Netherlands: new control-zone drone rules apply from 26 November 2026
Drone Assistant detected a material change in Rijksoverheid — Waar mag ik vliegen met een drone (IenW), reviewed and confirmed by a human before publication. Compared version 1 against version 2. Rijksoverheid's drone guidance now announces control-zone changes that apply from 26 November 2026 (Staatscourant 2026, 33389, Article IV). From that date the Schiphol, Lelystad, Eelde, Maastricht and Rotterdam control zones are divided into zones 1 to 4; open-category flights stay prohibited in zones 1, 2A and 2B, and zones 1, 2B and 4 require a notified flight plan at least two working days ahead, air traffic control clearance and two-way radio contact. Military control zones are dealt with separately. Until 26 November 2026 the current control-zone rules continue to apply. The changed source is official guidance from IenW. It is not a new law or rule, and binding rules are unchanged by this update.
What changed
- Official page change: 1 amended passage (the page has no section numbers)
- Added to Drone Assistant coverage (not necessarily new on the page): Civil CTR outer zones: no ATC permission needed from 26 November 2026 (military airfields unchanged)
How this was verified
- Official source: Rijksoverheid — Waar mag ik vliegen met een drone
- Versions compared: 1 → 2
- Reviewed by a person before publication; automated detection alone never publishes.
- Detected by change monitoring, human reviewed