A professional drone pilot for this mission Request a free quote
C-DRONE GUIDE · 3 OCTOBER 2026
Paris drone map: Seine-Saint-Denis (93), Le Bourget, prices
Seine-Saint-Denis is the only French département that hosts two major airports on its own soil, borders Paris along eight municipalities, holds an 80,000-seat stadium and concentrates the most awaited Grand Paris Express stations. Anyone looking at a Paris drone map quickly sees that the suburbs north-east of the city are anything but free airspace. For a company, a social landlord or a local authority commissioning a drone job in the 93, the question is never "can we fly?" in the abstract, but "at which address, at what height, with which paperwork and how far in advance?". Here is how to read the map for this département, and what it means for a quote in 2026.
Published on 3 October 2026, reviewed on 22 September 2026 — regulations in force as of September 2026.
A 236 km² département between Paris, Le Bourget and Roissy
Seine-Saint-Denis has 40 municipalities spread over roughly 236 km² and just over 1.7 million inhabitants (INSEE, 2023). Its aviation geography reads from south-west to north-east. To the south-west, eight municipalities touch Paris: Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine, Saint-Denis, Aubervilliers, Pantin, Le Pré-Saint-Gervais, Les Lilas, Bagnolet and Montreuil. In the centre, Paris-Le Bourget airport, dedicated to business aviation since 1981 and Europe's leading business airport, covers a large footprint between Le Bourget, Dugny and Bonneuil-en-France. To the north-east, Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle airport spills over into Tremblay-en-France, surrounded by the Paris Nord 2 and Roissy logistics parks.
Economically, the département has changed a great deal in fifteen years. Plaine Commune, around Saint-Denis and Aubervilliers, has become one of the Paris region's main office hubs; the east of the département remains residential, shaped by large 1960s-1970s housing estates now undergoing urban renewal. For a drone contractor this translates into three client families: social landlords and condominiums (flat-roof inspection, façade thermography before renovation), project owners and contractors (construction monitoring, surveys), and facility managers — the stadium, the aquatic centre, warehouses and the data centres of the Plaine.
Reading the Paris drone map for the 93: P23, CTR and airports
The reference map is the Géoportail drone-restriction map, which we explain in our guide to the Géoportail drone zone map. For anyone searching for a Paris drone map, it is the official source — third-party apps and manufacturer geofencing do not carry legal weight. Applied to Seine-Saint-Denis, it reads in three layers.
The P23 prohibited area. It covers inner Paris, was renewed by the order of 2 April 2025 and is active around the clock. No municipality of the 93 is inside it, but the eight bordering municipalities meet it at the ring road: a façade framing in Saint-Ouen, Pantin or Montreuil that spills over the Paris side, or a flight path that crosses the boundary, switches to a completely different regime. In those towns, the flight plan is drawn street by street.
The Paris control zone. The département lies under the CTR that groups the procedures of Roissy, Orly and Le Bourget. The maximum height allowed for a drone varies with the exact position and drops sharply in line with runways and near the airports. We deliberately give no generic figure: the only value that counts is the one the map shows at the site's address, and a few hundred metres are enough to change it. Above the ceiling shown, or in sectors where the map forbids any flight, a specific agreement with air navigation services is required, following the procedure in our guide to drone missions inside an airport CTR.
The airport sites themselves. At Le Bourget, Dugny and Tremblay-en-France, the immediate surroundings of the runways are closed to ordinary flights, and the weeks of the International Paris Air Show — held in odd years, next edition 14 to 20 June 2027 — come with temporary restrictions published by NOTAM. The same applies on match or concert nights at the Stade de France, when temporary no-fly zones are routinely published: check the day before the flight, not when the quote is signed.
All of the 93 is a populated area: notification, préfecture and lead times
With almost continuous urban development, nearly every address in the département counts as a populated area. For a professional operator, this means a prior notification to the préfet before each flight or flight window, filed on AlphaTango at least 10 working days ahead, the lead time in force since 1 January 2026. In Seine-Saint-Denis, it is the préfecture in Bobigny, through its aviation activities desk, that receives it and may oppose or restrict the flight, especially on event days. The préfet issues no authorisation: silence counts as acknowledgement.
The notification is only one piece of the file. On top of it come the written consent of the owner or manager of the take-off point, a possible municipal order if part of a pavement must be closed off, the prevention plan on a company site, and a check of the zones where aerial data capture is prohibited (ZICAD) for any site close to a sensitive facility. In practice, allow three weeks between order and flight for a standard job, longer when an aviation agreement is needed near Le Bourget or Roissy. "Day after tomorrow" requests are only realistic on a private site already covered by an ongoing notification.
For everything related to Paris-region rules as a whole — P23, CTR, préfectures, contacts, special cases of major events — our Île-de-France edition of the regulation guide brings zones, paperwork and contacts together in a single document updated for 2026.
Stade de France, the basilica, the Olympic legacy: the sites that generate jobs
The Stade de France area. The roughly 80,000-seat stadium, the Olympic aquatic centre built opposite it for the 2024 Games and linked to it by a footbridge, and the surrounding business district form a cluster with recurring needs: inspection of roofs and plant decks, waterproofing checks, corporate imagery for operators and the companies based around them. These jobs are scheduled outside event days, early in the morning, with the venue operator acting as client and as manager of the ground exclusion zone.
The Saint-Denis basilica. Resting place of the kings of France and a cathedral, it is the subject of a project to rebuild its north spire, dismantled in the 19th century. On a listed monument of this rank, drones are used for photogrammetric surveys of masonry and roofs, for documenting condition before and during works, and for project communication. The project owner's consent and coordination with heritage services come before the flight plan.
The athletes' village and the Pleyel districts. Spread across Saint-Denis, Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine and L'Île-Saint-Denis, the former Olympic village has been converted into housing and offices. The managing agents, landlords and facility managers who inherit it need a baseline record of green roofs, solar panels and façades at the end of the one-year completion warranty: a dated, archived aerial survey then serves as a comparison document for the ten-year structural warranty.
The Natura 2000 parks. The "Sites de Seine-Saint-Denis" special protection area (FR1112013), designated in 2006, groups 1,157 hectares in 15 units across 19 municipalities, including the La Courneuve and Sausset parks, the Bondy forest and the Poudrerie park: it is the only multi-site Natura 2000 area in the European Union located entirely in a dense urban zone. The designation does not in itself ban overflights, but each park's rules apply and disturbing nesting birds must be avoided. A systematic review by Margarita Mulero-Pázmány and co-authors, published in 2017 in PLoS ONE, shows that wildlife reactions depend strongly on approach distance, flight path and season: the study supports scheduling surveys in these parks outside the nesting period, with the county park manager's consent.
Grand Paris Express: the project that keeps aerial monitoring busy until 2029
Saint-Denis Pleyel is the hub of the network: Grand Paris Express lines 15, 16 and 17 meet there, and the extended line 14 already serves a station. The timetable revised at the end of September 2026 puts line 16 between Saint-Denis Pleyel and Le Blanc-Mesnil, and line 17 to Le Bourget Aéroport, in autumn 2028, with line 16 to Noisy-Champs in autumn 2029. Until then, stations, ancillary structures, shafts and surface works remain under construction in some ten municipalities of the département — La Courneuve, Le Bourget, Le Blanc-Mesnil, Aulnay-sous-Bois, Sevran, Clichy-sous-Bois, Montfermeil, with Chelles on the Seine-et-Marne side.
Drones play three roles there: monthly progress monitoring by orthophoto and 3D model, volume measurement of spoil and material stockpiles, and documentation of the surroundings before and after works to prevent disputes with neighbours. The review by Youngjib Ham, Kevin K. Han, Jacob J. Lin and Mani Golparvar-Fard, published in 2016 in Visualization in Engineering, surveys drone-based construction monitoring methods and concludes that their value lies in visit frequency and comparison with the schedule or the building model, far more than in the flight itself: the review is a reminder that a one-off campaign does not replace a dated series.
Two consequences for a client in Seine-Saint-Denis. First, a notification covering a window of several weeks on the same site eases the paperwork of recurring monitoring. Second, a worksite close to Le Bourget or to the Roissy runway axis requires checking the map's ceiling for every new perimeter: a ventilation shaft 500 m from the previous one can fall into a more restrictive sector.
Method, lead times and 2026 prices
A job in the 93 follows a fixed sequence: zone analysis at the exact address (CTR ceiling, distance to airports, P23 edge, ZICAD, temporary restrictions linked to the stadium or the air show), choice of regulatory framework — the specific category with notification is the rule in dense areas —, ground preparation (owner's consent, private take-off area, exclusion zone, municipal order if needed), flight, processing and delivery. Our general guide to flying rules in Paris and Île-de-France complements this page for jobs that straddle the Paris boundary. Regulations in force in September 2026.
Ranges observed in Seine-Saint-Denis in 2026, excluding VAT:
| Service | Observed price (excl. VAT) |
| Half day (one-off roof inspection, corporate shoot) | €500 to €950 |
| Inspection and thermography of a residential or office building | €900 to €1,900 |
| Monthly construction monitoring (orthophoto + 3D model, per visit) | €700 to €1,400 |
| Photogrammetric survey of a listed monument | €1,800 to €4,500 |
| Setting up an aviation agreement near an airport (surcharge) | €200 to €500 |
These amounts cover administrative preparation, flight, processing and the report. For an exact figure, request a quote giving the exact address, the deliverable and the preferred period: the address sets the flight ceiling and therefore feasibility.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a drone map for Paris and Seine-Saint-Denis?
Yes: the Géoportail drone-restriction map is the official reference. It shows the P23 prohibited area over inner Paris and, for Seine-Saint-Denis, the maximum heights allowed under the Paris CTR, which vary with distance to Le Bourget and Roissy. Temporary restrictions (match nights, the Paris Air Show) must also be checked by NOTAM the day before the flight.
Can a professional drone fly near the Stade de France?
Yes, outside event days and within the height limits shown on the map, with a prior notification to the Seine-Saint-Denis préfecture at least 10 working days ahead and the venue operator's consent to take off and hold the exclusion zone. On match or concert nights, temporary no-fly zones are routinely published.