How many people fly: each body's own number, with its date.

Why there is no single number

The figures below measure different things. An organiser counts its registered pilots or chapters. An aviation authority counts registrations or certificates for every kind of drone, not FPV racing in particular. An event body counts the athletes at one event. None of these is a count of people who race FPV drones, and adding them together would double-count and mix categories. Each is the named body's own claim on the stated date, not an independent count.

MultiGP: its figures and Wikipedia's

MultiGP is the only organiser whose participation figures were found. Its own home page and Wikipedia give different numbers, and the difference goes both ways:

So MultiGP's own page claims fewer pilots and more chapters than Wikipedia records. The two count on different dates and may define "pilot", "member" and "active" differently; neither source says how it counts. Neither figure has been checked independently.

Wikipedia also states, again as secondary figures:

• MultiGP had been involved in organising over 16,000 races (figure retrieved 9 November 2023).
• Its first performance-based championship, held at AMA headquarters in Muncie, Indiana, on 4 September 2016, had over 100 pilots.
• More than 150 Global Qualifier events are held each year.

Other accounts of that 2016 championship differ from Wikipedia's. Model Aviation, the AMA's magazine (April 2017 issue), dates it 2 to 4 September 2016, with racing on 3 and 4 September. DroneLife (25 October 2016), reporting MultiGP's own figures, says it drew more than 140 pilots, and Wikipedia's separate drone racing article also gives more than 140.

MultiGP's home page says its 2026 Championship, held in Dallas, Texas, drew pilots from 15 countries; that is the organiser's claim, and results belong to the events pages.

Regulators' counts

United Kingdom: the CAA's estimate

In its news release of 29 December 2025, the CAA estimated that lowering the Flyer ID threshold from 250 g to 100 g on 1 January 2026 could affect up to 500,000 drone flyers. It is an estimate of people affected by a rule change, covering all kinds of drone and model flying, not a count of FPV pilots.

United States: the FAA's figures (unconfirmed)

The FAA's "Drones by the Numbers" page could not be opened. A search summary of it, dated November 2025, gives 837,513 drones registered in total, including 371,334 recreational flyer registrations and 453,635 commercial registrations, and 481,760 certificated remote pilots. These cover every kind of drone, the page does not report how many people have passed the recreational TRUST test, and the figures are unconfirmed because they rest on a search summary.

Not found

No membership figures were found for the BMFA, MAAC or MAAA, no FAI total of drone racing participants across all its events was found, and no 2026 FAA figures were found. The FAI does publish field sizes for single events and series, such as those below and on the events pages.

International events

The World Games

The AMA reported on 20 February 2024 that drone racing appeared at The World Games 2022 in Birmingham and was scheduled for The World Games 2025 in Chengdu, China, from 7 to 17 August 2025, with the FAI preparing for 32 pilots. The event went ahead, with drone racing from 13 to 16 August 2025 (FAI). The 2025 field is given four ways, read on a 2025 mirror of the FAI's site unless stated:

• the FAI's preview of 6 August 2025: 32 pilots from 20 countries, including 13 juniors and eight women (an FAI press release of the same date, seen only as a search summary, gives the same figures);
• the FAI's report of 17 August 2025: 31 pilots from 19 countries;
• Wikipedia (secondary): 32 pilots from 20 nations;
• an FAI news item, seen only as a search summary because the page could not be opened: 30 qualified athletes from 21 countries.

Results are on The World Games.

The FAI World Cup

The FAI Drone Racing World Cup runs as a series of events in different countries, with Challenger and Masters series (F9 2025, A.2). A search summary of a Shanghai government page of 22 September 2025, unconfirmed, says the Shanghai leg was the 11th of 13 stages scheduled in 2025, held in 12 countries and regions.

Who runs these events is on the bodies.