Flying a Drone in Mozambique
Mozambique drone laws for visitors: even recreational flights need written IACM approval, applied for a week ahead, with a published MZN 4,500 assessment fee — plus the 5 km airport rule.
On this page
Flying a drone in Mozambique is legal for visitors but never casual: every flight, including a purely recreational one, needs written approval from the Mozambican Civil Aviation Institute (IACM) before it leaves the ground. You apply at least a week ahead, by email, and the 2018 published assessment fee is MZN 4,500; confirm the current invoice with IACM. Fly without that approval and the directive says the flight is unlawful, with detention and prosecution on the table.
Why this guide exists
This guide works through IACM Operational Safety Directive DSO-09-2018, including its recreational application template, fee schedule and conflicting height limits. The published directive is dated 16 August 2018. Its age matters: ask IACM to confirm the current procedure and any replacement rules before applying.
The useful distinction is between four permissions. An airline accepting the bag, customs admitting the equipment, IACM approving the flight and a park or landowner allowing the location each answer a different question.
Do you need permission to fly a drone in Mozambique?
Yes — and there is no recreational exemption. This is the single most misunderstood thing about flying here, because many countries let hobbyists fly a small drone with no paperwork at all. Mozambique doesn’t. Clause 8.1(i) of the directive is unambiguous:
Before operating any RPAS in Mozambican airspace, the IACM must issue a written approval. Without such approval, the flight operation will be considered unlawful.
The clause immediately above it adds that IACM must be informed of planned operations “regardless of the intended category of RPAS operations.” So there’s no size, weight or purpose that quietly lets you skip the process.
What does change with purpose is which door you go through. The directive sorts flights into Category A — personal and recreational — and Categories B, C1 and C2, which cover everything commercial. Category A is the one visitors use: no pilot licence required, no medical certificate, no English-proficiency test. Just the notification letter, the fee, and the wait.
Category B and above are effectively closed to travellers. Clause 8.3.3(a) issues those approvals only to companies registered and domiciled in Mozambique, which must produce company registration papers and proof of tax compliance. A visiting film-maker cannot buy their way into that category — the realistic route is to hire a Mozambican-registered operator who already holds it.
What it costs and how long it takes
The published recreational assessment fee is MZN 4,500. That figure comes from Annex C of the 2018 directive. Ask IACM for the current fee and payment instructions before paying; this review does not establish that every 2018 charge remains unchanged in 2026.
| Published 2018 item | MZN |
|---|---|
| Recreational notification assessment | 4,500 |
| Initial commercial operating approval | 14,750 |
| Initial registration certificate | 3,150 |
| Initial safety certificate | 3,150 |
| Additional aircraft on an approval | 2,700 |
| Approval renewal | 3,375 |
The timing rule is a floor, not an estimate. Your notification, proof of payment and supporting documents must reach IACM at least one week before the flights you’re planning. The directive sets no turnaround commitment of its own, so a week is the minimum you’re allowed to leave, not the wait you should expect. On a short trip, start several weeks ahead where possible; no lead time guarantees approval.
If the application succeeds, IACM issues an approval letter carrying the specific limitations and conditions that apply to you. Those conditions win over anything on this page.
What you send IACM
The application is a single letter you write yourself, following the template in Annex I of the directive, emailed to IACM. Copy the annex text onto a blank page, fill in the details, sign it, and attach the supporting documents.
The address is worth a note. The body of the directive (clause 8.2.2(c)) prints the submission address as [email protected] — which is malformed, a typo carried faithfully into most of the guides that copy it. Annex I gives the printed address for recreational applications: [email protected]. Use that one, and copy the general inbox at [email protected] if you get no reply.
What the letter has to contain:
- You — full name, residential address, passport number, and your total hours of RPAS flying experience.
- The aircraft — make and model (the annex’s own example is a DJI Phantom 4), type, the airframe serial number, and the serial number of the controller.
- Where you intend to fly — the area of the proposed flight or flights.
- Proof you’re allowed to be here. The annex explicitly anticipates tourists: attach copies of the relevant passport pages and your entry visa. Mozambicans attach an ID copy instead. Our visa and entry guide covers which authorisation you’ll be holding.
- Proof the drone is yours — the purchase invoice, or a letter of authorisation from the owner if you borrowed it.
- Written permission from the landowner or site manager of wherever you plan to fly, attached as a copy. On a private lodge or a fenced property, that means asking first.
- Proof of payment of the assessment fee confirmed by IACM.
The letter then has you formally undertake to fly only in daylight and visual conditions, only one Class 1 aircraft, within the manufacturer’s limitations, and only over ground you have written permission to overfly. Class 1 means a maximum take-off mass of up to 5 kg, which includes many folding camera drones. Check the loaded take-off mass of your own aircraft.
Where you cannot fly
Eleven flight conditions are prohibited outright, and they bind recreational flights just as they bind commercial ones — clause 8.2.1(c) applies the whole list to Category A. No night operations. No flying in restricted, prohibited or danger areas. Nothing in instrument meteorological conditions. No crossing Mozambique’s sovereign borders. Nothing in controlled airspace. Nothing beyond the lateral limit or within 50 metres of people or structures. No taking off from, landing on, or overflying a public road — and no flying within 50 metres of one. Nothing thrown or released from the aircraft. No dangerous goods, weapons or explosives. No recording people by video or photograph without their knowledge or consent. And nothing over National Key Points, police stations, nuclear installations, hospitals, prisons, courts, military or other government installations, or any other place of strategic interest.
The FCDO photography guidance also warns that photographing government, airport, military and other specified sites or officials needs special permission. Check before using either a handheld or aerial camera near them.
The 5 km airport rule, and what it means in Vilanculos
The rule that catches most visitors is the aerodrome radius: no flying within 5 kilometres of any aerodrome. It sounds like a rule about big international airports. On this coast, it isn’t.
Vilanculos airport sits at 22.0184°S, 35.3133°E — roughly 2 kilometres from the centre of town. Draw the 5 km circle the directive requires and it covers the town, the market, and the beachfront where the dhows launch. The stretch of sand most people picture flying over is inside the no-fly radius before you account for anything else.
The same arithmetic applies at Inhambane for anyone based in Tofo, and the archipelago has airstrips of its own serving the island lodges. None of this makes a legal flight impossible — it makes where you fly something to agree with IACM in the application rather than to discover on the beach. If you tell us your dates and what you’re hoping to film, we can tell you what the ground actually looks like from a launching point of view.
Bazaruto and the national parks
A national park is a second permission, not a substitute for the first. Flying over the Bazaruto Archipelago requires prior written authorisation from the park authority, on top of the IACM approval — two separate applications, two separate yeses, neither of which can be arranged on the morning of a boat trip.
We enforce this on our own trips. Every group gets briefed before we land, and the drone rule sits alongside the rest of the park’s conditions — don’t touch or stand on the coral, don’t touch or feed wildlife, don’t collect shells or sand, no fishing outside designated zones, no fires except where indicated. It isn’t bureaucratic fussiness. The Bazaruto seagrass holds one of East Africa’s last dugong populations, and a drone dropped low over a resting group is a genuine disturbance rather than a photograph.
The park is administered by ANAC, Mozambique’s national conservation-areas authority, which lists the park office as [email protected], (+258) 82 474 0320. Write to them early, and treat a same-week request as a no.
What’s changing
Confirm the current framework directly with IACM before you travel. The source document is from 2018; its publication does not establish that no later aviation, aerial-filming or import rules apply. Paid footage needs the commercial route assessed explicitly.
| Check | What to obtain before packing |
|---|---|
| Airline carriage | Written baggage guidance for the drone and the watt-hour rating and number of batteries |
| Customs | Advice on temporary import, declaration and any equipment documents |
| Aviation | Current application instructions, invoice and written flight approval with coordinates and dates |
| Location | Written landowner or park permission covering the actual launch and overflight area |
| Commercial filming | Confirmation of the authorised local operator and any additional filming permissions |
IATA’s battery guidance puts spare lithium batteries in cabin baggage with protected terminals. Check the airline’s own limits; do not assume all airlines accept every drone or battery. Save approvals offline and carry printed copies. If approval has not arrived, leave the aircraft grounded.
Common questions
Can I bring a drone into Mozambique?
My drone is under 250 g. Am I exempt?
How much does a Mozambique drone permit cost?
Is it 100 feet or 200 feet? The rules seem to contradict each other.
Can I get a commercial drone permit as a visiting film-maker?
How long does IACM take to approve a drone flight?
What happens if I just fly it anyway?
Can I fly a drone over the Bazaruto Archipelago?
Where exactly can I not fly a drone in Mozambique?
Is it worth the hassle for a two-week holiday?
Coming to shoot the coast?
The paperwork above is the unglamorous half. The half worth planning around is where you point the camera — the sandbanks that surface and disappear with the tide, the dune ridges above Ponta Dondo, the light in the hour before the boats come back. We run the boats that get you there, and we know which of it sits inside a park boundary and which doesn’t. Our Bazaruto and Benguerra day trip is the usual way people see the archipelago, and the islands guide is the wider map.
Still not sure?
Drone rules are the kind of thing that’s easy to get wrong from the other side of the world, and the cost of getting it wrong here is your equipment. If you’re planning to bring one, send us a message on WhatsApp with your dates and what you’re hoping to film — we’ll tell you honestly whether it’s worth the process for your trip, and what the ground looks like where you’re headed.
And if the answer turns out to be no, don’t write off the footage. The coast is generous from a boat.
Last reviewed: 7 September 2026. Fees, distances and clause numbers checked against the directive itself. Legal basis: IACM Operational Safety Directive DSO-09-2018 — Normas das Operações de Sistema de Aeronave Pilotada Remotamente (RPAS) of 16 August 2018 (clauses 8.1, 8.2, 8.3.3, Annex C, Annex I), published by the Instituto de Aviação Civil de Moçambique. Other sources: ANAC — Administração Nacional das Áreas de Conservação (Bazaruto park authority and contact details), gov.uk travel advice for Mozambique (photography restrictions). Airport coordinates via SKYbrary. Rules change — confirm with IACM at [email protected] before you travel.
