Part 107 Drone License: What It Costs, How to Get It, and What It Still Does Not Let You Do

The most expensive misunderstanding in American drone flying is that Part 107 is about money. It is not. A real estate agent photographing their own listing takes no payment and still needs the certificate, because the FAA cares about the purpose of the flight rather than the invoice attached to it. Fly for any reason other than your own enjoyment and you are operating commercially in the eyes of the rule.

The short answer: Part 107 is the FAA’s remote pilot certificate for non-recreational drone flight. It costs about $175 to sit the knowledge test, takes most people a few weeks of study, never expires, and requires free online recurrent training every 24 calendar months. It does not authorize flight beyond visual line of sight.

Do you actually need a Part 107 certificate?

You need it if your flight is not purely recreational, and that line catches far more people than they expect. Mapping your own farm, inspecting your own roof, posting monetized video, or shooting a friend’s wedding for free all sit outside the recreational exception, because each one furthers a business or professional purpose.

Purely recreational flyers need the TRUST certificate instead, which is free, takes about twenty minutes, cannot be failed, and must be carried when you fly. TRUST is not a license and confers none of Part 107’s privileges.

The practical advice most working pilots give is to stop trying to reason about the boundary. If there is any prospect that a flight serves a purpose beyond your own enjoyment, hold the certificate and stop thinking about it.

What it costs and how long it takes

Budget about $175 for the knowledge test, which you pay to the testing center rather than to the FAA, and nothing for the certificate application itself. Study materials range from free FAA publications to paid courses running a few hundred dollars, and none of them are required.

Most candidates study for two to four weeks. The FAA’s own materials are free and complete, though they are written like regulatory documents rather than like teaching, which is why paid courses sell well.

Be careful with cost figures you find online, including older DroneXL pages we are in the process of retiring. This fee has changed more than once, and guides quoting $150 or $160 are describing a price that no longer exists. Confirm the current number with the testing center when you book.

How to get it, step by step

Five steps stand between you and the certificate, and the sequence matters because the FAA identifier you create at the start is what the whole process hangs on.

1. Confirm eligibility. You must be at least 16, able to read, speak, write, and understand English, and in a physical and mental condition to fly safely.
2. Get an FAA Tracking Number. Register in IACRA, the FAA’s certification system, and generate the FTN before you book anything.
3. Book and sit the Unmanned Aircraft General knowledge test. It runs at an approved testing center, takes two hours, and you bring government-issued photo ID.
4. Apply in IACRA using your exam report. The TSA runs a security background check at this stage.
5. Receive the certificate. A temporary certificate is available quickly once vetting clears, and the permanent card arrives by mail.

The TSA check is the step most likely to add time you did not plan for, and it is the one step nobody can expedite.

What the test actually covers

The knowledge test is 60 multiple-choice questions with a 70 percent pass mark, and very little of it is about drones. Airspace classification and sectional chart reading dominate, followed by weather theory, aircraft loading and performance, emergency procedures, radio phraseology, and the regulations themselves.

Candidates who fail almost always fail on charts. Reading a sectional is an unfamiliar skill for someone who came to drones through photography rather than aviation, and it rewards deliberate practice more than any other section. Spend your study time disproportionately there.

Keeping it current

Recurrent training is a free online course you complete every 24 calendar months, not a second proctored exam. The remote pilot certificate itself does not expire. What lapses is your currency, and flying non-recreationally without current training puts you outside the rule even though the plastic card in your wallet still looks valid.

This is the single most common piece of outdated advice in circulation, and DroneXL published some of it. An earlier version of this page on our own site told readers to budget for a recurrent exam at a testing center, which is what the original rule required before it changed in 2021. Any guide still describing a paid recurrent test, ours included until this one replaced it, is describing a process the FAA retired years ago.

Pilots holding a Part 61 certificate with a current flight review have their own path, completing an online course rather than the initial knowledge test.

What Part 107 lets you do, and what still needs a waiver

Part 107 authorizes daylight and night flight within visual line of sight, below 400 feet above ground level, in Class G airspace without permission and in controlled airspace with an authorization that usually arrives through LAANC in seconds. Night flight stopped requiring a waiver in 2021, provided you have done the updated training and your aircraft carries anti-collision lighting visible for three statute miles.

The 400-foot ceiling has an exception worth knowing: you may fly higher within 400 feet of a structure, which is what makes tower and high-rise inspection legal (the detail that catches people out).

Operations over people fall into four categories under the rule, keyed to the aircraft and its injury potential rather than to the pilot. Flight beyond visual line of sight, from a moving vehicle in some circumstances, and several other operations still require a waiver, applied for through the FAA’s DroneZone portal and granted case by case.

Remote ID applies separately and independently of Part 107. Most drones that require registration must broadcast identification, either built in, through a broadcast module, or by flying inside an FAA-recognized identification area.

What to watch

Part 108 is the change that matters, and it is close. The FAA published its proposed rule for routine BVLOS flight in August 2025, a presidential executive order gave the agency 240 days to finalize it, and that clock ran out on February 1, 2026. The draft final rule has been under White House review since July 10, with the Transportation Department signaling in early August that the wait is nearly over.

When it publishes, the economics of American drone work change. Every delivery network in the country currently flies on exemptions and case-by-case approvals, and a routine BVLOS path converts bespoke permissions into a standard operating category. Whether Part 108 sits alongside Part 107 or eventually absorbs parts of it is the open question for anyone deciding what to study this year.

The equipage fight is where to watch for trouble. The FAA reopened the comment file in late January 2026 for two weeks on ADS-B Out, electronic conspicuity, and detect-and-avoid, the requirements that decide whether routine BVLOS is affordable for a small operator or only for a funded fleet.