Portland: Police Drone Missions Level Off in 2026 After 2025 Surge, City Data Shows
- Portland police sent drones out 579 times in the first nine months of 2026, almost exactly as many as in the same months of 2025, according to the bureau's public drone dashboard.
- Focus Hillsboro compared the monthly counts on the Portland Police Bureau's drone call dashboard as of Oct.
- The dashboard's "Calls by Month" chart shows how the two years compare:
Portland police sent drones out 579 times in the first nine months of 2026, almost exactly as many as in the same months of 2025, according to the bureau’s public drone dashboard. The near-flat total follows a year in which drone use more than tripled.
Focus Hillsboro compared the monthly counts on the Portland Police Bureau’s drone call dashboard as of Oct. 17, 2026, when the latest figures ran through September. From January through September, the bureau logged 576 drone deployments in 2025 and 579 in 2026, a difference of three.
Month by month
The dashboard’s “Calls by Month” chart shows how the two years compare:
| Month | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| January | 41 | 57 |
| February | 39 | 59 |
| March | 51 | 79 |
| April | 80 | 72 |
| May | 81 | 62 |
| June | 69 | 75 |
| July | 65 | 50 |
| August | 77 | 68 |
| September | 73 | 57 |
| Total | 576 | 579 |
The nearly equal totals hide a split within the year. In the first three months of 2026, police deployed drones 195 times, about 49% more than the 131 deployments in early 2025. From April through September, the count fell to 384, about 14% below the 445 in the same months last year. July 2026, with 50, was the lowest month since February 2025.
Those percentages are our calculations from the dashboard figures. The dashboard does not explain the monthly changes, and this analysis does not try to.
How the numbers line up with the bureau’s reports
The monthly figures match the bureau’s own annual totals. The dashboard’s 2024 months add up to 212 and its 2025 months to 774, the same numbers the bureau reported in its 2025 annual drone report, which described a 265% increase from one year to the next.
One change affects older comparisons but not this one. The bureau’s dashboard notes say that since Nov. 11, 2024, a new tracking app has also logged flights not tied to a police call, such as tests and training. Because 2025 and 2026 were both counted under that system, the year-over-year comparison is like for like. The dashboard counts each call once, even when more than one drone is used; it shows an average of 1.7 drones per call.
What the program looks like now
Since the bureau began flying drones in June 2023 under a pilot the City Council approved that April, the dashboard has recorded 1,642 deployments. Most, 1,052, were exigent calls, which the bureau’s 2025 report describes as requests from patrol or tactical teams during high-risk or fast-moving incidents. Training accounted for 293, search warrants 123 and traffic 96. The rest were signed consent (54), search and rescue (15) and explosive devices (9).
At the end of 2025, the bureau had 36 drones and 44 certified pilots, according to its annual report. In late September 2025 it began a drone as first responder pilot with the Gresham Police Department, placing two Gresham drones on the roof of East Precinct to launch to certain emergency calls. The dashboard’s flight types do not list those flights separately.
A supply question for the fleet
The annual report also flagged a risk for future purchases. Every drone in the bureau’s fleet is made by DJI, and in December 2025 the Federal Communications Commission expanded its Covered List to include foreign-made drone systems. The report says the change does not stop the bureau from flying drones already in service, but it “may significantly affect” its ability to buy replacements or add to the fleet. Bureau leaders began preliminary planning, the report says, including evaluating U.S.-made models.
The bureau updates the dashboard around the 15th of each month, so October’s figures should appear by mid-November. The bureau’s annual report for 2026 would give the full-year total and more detail on the first-responder pilot.
Top image: Portland Police Bureau headquarters at the Justice Center, December 2025. Photo: PortlandAppraisalBlog, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped).
