- DJI is appealing its ban in the US
- The company says it could lose $1.5 billion across this year
- 25 product launches are planned in 2026
Late last year, new DJI products were effectively banned from the United States, which means devices like the DJI Osmo Pocket 4 can’t be found in the US. In a freshly published court filing, we’ve now got some idea of what the cost is going to be for DJI — and its US-based fans.
DJI is busy appealing the ban in the US courts (via DroneDJ), and in official filings the Chinese tech giant claims that being shut out of the United States is going to cost it some $1.5 billion across the course of this year — around $700 million for regulatory payments for devices that never launched, and another $860 million for new products in 2026.
Those new products number 25 in total, as per the filing (check out page 7), and will include both drones and other types of gadgetry (like vlogging cameras). This presents an “immediate and grave harm” to DJI, the document says.
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And it’s not just DJI that’s missing out: DJI argues that businesses, energy companies, and emergency responders that rely on DJI kit are going to be negatively impacted, because they’ll be stuck on older hardware. That’s a violation of Constitutional and federal law, DJI argues in its appeal.
National security interests
The ban came about when DJI was put on the ‘Covered List’ by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the US — a list of entities thought to be a threat to national security (Huawei is also on the list, for example).
Neither the FCC nor the US government have explained exactly what threat DJI poses to the safety of citizens, but once a deadline for a security audit of DJI had passed, that was that. It’s thought that there are concerns over a Chinese company having such deep access to US networks, and such a widespread array of photo and video capture devices.
Whatever the politics or security concerns, given that DJI regularly tops our list of the best drones on the market, it’s a shame that US customers are no longer going to be able to get hold of these devices. The US appeals court must now decide whether the challenge can move forward, which would give DJI more scope to argue its case.
From DJI’s side, the evidence is that substantial losses are already happening — and so the decision should be challenged at the earliest opportunity. In the meantime we’re expecting another drone from DJI any day now.
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