Published Date: mai 11, 2026
Author: HANetf
Drones are one of the fastest growing categories of defence spending. Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East have shown that drones are now central to modern warfare, both as weapons and as threats that need to be detected, jammed or destroyed.
The US has understood this for some time. But the FY2027 budget request suggests a much more urgent effort to ensure it stays ahead in both drone technology and counter-drone technology.
The Department of War’s FY2027 budget overview includes $53.6bn for “Drone Dominance”, including $39.2bn for autonomous systems procurement, domestic production capacity and advanced capabilities, and $14.4bn for counter-unmanned systems development and deployment. That Pentagon-wide figure gives the best sense of the overall scale. We can also look at what is being proposed by individual branches, where drone and counter-drone spending appears in more specific budget lines.
Branch-level drone and counter-drone examples
Source: US Army FY2027 President’s Budget Highlights; Navy FY2027 Budget Request; AirForceTimes, Pentagon Comptroller documents For illustrative purposes only. Note: These branch-level figures should not be added to the Pentagon-wide total; they are likely components of the broader Drone Dominance request, rather than separate spending on top of it.
The Army budget proposal lists Counter Small Unmanned Aerial System as a $1.9bn key capability investment and separately identifies a $994m procurement line for production. The Navy says it is committing $2bn to counter-unmanned systems. The Air Force is requesting roughly $2.4bn for Collaborative Combat Aircraft. These are autonomous “loyal wingman” drones designed to operate alongside crewed fighters such as the F-35.
The scale of the budget vs pureplay drone market revenues
The scale is striking when compared to drone revenues. The Pentagon’s $53.6bn Drone Dominance request is more than 16x larger than the combined estimated 2027 revenue of the below select group of listed North American drone-focused companies.
Source: Bloomberg; 29.4.2026. For illustrative purposes only.
The entirety of the US drone and counter-drone budget will not flow directly to these companies. A large share will likely go to major defence primes and privately held defence-tech companies. Even so, a small fraction of the proposed US drone budget could be material for specialist listed drone companies, particularly those already selling into defence, government, public safety, infrastructure or allied military markets.
Drone UCITS ETF (ticker: DRON) provides exposure to companies positioned to benefit from growing demand for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) across three structural pillars: military and defence, civil government and public safety, and commercial and industrial adoption.
The ETF tracks a rules-based index designed to identify companies materially involved in the development, manufacture and enabling technologies of drone platforms, including autonomy software, navigation systems, sensors and propulsion components.
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