Amazon targets rollout of Prime Air drone deliveries to nearly 500 U.S. cities by year‑end

AMZN said its Prime Air drone delivery service will expand to nearly 500 U.S. cities and towns by the end of 2026, roughly a sixfold increase from its current footprint. Prime Air operates today in 11 metro areas across seven states, with each site covering about 175 square miles, and launches in the Chicago, Atlanta, Cleveland, Syracuse and Boise metros are queued next.

The service has completed hundreds of thousands of deliveries so far this year, and Prime Air vice president David Carbon told employees the division expects to reach one million deliveries in 2026. Drones are rated for packages up to five pounds, a limit Amazon says still covers more than 60% of its most commonly ordered products, with delivery targeted in as little as 30 minutes. Prime members pay nothing on orders of $50 or more and $2.99 below that threshold.

The economics are the real subject here. Drone delivery only pays if it removes cost from the last mile rather than adding a parallel network, and the five-pound cap plus the $50 free-delivery threshold are both levers aimed at steering volume toward the parcels where a drone beats a van. A sixfold site expansion is how Amazon finds out whether that holds outside a handful of favorable pilot geographies.

Execution risk sits mostly with regulators and with density. Each new metro requires FAA authorization and workable airspace coordination, and suburban layouts vary in how many addresses a single site can economically reach. Watch the pace of new metro launches against the year-end target, whether the one million delivery figure is met, and any disclosure of cost per delivery, which Amazon has so far not provided and which is what would settle the question.

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