The short answer
There is no objectively “best” drone company in Miami, and every company that ranks for that phrase is asserting the title about itself. That is not a useful answer for a producer with a shoot date.
What is verifiable is a company’s record. Four numbers and one list settle almost every hiring decision:
- How many years it has worked scripted sets — not how many years it has owned drones
- Its aviation liability limit, and whether that limit is standing or bought for your job
- Whether it can staff Local 600 union and non-union, so the answer does not change mid-prep
- Whether FAA and film-permit work happens in-house or gets pushed back to your production
- Which productions it has actually flown, named
CineDrones has worked sets since 2013, carries $5 million in aviation liability plus workers compensation, supplies both Local 600 union and non-union crews, handles FAA authorization and coordinates local film permitting in-house, and holds aerial or on-camera drone credits on more than forty productions. We work Miami as one of ten markets, and the full aerial toolkit that operates out of Los Angeles is available here.
Ask every company on your list for the same five things. The ones that answer in specifics are the ones to call back.
What Miami specifically demands
Miami’s drone problem is not the FAA and it is not the state. It is that there is no single Miami, and the county attaches two expensive conditions to every drone permit it issues.
There is no single Miami permit
Miami-Dade County’s film office and the City of Miami Beach’s Office of Film & Print run separate permits with separate applications. Which one you need depends on where the camera is, and some shoots need both. One useful carve-out: taking off from private property in unincorporated Miami-Dade, in Class G airspace, under 400 ft, requires no county film permit. Public property take-off always does.
The county attaches two cost drivers to drone permits
Miami-Dade requires that the area be free and clear of all general public during any drone filming — only production-hired cast and crew inside the zone — and that the production hire Miami-Dade off-duty police. Both are budget lines that surprise first-time Miami productions.
A one-mile ban around every county airport, with a fine
Drones are prohibited within one mile of any Miami-Dade County airport, with a $500 civil penalty for unauthorized drone use in the county. This is the single most-missed Miami rule, and crews that assume an FAA airspace authorization covers it are wrong — it is a separate county restriction.
Miami Beach is daylight only, and beach work is conditioned
Miami Beach drone operations must be daylight only — 30 minutes after sunrise to 30 minutes before sunset — below 400 ft, below 87 knots, within visual line of sight and never over the general public. Aerials packets need 5 business days minimum. Beach filming brings mandatory officer escort for vehicle access at 5 mph, an off-duty lifeguard if cast or crew are in water above knee level, and Ocean Rescue Chief approval near 10th Street and South Pointe Park. Drone light shows need 45 days as an ancillary to a Special Event Permit.
Florida preempts local drone rules but not privacy law
Fla. Stat. 330.41(3)(b) bars political subdivisions from regulating UAS design, operation, airspace, altitude, flight paths or equipment. Flight over critical infrastructure is a third-degree felony, with an exemption for FAA-authorized commercial operations. Separately, Fla. Stat. 934.50 restricts recording an image of privately owned real property or its occupants with intent to conduct surveillance without written consent, and presumes a privacy expectation where the subject is not observable from ground level. Florida has no film-specific carve-out — written consent for private property in frame is prep work, not an afterthought.
The airspace
Miami International anchors Class B airspace covering the core production geography, compounded by Opa-locka, Miami Executive, Homestead ARB and Fort Lauderdale to the north. The real Miami constraint is that Class B density layered on the county’s one-mile airport rule — not charted prohibited areas, which do not appear in FAA publications for the metro. Facility-map ceilings are informational only and get pulled fresh per location and date.
Rules change. Treat the above as a briefing for planning conversations rather than legal or regulatory advice, and confirm current requirements with the relevant authorities and your insurer before you shoot.
The checks that apply everywhere
Regardless of market, the same seven questions sort a working aerial department from a pilot with a drone.
- The insurance floor is $5 million, and it should already be in place. Most studio productions will not accept an aerial vendor below it. A company that has to buy up for your shoot is telling you what level it normally works at. Ask for the certificate in prep, and ask whether workers compensation is carried too.
- Part 107 is the entry ticket, not the qualification. Every legal commercial pilot holds one. What separates companies is the hard operations — flying over people under the FAA’s Subpart D categories or a waiver, at night, beyond visual line of sight, and inside controlled airspace.
- Local 600, both ways. Signatory scripted work generally requires the aerial camera position to be filled by an ICG Local 600 member; commercials and non-signatory work usually do not. The failure mode is hiring a company that can only staff one way.
- Permitting done, not delegated. Airspace and ground are two separate approvals from two different bodies. If a vendor sends the paperwork back to your line producer, price that time into the bid.
- Redundancy, because aircraft come down. Ask what happens when the primary aircraft is out of service at 2pm. Ask the same about the pilot.
- Payload range, because the shot picks the aircraft. Heavy-lift for a full-size cinema camera — the Freefly Alta X carries RED and ALEXA Mini. Mid-size stabilised for aerials that intercut with A-camera — the DJI Inspire 3 shooting 8K full-frame on swappable DL-mount lenses, and the Inspire 2 with the Super 35 X7. FPV for continuous moving shots through spaces nothing else fits, carrying anything from a GoPro up to cinema cameras. A company with one aircraft will tell you your shot suits that aircraft.
- Named credits, not logo walls. “We’ve worked with Netflix and HBO” is a claim any company can make after one day of second-unit work. A named production list is checkable.
The long version of each check, written for the Los Angeles market, is here.
The credit list
CineDrones has provided aerial cinematography, on-camera prop drones, stunt drones or aerial lighting on productions including:
Ozark · 9-1-1 · SEAL Team · Jack Ryan · Bosch · Goliath · Castle Rock · Doctor Sleep · NOS4A2 · Mayans M.C. · Modern Family · NCIS: New Orleans · American Horror Story: Cult · Fear the Walking Dead · Station 19 · The Politician · The Resident · Runaways · Raising Dion · Good Trouble · The Gifted · 24: Legacy · American Housewife · The Fix · The First 48 · Hell’s Kitchen · The Grand Tour · Basketball Wives · Shahs of Sunset · Bizaardvark · I Feel Bad · Kevin (Probably) Saves the World · Making It · The Leisure Seeker · Trial by Fire · First and Last · Spartan · TKO · You’re the Worst — and NFL broadcasts.
Two are written up in detail — what the production needed, what it took to fly, and what that demonstrates: 9-1-1, where we brought the look and the aerial design to the show from day one, and Ozark, where the aerials carried feel and drama into the visual language of the series.
When to hire somebody else
We would rather say this in prep than take a booking and disappoint a producer.
- If the job is real estate, weddings or single-operator social content, an aerial department is the wrong purchase. You do not need Local 600 crews and a $5M policy to shoot a listing.
- If the job is inspection, survey or mapping, hire a company that does that work. We fly for camera.
- If the schedule allows no rehearsal for a complex FPV move through a practical location, the honest answer is that the shot should be flown a different way, or the schedule should change.
- If the only thing that matters is the lowest number on the bid, someone will always be cheaper. What we will not do is quote a crew and a safety plan we would not actually staff.
How to run the comparison
Send every company on your shortlist the same message:
Shoot dates, location, and city. What is your standing aviation liability limit? Can you staff Local 600 and non-union? Who files the FAA authorization and who coordinates the film permit? What aircraft would you bring for this shot, and what is the backup? Name five productions you have flown.
The replies sort themselves. Specific answers with numbers and titles come from companies that have done the work.
Frequently asked
Do I need a permit to fly a drone in Miami?
It depends where. Miami-Dade County and the City of Miami Beach run separate film permits with separate drone submissions, and some shoots need both. Taking off from private property in unincorporated Miami-Dade, in Class G airspace, under 400 ft requires no county film permit; taking off from public property always does. Miami-Dade also requires that the filming area be clear of all general public during drone operation and that the production hire Miami-Dade off-duty police — both real budget lines. Miami Beach aerials packets need a minimum of 5 business days.
How close to a Miami airport can you fly a drone?
Drones are prohibited within one mile of any Miami-Dade County airport, with a $500 civil penalty for unauthorized drone use in the county. This is a separate county restriction, not an FAA rule, and an FAA airspace authorization does not satisfy it. It is the most commonly missed requirement in the Miami market.
Can you fly a drone at night in Miami Beach?
No. Miami Beach requires drone operations to be daylight only — from 30 minutes after sunrise to 30 minutes before sunset — below 400 ft, below 87 knots, within visual line of sight, and never over the general public. A night aerial in Miami Beach has to be reconceived, and that conversation belongs in prep rather than on the day.
More on this market: drone cinematography in Miami · aerial cinematography · FPV drone pilot · Local 600 drone operators
CineDrones is a Hollywood-based aerial cinematography company working in Miami and nine other markets nationwide. FAA Part 107 certified, $5M aviation liability, Local 600 union and non-union crews, flying since 2013.
Send us the shot and the dates — 310-905-9195. We will tell you what it takes, and we will tell you if it should be flown a different way.
