FAA plans to tax rocket launches
April 28, 2026
The Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) is proposing that satellite payloads carried into – and from – space should be taxed.
The proposal is described by the FAA as the need to earn revenue from commercial launches and re-entries. The concept was published by the FAA on April 22nd and talks of a segment in US President Donald Trump’s ‘One Big Beautiful Bill Act’ itself published in July 2025.
The Bill outlined the start of collecting fees in 2026 “for each launch or re-entry carried out under a license or permit issued” and “directed the Secretary of Transportation to collect and deposit the fees in a newly established Office of Commercial Space Transportation Launch and Re-entry Licensing and Permitting Fund located in the Treasury of the United States”.
The Act “requires FAA to assess the user fees based on the weight of the payload on each launch or re-entry carried out under a license or permit issued pursuant to 51 U.S.C. 50904 during 2026 or a subsequent year. For each launch or re-entry, vehicle operators are currently required to provide FAA with the weight of the payload at least 60 days prior to each mission,” stated the FAA announcement.
Pierre Lionnet (Research and MD at Eurospace) says the FAA will start by taxing 25 cents per pound of payload at launch gradually increasing up to $1.50 by 2033. The fee structure will be capped at $200,000 per mission and after 2033 will track the Consumer Price Index.
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