How to Start a Legal Commercial Drone Business in Greece (2026 Guide)

The demand side is not the problem. Inspections, mapping, photography, monitoring: we covered the breadth of paying work in our overview of commercial drone applications. The problem is the supply side: most aspiring operators in Greece underestimate what separates a hobbyist with a nice drone from a business that can legally sign a contract, pass a client’s compliance check and survive an audit. Setting up exactly that operation is what our drone services practice does. Here is the map.

Step 1: Understand which category you will fly in

Under the EU framework (Regulation 2019/947, applied in Greece by the HCAA), operations fall into categories that define everything downstream:

• Open category (A1/A2/A3). Lower-risk flights, no authorisation needed, but strict limits: visual line of sight, below 120 m, and subcategory rules on flying near people. Much genuine commercial work fits here, but not all of it.
• Specific category (including STS-01 and STS-02). Operations the Open category doesn’t allow: closer to people over a controlled ground area (STS-01) or beyond visual line of sight with airspace observers (STS-02). This is where the higher-value contracts live, and it requires declarations or operational authorisation, trained pilots and documented procedures.

Decide which missions you will actually sell before you buy anything. The aircraft, training and paperwork all follow from the category, not the other way round.

Step 2: Register as an operator

Every commercial operator must be registered with the HCAA and display its operator ID on each aircraft. Registration is tied to the legal entity, which raises a question founders often skip: what entity? Many Greek drone businesses run as a sole proprietorship at first, but a Private Company (P.C./ΙΚΕ) separates personal assets from operational risk, a real consideration when your asset flies over other people’s property. (Entity setup is a discipline of its own; our business consultancy team handles it end to end.)

Step 3: Get insured properly

Liability insurance for commercial drone operations is mandatory, and clients increasingly ask for proof before award. Check that the policy covers the category you fly (Specific-category operations are not automatically covered), names the operator entity, and matches the take-off masses in your fleet. An underinsured operator is uninsurable in a claim and uncontractable in a tender.

Step 4: Build the operations manual and procedures

This is the step that separates contractable operators from everyone else. A credible operation documents:

• Pre-flight risk assessment for every mission: site, airspace, weather, people, mitigations
• Geo-zone and authorisation checks: Greek geo-zones and any required flight approvals, verified before every sortie
• Maintenance and battery logs per aircraft
• Pilot records: certificates, currency, mission history
• Post-flight records an auditor (or an insurer’s lawyer) can actually read

None of this is bureaucracy for its own sake. It is what lets a client’s procurement department tick the box that awards you the contract instead of the competitor with the better camera and no paperwork.

Step 5: Train and certify pilots for the missions you sell

Open-category certificates (A1/A3 and A2) are the entry ticket. If your business plan includes STS operations, pilots need the corresponding Specific-category training and practical assessment through authorized entities. Match the certification roadmap to the mission roadmap: training a pilot for STS-02 you will never fly is burned cash; selling an STS-01 mission without a certified pilot is a violation.

Step 6: Run it like a programme, not a hobby

Fleet, training, missions and records need the same discipline as any delivery organisation: documented procedures, scheduled maintenance, regulatory watch (the rules evolve; someone must own tracking them), and honest post-mission reviews. This is where our project-management DNA shows: we run drone operations with the same PMO discipline we bring to IT delivery, because that is what keeps an operation both productive and audit-proof.

The realistic timeline

From zero to a contractable operation: registration and Open-category training take weeks; insurance, the operations manual and process setup take a bit longer; Specific-category capability adds training and authorisation lead time. Plan a proper runway, and remember that your first serious client will judge the paperwork before they ever see you fly.

If you would rather compress that learning curve, our drone services team sets up commercial drone operations turn-key: registration, manuals, EASA-compliant workflows, insurance guidance, and training pathways through authorized partners, built by people who run their own certified operation in the Greek market.

Frequently Asked Questions

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Editorial note — This article was researched and drafted with the assistance of Claude (Anthropic), and reviewed and approved by Amazing Projects before publication.