PRODUCTIONS WITH A SMILE
Drone filming permits — Ibiza the whole island is inside the airport’s airspace.
Ibiza is small. Its CTR is bigger — the AENA Eivissa controlled traffic region covers the entire island, which means every commercial drone flight, from a clifftop at Cala d’Hort to a salt flat at Ses Salines, needs a filed AESA authorisation before the motors spin. Municipal permit, creative workaround, informal permission — none of them substitute. We file AESA, coordinate AENA, and get your pilot in the air. Lead time: 20 working days minimum, 25 in peak season.
Every producer we talk to has heard a version of the same bad advice: check with the local town hall. The town hall is not the problem. The problem is that the airport’s CTR does not stop at the runway perimeter — it covers the whole island, and AENA coordinates airspace that your AESA application has to formally clear before you fly. Stack on top of that: Es Vedrà is a protected no-fly zone with no workaround, Ses Salines closes Apr–Jun for flamingo breeding and does not reopen early, and the coastal band below the tide line is Demarcación de Costas en Illes Balears jurisdiction, not the Ajuntament’s. A permit application that misses any one of these layers arrives on shoot day unsigned.
What we handle end-to-end
AESA Authorisation
We confirm your pilot’s AESA operator number, verify the UAS category (open, specific or certified) and route the correct authorisation — STS-ES-01 or PDRA-ES03 for commercial coastal work. Specific-category filing is required for virtually all commercial fashion and advertising shoots in Ibiza. We handle the application, risk assessment and follow-up.
CTR Clearance — AENA Coordination
Because the AENA Eivissa CTR covers the entire island, every flight needs AESA authorisation that references AENA coordination. We manage the AENA Ibiza airspace filing in parallel with AESA, not as an afterthought. Missing this layer is the most common reason drone shoots stall on the morning of shoot day.
Protected-area permits — Ses Salines & coastal
Parc Natural de Ses Salines adds a separate permit layer on top of AESA. Standard lead time is 15 working days; Apr–Jun peak adds further time due to the flamingo breeding closure. The Demarcación de Costas en Illes Balears covers the intertidal band on any coastal drone work. Neither authority accepts the AESA filing as proxy.
Talent Release for Aerial Footage
Commercial drone footage used in broadcast, digital-out-of-home or paid social requires talent release language that specifically covers aerial capture. We flag this at brief stage — not at edit. Overseas pilots without AESA-recognised certification can operate under a licensed Spanish UAS operator entity; we can provide that as part of the package.
Recent work
How we work — permit-first
File
AESA specific-category application submitted with operator certificate, UAS registration, flight plan and risk assessment. AENA Eivissa coordination request filed in parallel — not after. Parc Natural de Ses Salines dossier lodged if Ses Salines is in scope. Peak-season buffer built in from day one; 25 working days is the honest worst case for Apr–Jun shoots.
Align
Ground-permit stack aligned with air permit. Ajuntament d’Eivissa and Costas filings for any coastal or protected-area frames. AESA status confirmed (standard category) or escalation flagged (specific or certified). Any protected-area exclusion zone — Es Vedrà, Tagomago, Cala d’Hort marine band — formally noted on the shot list with confirmed alternatives.
Brief
AESA authorisation number on file. AENA coordination reference issued. Guardia Civil notified for any road or beach-access window. Pilot receives the exact GPS bounding box of the cleared flight zone — not the creative mood-board version. Call sheet reflects confirmed permit windows, not aspirational ones.
Wrap
Flight logs retained per AESA requirement. Every permit file PDF’d and emailed to the agency within 48h of the last shoot day. Carbon log on request. Archive pack includes all AESA, AENA and Costas documents.
Ibiza drone zones
Ses Salines at first light, the flamingo silhouettes still on the water before the permit window opens. Cala d’Hort with Es Vedrà in frame — you can shoot the cliff face and the lookout road; the islet itself is outside the cleared flight envelope. The San Antonio Bay corridor at golden hour, crowd-safety parameter set. Tagomago offshore, protected and complex, but not impossible with the right filing and enough lead time.
| AIRSPACE | 100% AENA Eivissa CTR — no unconstrained airspace on the island |
| PERMIT LEAD TIME | AESA standard: 20 WD · Peak season (Apr–Jun): 25 WD · Parc Natural: 15 WD (runs in parallel) |
| SEASONAL RESTRICTION | Ses Salines Apr–Jun bird-breeding closure (flamingo nesting) — non-negotiable |
| NEAREST AIRPORT | AENA Ibiza (IBZ) — CTR reference point for all airspace filings |
If you’re landing on this page, someone has already told you that Ibiza is complicated for drones. They’re right, but not for the reason they probably gave you. An ibiza drone permit is not hard because the rules are obscure — it’s hard because the whole island sits inside the AENA Eivissa controlled traffic region (CTR), which means every commercial drone flight, regardless of where on the island you’re shooting, requires a formal AESA (Agencia Estatal de Seguridad Aérea) specific-category authorisation that references AENA airspace coordination. A town-hall permission slip does not substitute. A recreational filing does not cover a client campaign. An unsigned AESA authorisation on shoot day grounds the drone. The lead time is 20 working days minimum, 25 in peak season — and that clock starts when the complete application lands with AESA, not when you email us.
Ses Salines sits inside the Parc Natural de Ses Salines, with its own permit layer on top of AESA — and a flamingo breeding closure that runs April through June and does not negotiate. Es Vedrà is a protected no-fly zone: the lookout road and cliff face are shootable from the ground with a separate permit, but the drone envelope stops before the islet. The San Antonio sunset corridor requires a crowd-safety assessment. Tagomago has protected-islet restrictions. The coastal band below the tide line is Demarcación de Costas en Illes Balears — not the Ajuntament d’Eivissa. For the Cala d’Hort marine band and other protected frames, we work from our Ibiza location library — every entry logged against its permit and exclusion status. We file all of it, or we tell you honestly which frames to scout the coastal frames that stay in the cleared envelope. An aesa drone permit ibiza that covers one layer but misses another is still a grounded drone. The full Ibiza film-permit desk covers the ground-permit stack in full.
Ibiza and Berlin under one contract: if your campaign crosses cities, we file simultaneously. The Berlin drone-permit desk (Bezirksamt aviation authority, BBFC where applicable) is handled by the same team, same week as the Ibiza filing. One producer, one invoice, two bureaucracies handled in parallel. For the Ibiza permit hub upstream, see the full Ibiza film-permit desk; for the full production picture, see full Ibiza production services.
Questions we get a lot
Why is all of Ibiza inside a CTR, and what does that mean for my drone shoot?
A Controlled Traffic Region (CTR) is the cylinder of regulated airspace centred on an airport that protects arriving and departing traffic. The AENA Eivissa CTR is large enough to cover the entire island — including the south coast at Cala d’Hort, the north at Portinatx, and the salt flats at Ses Salines. Every commercial drone operation inside a CTR requires a formal AESA specific-category authorisation that references AENA coordination — not just an operator registration. There is no patch of Ibiza where you can fly commercially without filing. Budget 20 working days for AESA clearance as your honest starting point; 25 working days is the safe figure for the April–June peak window.
What AESA category applies to my commercial drone shoot in Ibiza — open, specific or certified?
Most commercial fashion and advertising drone shoots in Ibiza fall under the specific category, requiring either an STS-ES (Standard Scenario) authorisation or a PDRA-ES route filed by the operator. Open category is limited to recreational or genuinely low-risk operations with strict weight, altitude and proximity limits — a commercial campaign with a DJI Inspire 3 or similar professional-grade UAS typically requires specific-category filing. Your pilot or operator needs a current AESA operator number and a UAS registration on the Spanish registry before the application lands. We confirm all of this at brief stage, not on the morning of the shoot.
Es Vedrà is on our shot list — can we fly a drone there?
Not over the islet itself. Es Vedrà is a protected natural space with an active no-fly restriction; drone incursion into the defined exclusion zone risks permit revocation for the entire shoot. What is achievable: a drone operating from the Cala d’Hort lookout road or the cliff terraces on the Ibiza mainland side can frame Es Vedrà in the background within a cleared flight envelope that stops short of the islet boundary. We define the GPS bounding box precisely. The rock features in the shot; the drone stays on the mainland side of the exclusion boundary.
What is the Ses Salines bird-breeding window and how does it affect our dates?
The Parc Natural de Ses Salines imposes an access and overflight restriction during flamingo breeding season, which typically runs April through June — exact dates shift year to year and should be confirmed with the Consell d’Eivissa environmental office at brief stage. During this window, large sections of the salt pans are closed to both ground access and drone overflight, and the restriction does not bend for commercial productions. Options: book pre-April and allow 25 working days lead time, plan alternative locations for Ses Salines frames, or move the Ses Salines day to July onwards. We will tell you this at brief stage.
Can we fly at night or over groups of people in Ibiza?
Both are possible but require elevated authorisation beyond a standard STS-ES. Night operations require a specific-category authorisation with a dedicated night-operations risk assessment. Operations over uninvolved persons require a crowd-safety plan that may need to be co-signed by the Guardia Civil or local authority. Each typically adds 5–10 working days to the lead time if the AESA reviewer requests a revised risk assessment. San Antonio Bay in particular has crowd-management complexity — the sunset corridor draws significant public presence and the bay perimeter is closely monitored. Build these into the brief early.
What is the realistic timeline for a combined drone and ground shoot permit package in Ibiza?
The AESA filing drives the critical path at 20 working days minimum (25 working days peak season). Everything else fits inside that window on a well-structured brief. Ajuntament d’Eivissa municipal permit for ground occupation: 7–10 working days. Parc Natural de Ses Salines: 15 working days standard, 25 working days Apr–Jun. Costas for intertidal coastal work: 10 or more working days. Guardia Civil road notification: 5–7 working days. The scenario that extends this is a Ses Salines shoot in April — the Parc Natural and AESA timelines both hit 25 working days simultaneously with no compressible buffer. Start of pre-production at T-21 is the minimum; T-28 is safer for any multi-location campaign combining drone and protected-area ground work.
What data retention and flight-log obligations apply after the shoot?
AESA regulations require the remote pilot to maintain a flight log for each operation, including date, location, UAS serial number, flight duration, and any incidents. Minimum retention period under current Spanish UAS regulation is 3 years. We archive all permit documents, AESA authorisation references, AENA coordination records and flight logs for 5 years and provide the full archive pack to the production company within 48h of wrap. If a broadcast or digital platform requires proof of legal overflight for content clearance, this archive pack is the supporting document.
Send us a brief
Tell us the dates, the drone model and the location. We’ll come back with what’s filable, what timeline is realistic, and what needs to move off the shot list.
We keep everything under NDA by default.
