Drone registration price increase from £10 to £10.33 from 3rd April 2023. £12 increase scrapped in response to consultation response

Drone Rules and Regulations
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On 3rd April 2023, drone hobbyists in the UK will see an increase in the charge for drone registration. The annual fee will increase from £10 to £10.33, an uptick of 3.3%. However, this is a marked reduction from the originally proposed increase of 20%, which would have taken the annual price to £12.

As we reported on 12th January, the proposed increase to £12 would have cost the UK drone community a whopping £380k per annum extra!

However, thanks to the efforts of drone enthusiasts who responded to the consultation, the increase was significantly reduced, resulting in a total increase of a more reasonable £62k across the 190,000 registered drone operators.

This means that we were together able to save the UK drone community, the considerable sum of £317,000 per year!

This would not have been possible without the collective effort of the whole drone and model flying community, and your willingness to respond to the consultation. Well done everyone!

We’re grateful to the CAA too for taking onboard your feedback and reducing the amount of the increase substantially. Whilst their policy of rounding up to the nearest pound surely makes very little difference on large fees paid by airlines and travel operators, on a smaller fee like this, it is quite significant.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to respond to the consultation, it was your input that made this happen.

Your FPV UK CAA Registration and Renewal subscription will automatically increase by the required 33p. You don’t need to do anything.

If you’d like to opt-out, you can cancel your subscription at any time.

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thats good news indeed ,but hopefully we all get some more good news when the CAA eventually sorts out the proposed changes to the open category,that they are reviewing at the moment ,lets hope its not just a sweetener ,to soften the blow that may be coming
sorry if i sound cynical but we have been promised much before ,only to have it taken away at the last minute

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Given that the price is now increasing to £11.13 are we allowed to ask what it is the CAA actually offer us as hobbyists for our money?

Effectively this is an increasing tax on the hobby (which is mandatory or else you become a criminal by default) regardless of how safe you fly.

It’s not a lot a money but that’s not the point - what if it was a lot of money? Pay to play? Why this year is it increasing by 80p instead of 33p again? That’s an extra £152,000 in their coffers. For what?

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I totally agree.

Unfortunately the CAA put up prices across the board on 2nd April 2024 using CPIH-1%.

They put them up last year too, and their policy to round to the nearest pound affected us (it made the price rise 20%). With our members complaining en masse they scrapped that rounding policy on amounts below £20, and backdated it for a year. Which is why it only went up 33p last time.

The CAA has decided to proceed with the core general price increase of 5.3% (CPIH-1%) as consulted, but with a change to the Activity-related price increase. Reflecting on industry feedback, the CAA has reduced the increase relating to Future Flight from 3.0% to 2.4%, a 20% reduction. This is a result of the welcome financial support provided by the DfT to our Future Flight activities alongside greater clarity on the costs of our planned investment in this area. This represents a cost reduction of £0.5m in FY2024/25, with this funding requirement deferred to next FY and to be considered alongside any associated further increases that will be subsequently consulted on.

Other changes to proposals are as follows:
• A change from the current ‘rounding up’ rule to instead ‘rounding to the nearest 'pound’ for all charges above £20, following industry feedback on the legacy rule;

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