Amazon is preparing a roughly sixfold expansion of its Prime Air drone delivery network, targeting nearly 500 U.S. cities and towns by the end of 2026 as retailers and delivery companies race to make last-mile shipping faster and cheaper.

The rollout would dramatically widen Prime Air's footprint from its current 11 delivery sites across 10 metro areas and give Amazon a much larger test of whether autonomous aircraft can become a meaningful part of its logistics network. The next phase of the rollout is planned for the Chicago, Atlanta, Cleveland, Syracuse and Boise metropolitan areas, with additional communities expected to be added later this year.

The step up would mark a sharp acceleration for a program that has grown gradually: Amazon first previewed drone delivery in 2013 and did not begin regular customer deliveries until late 2022, starting in College Station, Texas, and Lockeford, California. Amazon has separately said it aims to deliver 500 million packages a year by drone by the end of the decade, a target that would require far wider coverage than the service has today.

Rivals race into the skies

The push comes as rivals make their own moves into drone delivery. Walmart, which began piloting drone delivery in 2020, has expanded its service through partners including Alphabet-owned Wing and Zipline, while DoorDash recently received federal approval to operate its own commercial drone delivery network. Uber, meanwhile, announced a partnership with Zipline this week.

According to Amazon, Prime Air has already delivered hundreds of thousands of packages this year.

"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," Prime Air Vice President David Carbon said.

What Prime Air carries and what it costs

Prime Air can carry most packages weighing 5 pounds or less and roughly the size of a large shoebox, which makes more than 60% of the products customers purchase most frequently eligible for drone delivery. Orders can arrive in as little as 30 minutes, though Amazon says most reach customers about an hour after checkout.

Amazon says its newest aircraft, the MK30, is quieter than earlier models, can fly in light rain and in a wider range of temperatures, and has roughly double the range of its predecessor — changes designed to let the service operate in more places and conditions.

Prime members receive free drone delivery on orders of $50 or more and pay $2.99 on smaller orders, while non-Prime customers pay $4.99.

The expansion adds another front to Amazon's broader effort to shrink delivery times, an area where retailers are increasingly competing over speed and convenience. Last-mile delivery is often cited as the most expensive leg of a package's journey, one reason logistics operators have been testing alternatives such as drones.

Regulatory footing and open questions

Drone delivery, however, remains a small part of the broader delivery market and faces challenges ranging from federal aviation requirements and weather to noise, safety and the economics of competing with traditional vans and drivers.

Amazon holds Federal Aviation Administration Part 135 certification for Prime Air, which it received in 2020 as one of the first operators cleared for such flights, and says its drones use an autonomous "detect-and-avoid" system to monitor surrounding airspace and identify obstacles without requiring a person to watch a live video feed.

How far the model can scale also depends on rules still being written: in May 2025, the FAA proposed regulations that would permit routine drone flights beyond an operator's visual line of sight, a change drone operators have described as essential to expanding nationwide. Those rules are not yet final.

For Amazon, the expansion will serve as a broader test of whether drone delivery can move from a limited service into a practical, scalable piece of its last-mile network.