Aviation Compliance in South America 2026: RBAC 100, ANAC Cuts, SAF

On June 15, 2026, Brazil's National Civil Aviation Agency published Resolution 805/2026, approving RBAC 100, a full rewrite of the country's drone rules that replaces the old RBAC-E 94 regime overnight. Three weeks later, the same agency told carriers it was cutting 40% of all inspection and certification activity, immediately, after a 24 million real budget freeze hit its operating funds. Gol and Latam were told new aircraft entering their fleets would be delayed as a direct result.

Both events landed in the same June. Neither was coordinated with the other four national aviation authorities across the region, because there is no single South American aviation regulator, only five national systems, Brazil's ANAC, Argentina's ANAC, Colombia's Aerocivil, Mexico's AFAC, and Chile's DGAC, each moving through its own drone framework, its own enforcement model, and its own capacity constraints in parallel.

That fragmentation is the real compliance challenge in South American civil aviation in 2026. Brazil is simultaneously tightening its drone certification categories and starving its own oversight budget. Argentina deregulated its RPAS rules in 2025 in the name of simplification while Chile went the opposite direction with a risk-based tightening that took effect this year. For airlines, manufacturers, MROs, and drone operators running programs across more than one of these jurisdictions, tracking five gazettes on five different timelines is no longer optional.

Which regulators actually drive aviation compliance in South America?

Every national regime in the region sits under the same ICAO Chicago Convention and its Annexes, but implementation is entirely national. Brazil's ANAC operates under Lei 11.182/2005 and issues Regulamentos Brasileiros da Aviação Civil (RBAC). Argentina's ANAC, a separate agency of the same name, issues Regulaciones Argentinas de Aviación Civil (RAAC) under Decreto 663/2024. Colombia's Aerocivil issues Reglamentos Aeronáuticos de Colombia (RAC). Mexico's Agencia Federal de Aviación Civil (AFAC) enforces Normas Oficiales Mexicanas under the Civil Aviation Law. Chile's Dirección General de Aeronáutica Civil (DGAC) issues Documentos Aeronáuticos Nacionales (DAN).

ICAO measures how well each of these systems actually functions through its Universal Safety Oversight Audit Programme, tracking Effective Implementation scores across eight audit areas for the South American region as a whole under the current Safety Plan cycle. Peru's next full audit runs October 14 to 27, 2026, while Chile's audit, originally scheduled for late January 2026, was postponed. A regional EI score is a useful signal, but it says nothing about which specific rule changed in which country last month. That is exactly the layer Obsidian's regulatory monitoring is built to close, tracking each national gazette against its ICAO Annex trigger, jurisdiction by jurisdiction.

What changed under Brazil's new drone rule, RBAC 100?

ANAC's Resolution 805/2026, dated June 15, 2026, approved RBAC 100, "Requisitos gerais para aeronaves não tripuladas de uso civil," replacing RBAC-E 94 in full. The resolution also amended RBAC 90 and RBAC 137, the latter governing aerial agricultural operations. Operators already holding UAS authorizations under the old regime that do not fit the new open or specific categories, or that fall under a specific category without a standard scenario, have two years from the resolution's publication to obtain a new operational authorization under RBAC 100.

The same week, ANAC published Resolution 801/2026, approving Amendment 25 to RBAC 121, the rule governing scheduled air carriers with more than 19 seats. The amendment introduces new pilot-in-command duties around landing distance assessment and mandatory braking-action reporting when runway conditions are worse than expected, a direct operational safety requirement that airlines flying into Brazil must build into cockpit procedures immediately, since the amendment entered into force on publication.

Why did ANAC cut 40% of its oversight actions in the same month?

Because a 24 million real budget freeze forced it to. In early June 2026, ANAC announced it would immediately cut 40% of all inspection and enforcement actions, spanning airlines, flight schools, maintenance shops, parts manufacturers, and individual pilots and crew. Sources told Valor Econômico the contingenciamento would directly delay new aircraft entering the fleets of Gol and Latam, since aircraft certification is one of the activities affected by the cut.

This lands on top of a separate, structural change already underway. ANAC's Resolutions 761/2024 and 762/2024 took effect January 1, 2026, replacing the purely punitive Resolution 472/2018 with a "regulação responsiva" model: isolated, good-faith, low-risk infractions now get technical orientation and a correction deadline instead of an automatic fine, while repeated or deliberate violations, or anything touching maintenance non-compliance or crew duty limits, still draw the full penalty, including certificate suspension or revocation. A regulator that is simultaneously more lenient on paperwork lapses and short-staffed on certifications is not a regulator whose behavior a compliance team can predict from the rule text alone; it depends on real-time enforcement posture, which is precisely what static regulatory databases miss.

Brazil's ProBioQAV sustainable aviation fuel mandate, 2027 to 2037

Lei 14.993/2024, the Fuel of the Future Law, obligates domestic air operators to cut greenhouse gas emissions through sustainable aviation fuel starting January 1, 2027, jointly enforced by ANAC and ANP, Brazil's oil and biofuels regulator. As of the July 2026 SAF Brasil forum in Rio de Janeiro, the implementing decree, which will define producer, importer, and blending-agent obligations and create the CS-SAF sustainability certificate, was still sitting with the Casa Civil awaiting final publication, with less than six months until the first compliance deadline.

How is Argentina deregulating drones while Chile is tightening its rules?

Argentina's ANAC moved first, and moved toward simplification. Resolución 550/2025, effective August 8, 2025, repealed the decade-old Resolution 880/2019 and replaced it with RAAC Parts 100, 101, and 102: a general framework, an Open category for low-risk RPAS operations under 25 kilograms, or any weight in exclusively rural areas, that need no prior authorization, and a Specific category for RPAS between 25 and 150 kilograms or any operator opting out of the Open category, which requires an operational authorization, a remote pilot license, and third-class aeronautical medical certification.

Chile went the other way in the same window. The DGAC's DAN 151 Edition 4, in force in 2026, abandons the old rigid rules confined to populated areas and applies a single risk-based assessment across every environment, populated or not, and every operation type, including FPV flights requiring a visual observer, BVLOS operations with elevated technical and documentary requirements, autonomous drones operating from dock-style base stations, and cargo transport by unmanned aircraft. The new edition also shortens the validity period of operational authorizations and tightens documentary control in sensitive zones near airports and critical infrastructure. An operator running the same drone fleet in both countries is subject to two philosophically opposite frameworks that both changed within the last twelve months, comparing them side by side is exactly the kind of cross-jurisdiction question Obsidian's AI companion can answer directly from verified source text, rather than from a general impression of "Latin America drone rules."

What do Colombia and Mexico require before a drone can legally fly?

Colombia's Aerocivil regulates UAS under RAC 100, incorporated by Resolución 01983 of 2023 and since amended by Resolución 3034 of 2024. Since March 2026, the agency has run a nationwide campaign, "Vuela Legal, Vuela Seguro," specifically to raise awareness of registration, certification, and no-fly-zone requirements ahead of high-traffic travel periods, using its public Visor Geográfico UAS map to show restricted areas around airports in real time. Violations, including flying in a designated no-fly zone or operating aerial photography equipment without authorization under RAC 13, carry administrative fines ranging from four to more than fifty legal monthly minimum wages depending on severity.

Mexico's AFAC enforces NOM-107-SCT3-2019 together with the mandatory circular CO AV-23/10 R4, which classifies RPAS by weight and use. Any drone above 250 grams must be registered in the national aeronautical registry before it flies, and that registration is only available to Mexican citizens, a rule that effectively bars foreign operators and travelers from legally registering standard consumer drones once they cross the 250 gram threshold. Commercial and non-recreational operations additionally require civil liability insurance regardless of weight class, and the AFAC can suspend a license, certificate, or registration for any breach of the Civil Aviation Law.

What should a South America aviation compliance team do next?

Map exposure by jurisdiction and by activity, not by region. A drone delivery operator running fleets in both Argentina and Chile is tracking two frameworks that just moved in opposite directions; a carrier flying into Brazil is tracking a certification backlog, a new responsive enforcement model, and a SAF mandate whose implementing decree has not even published yet; a manufacturer selling consumer drones across the region needs to know that Mexico's registration rule quietly excludes foreign buyers above 250 grams.

Obsidian tracks ICAO, ANAC Brazil, ANAC Argentina, Aerocivil, AFAC, and the DGAC at the framework and jurisdiction level, with alerts when a resolution publishes, an implementing decree clears the Casa Civil, or an enforcement posture shifts, so a compliance team is not the last to know when a two-year transition window on a drone authorization starts running. See the plans built for regulatory-affairs and airworthiness teams, or connect Obsidian's MCP to your own tools if your compliance workflow already runs through an AI assistant.