Nevada Drone Laws: Trespass, Warrants & Critical Facilities

Nevada regulates drones more thoroughly than most states. A civil trespass law lets a property owner sue over repeated low overflights, NRS 493.112 requires police to get a warrant before using a drone to gather evidence at a place someone has a reasonable expectation of privacy, and separate statutes ban weaponized drones and set no-fly buffers around critical facilities and airports.

This guide is part of our Drone Laws by State series; for the broader rules on recording people and property in Nevada, see our surveillance camera laws guide.

Jurisdiction scope: This article addresses Nevada law governing private and law-enforcement drone use under NRS 493.103, 493.106, 493.109, and 493.112. It does not address FAA registration, Remote ID, or Part 107 pilot certification, which apply the same way nationwide regardless of state law.

How Federal and Nevada Law Divide Drone Authority

The FAA regulates where a drone may fly. Under 49 U.S.C. section 40102, it treats any unmanned aircraft as an "aircraft," which pulls it into the national airspace system regardless of size. A commercial or government flight generally needs a Remote Pilot Certificate under 14 C.F.R. Part 107, while a hobbyist flight falls under the separate statutory exception at 49 U.S.C. section 44809. Most registrable drones must also broadcast Remote ID.

None of that answers what a Nevada drone operator may do with a camera, or when Nevada police need a warrant. Those are state trespass, privacy, and criminal-procedure questions, and Nevada has built one of the more detailed state-level drone codes in the country into NRS Chapter 493, first enacted in 2015 under Assembly Bill 239.

Can a Private Citizen Legally Fly a Drone Over My Property in Nevada?

Generally yes, on a single pass. Nevada does not ban a drone from briefly transiting the airspace above private land. What NRS 493.103 punishes is a repeat, unauthorized, low-altitude overflight after the owner has objected. Specifically, a property owner or lawful occupant can sue a drone owner or operator for trespass if the drone flew below 250 feet over the property, the operator had already flown at that altitude over the property on a prior occasion, and the owner gave the operator notice, in a manner recognized under NRS 207.200, that the flight was not authorized.

A plaintiff who wins recovers treble damages for the trespass, plus possible attorney's fees, costs, and an injunction. Subsection 2 lists the flights that cannot be sued over: a drone lawfully in the flight path for landing at an airport, airfield, or runway; a drone in the process of taking off or landing; a drone under the lawful operation of a law enforcement agency acting in accordance with NRS 493.112 or of another public agency acting in accordance with NRS 493.115; and a drone under the lawful operation of a business registered in this State, or of a land surveyor, where the operator is licensed or otherwise approved to fly it by the FAA, the flight is within the scope of the lawful activities of that business or surveyor, and it does not unreasonably interfere with the property's existing use. Note what the last exemption does and does not require: Nevada issues no drone-operator license of its own, so the state-side condition is business registration in Nevada, and the pilot credential comes from the FAA.

Separately, Nevada's general voyeurism statute, NRS 200.604, bars knowingly capturing an image of someone's private area without consent where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy, a gross misdemeanor on a first offense and a category E felony on a later one. It does not mention drones specifically, but its definition of "capture" (to videotape, photograph, film, record by any means, or broadcast) is broad enough to reach a drone-mounted camera used the same way a hidden camera would be.

Does Police Need a Warrant to Fly a Drone Over My Property in Nevada?

Yes, as the default rule. NRS 493.112 bars a law enforcement agency from operating a drone to gather evidence or other information within the curtilage of a residence, or at any other location in Nevada where a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy, unless the agency first obtains a warrant from a court of competent jurisdiction authorizing that specific use. A warrant issued under the statute is limited to 10 days, though it can be renewed. Information gathered in violation of the section is not admissible in a judicial, administrative, or other adjudicatory proceeding, and cannot be used to establish reasonable suspicion or probable cause for anything else, a rule that applies equally to other government entities that obtain drone data unlawfully.

The warrant requirement gives way in several defined circumstances: probable cause to believe that a person has committed a crime, is committing a crime, or is about to commit a crime combined with exigent circumstances that make it unreasonable for the agency to obtain a warrant; written consent that specifies the information to be gathered and the time, place, and manner of gathering it; search-and-rescue operations; an imminent threat to life or public safety (which requires a sworn statement filed within two business days); and a gubernatorial state-of-emergency or disaster declaration, limited to the declared area.

That first exception is now the center of a live dispute in Nevada. The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department's Drone as First Responder program, branded Blue Sky, grew from about 345 deployments in May 2025 to roughly 2,270 in April 2026, and the department flew more than 10,000 drone missions in 2025, reportedly the most of any police agency in the country. Because Metro treats routine 911 dispatches as emergencies, it argues most of those flights qualify without an individual warrant. The statutory test is narrower than that framing suggests: NRS 493.112(3)(a) requires probable cause of a specific crime as well as exigency, not merely an urgent-sounding call. The ACLU of Nevada and the Electronic Frontier Foundation have criticized Metro's approach as turning a narrow emergency exception into standing surveillance, particularly as the drones carry cameras that can resolve detail from roughly 2,000 feet away.

Critical Facilities, Airport Buffers, and Weaponized Drones

Beyond the trespass and warrant rules, Nevada restricts where a drone may fly near sensitive sites. NRS 493.109 bars operating a drone within 500 feet horizontally or 250 feet vertically of a "critical facility," unless the owner consents in writing. NRS 493.020, the chapter's general definitions section, defines "critical facility" to include a refinery, a chemical or petroleum production, transportation, storage, or processing facility, a pipeline, a water or wastewater treatment plant, a mine, a power plant or substation, certain electric transmission lines, and a jail, prison, or Department of Corrections facility. NRS 493.109 also bars flying within 5 miles of an airport unless the operator has the consent of the airport authority or the airport's operator, or has obtained a waiver, exemption, or other FAA authorization, and it requires the operator to carry documentation of that consent or authorization at all times during the flight. Violating NRS 493.109 is a misdemeanor.

NRS 493.106 goes further for armed drones: it is a category D felony to equip a drone with a weapon or to operate one that is already weaponized, and the offense escalates to a category C felony if the weaponized drone is actually discharged.

Outside Chapter 493, Nevada's wildlife code regulates drones by name. NRS 503.010 makes it unlawful to harass any game mammals or game birds with a manned or unmanned aircraft, to shoot at game with a weapon from a manned or unmanned aircraft, or to spot or locate game with any kind of manned or unmanned aircraft and communicate that location to a person on the ground within 24 hours for the purpose of hunting or trapping. Subsection 9 defines "aircraft" to include any unmanned aerial vehicle as defined in NRS 493.020, so a camera drone is squarely covered. A violation is a misdemeanor under NRS 501.385, punishable by a fine of $50 to $500, up to 6 months in county jail, or both, and NRS 501.3857 subjects an aircraft used to locate big game that way to forfeiture. NRS 503.005 separately makes it a misdemeanor to kill or attempt to kill birds or animals while flying in an aircraft.

Watch out: NRS 493.103's trespass action is narrower than it first appears. A single low flyover is not enough; the statute requires a prior unauthorized flight plus notice to the operator before a second flight becomes actionable. A one-time overflight may still support a nuisance or NRS 200.604 privacy claim, but not a claim under 493.103 itself.

Can I Shoot Down a Drone Over My Nevada Property?

No. Federal law makes it a serious crime to damage, destroy, or disable any drone, including one hovering low over your own yard. 18 U.S.C. section 32, the Aircraft Sabotage Act, criminalizes willfully damaging an "aircraft," a category the FAA has applied to drones since 2012. A conviction carries up to 20 years in federal prison, a fine up to $250,000, and the permanent loss of Second Amendment rights that follows any federal felony. The FAA's position, echoed in its own public guidance, is that it controls the national airspace, not the landowner below, so owning the ground does not create a right to fire on what is above it. No Nevada statute, including the trespass and privacy provisions in NRS Chapter 493, authorizes a landowner to disable or shoot down a drone as a matter of right.

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