleared makers do not have profiles yet. For companies that build systems to stop drones rather than fly them, see our list of counter-drone companies in the US.