Amazon said this week it plans to expand its Prime Air drone-delivery service to nearly 500 U.S. cities and towns by the end of 2026 — roughly a sixfold increase from where the service stands today. The company detailed the rollout in a post on its official newsroom, saying the next wave of markets includes the Chicago, Atlanta, Cleveland, Syracuse and Boise metro areas, alongside continued growth in its existing territory.
Prime Air currently operates from 11 sites across metro areas in Arizona, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska and Texas, with each site covering roughly 175 square miles. The company is also preparing its first location outside the U.S., in Darlington, England. Amazon's MK30 delivery drones carry packages of up to 5 pounds — a threshold the company says covers more than 60% of its most frequently ordered items — with deliveries arriving in as fast as 30 minutes and typically within about an hour, as detailed in TechCrunch's reporting on the expansion.
Pricing follows Amazon's existing Prime structure: delivery is free for Prime members on qualifying orders of $50 or more, $2.99 for smaller Prime orders, and $4.99 for non-members. Amazon said it has completed hundreds of thousands of drone deliveries so far this year, with thousands now happening daily across its existing sites.
Safety record under scrutiny
The expansion comes as Amazon's drone program continues to draw scrutiny over safety incidents. Prime Air drones fly under Federal Aviation Administration Part 135 certification — the same regulatory framework used by commercial air carriers — but the service has had a string of high-profile mishaps, including a drone that struck a crane boom in Tolleson, Arizona, in October 2025, another that clipped an internet cable, and separate incidents in which drones crashed into a residential garden and an apartment building. Amazon says its "Detect-and-Avoid" system, which monitors airspace continuously during flight, is central to preventing collisions as the fleet scales up.
David Carbon, Amazon's vice president of Prime Air, framed the expansion around delivery speed rather than novelty. "Customers already turn to Amazon for fast Same- and Next-Day Delivery, and Prime Air provides them an even speedier option when they need it, with deliveries in as fast as 30 minutes," Carbon said in the company's announcement.
Amazon is not the only company racing to scale drone delivery. Walmart and Alphabet's Wing operate a joint network that both companies describe as the largest drone-delivery operation in the U.S. by volume, and expanded into seven additional markets in June, including Phoenix, Philadelphia and the San Francisco Bay Area. Amazon's roughly 500-city target by year's end would still leave it running far fewer total deliveries than that combined network, based on figures cited in TechCrunch's coverage — meaning this week's announcement is as much a statement of ambition as it is a description of where the service already stands.