FAA Part 107: The Complete Guide to Getting Your Drone License

1. When you need Part 107

Part 107 — formally 14 CFR Part 107, the Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems rule — applies to every drone flight in the United States that is not covered by the narrow recreational exception. In practice that means any flight involving direct or indirect compensation and any flight that serves a business purpose.

The test most people apply is the wrong one. They ask whether somebody paid them for that specific flight. The FAA asks something broader: did the flight further a business purpose? If the answer is yes, it is a Part 107 operation, even if no invoice was ever issued and no money moved.

Flights that require Part 107 include:

• Monetized YouTube videos. Ad revenue, channel memberships, or affiliate links in the description all make the footage commercial.
• Sponsored content. A brand supplying a free drone, a discount code, or a fee in exchange for content is compensation.
• Real estate photos — including your own listings. Shooting a property you are selling yourself is still a flight in service of a transaction.
• Inspecting your own commercial property. A roof survey on a building your business owns saves your business money, which is exactly the indirect benefit the rule captures.
• Any work-related flight — construction progress shots, marketing footage for your employer, a wedding video, insurance documentation, agricultural scouting.

Two things people get wrong in the other direction: a hobbyist posting unmonetized clips stays recreational, and giving footage away for free to a friend's business does not. That second one is indirect compensation — the flight served the business.

2. Part 107 vs recreational

The two frameworks are not tiers of the same licence. They are separate legal paths with different qualifications, different privileges, and different obligations. You may hold both and switch between them flight by flight — but you must decide before you take off which set of rules the flight is under.

The registration row is the one that catches people out most often. Under the recreational exception, a drone under 250 g does not need to be registered. Under Part 107, every aircraft must be registered no matter how light it is — so a 249 g DJI Mini that needs nothing for a Sunday flight needs a registration number the moment the flight is commercial. Our drone weight checker shows both answers side by side for popular models.

3. The exam

The qualification is the Unmanned Aircraft General — Small (UAG) knowledge test, taken in person at an FAA-approved PSI testing center.

The knowledge areas the FAA samples from are fixed and public:

• Applicable regulations — Part 107 itself: operating limits, the remote pilot in command's responsibilities, waivers, and accident reporting.
• Airspace classification and operating requirements, plus flight restrictions. This is the heaviest section and includes reading sectional charts.
• Aviation weather sources and the effects of weather on small unmanned aircraft — METARs, TAFs, density altitude, and micrometeorology near obstacles.
• Loading and performance — weight and balance, center of gravity, and how payload affects endurance.
• Operations — crew resource management, radio phraseology, emergency procedures, aeronautical decision-making, physiology, and maintenance.

Bring a valid government-issued photo ID. The testing center supplies the supplement booklet with the charts and figures the questions refer to; you cannot bring your own materials. Your result is available at the center as soon as you finish, along with a knowledge test report listing the codes for anything you missed.

4. How to apply

The process runs through IACRA, the FAA's Integrated Airman Certification and Rating Application system. The order matters:

Two practical notes. First, create the FTN first: applicants who skip this step end up unable to link their exam result cleanly to their application and have to sort it out with the registry afterwards. Second, the temporary certificate is a real certificate — you do not have to wait for the plastic card before taking paid work, though you must carry the temporary document (or later the card) while operating.

Once you are certificated, remember the aircraft side of compliance. Every drone you fly commercially needs its own registration, marked on the exterior, and Remote ID broadcast. See the registration guide and the Remote ID guide.

5. Renewal and staying current

The Remote Pilot Certificate itself does not expire. What lapses is your currency: to keep exercising Part 107 privileges you must complete recurrent training every 24 calendar months.

Since 2021 this is free online training, not an exam. The course is ALC-677, "Part 107 Small UAS Recurrent", hosted on FAASafety.gov. There is no proctor, no testing center visit, and no fee. You work through the modules, complete the knowledge checks, and download the completion certificate — keep that PDF with your pilot documents, because it is your proof of currency.

Two variations worth knowing. If you hold a current Part 61 pilot certificate with a valid flight review, you take ALC-451 instead of the initial UAG knowledge test to become a remote pilot in the first place, then apply through IACRA in the normal way. And if you let your 24-month currency lapse, you do not lose the certificate — you simply may not fly under Part 107 until you complete the training, which you can do the same day.

6. What Part 107 lets you do

The certificate is not just paperwork that legalizes paid work. It unlocks operational capability that recreational flyers simply do not have:

• Fly for compensation. Any commercial engagement, from a $150 real estate shoot to a utility inspection contract.
• Operate in controlled airspace with more options. Both frameworks use LAANC for routine authorizations, but Part 107 pilots can also request further coordination when an automated LAANC approval is not available, and can apply for airspace authorizations above the published ceiling.
• Apply for waivers. The FAA can waive many Part 107 operating rules — night operations, operations over people, beyond visual line of sight, higher altitudes, multiple aircraft from one control station. Recreational flyers cannot apply for any waiver.
• Operate over people under Categories 1–4 when the aircraft qualifies. The category depends on takeoff weight, injury-severity testing by the manufacturer, exposed rotating parts, and Remote ID. Category 1 covers aircraft at or under 0.55 lb (250 g) with no laceration hazard; Categories 2 and 3 depend on manufacturer declarations; Category 4 requires an airworthiness certificate. Details are in our flying over people guide.
• Fly at night with anti-collision lighting visible for three statute miles, and having completed the recurrent training that covers night operations.

Part 107 does not override property rights, state and local privacy law, National Park Service rules, or the standing prohibitions around Washington, D.C. The certificate governs how you use the airspace, not whether the landowner underneath consents.

7. Training options

You can pass the UAG test on free material alone. Plenty of people do. You can also pay for a course and save yourself time. Both are legitimate; here is the honest picture.

The free route. The FAA publishes everything you need at no cost: the Remote Pilot — Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Study Guide, the Airman Certification Standards for the UAG test, sample question sets, the Aeronautical Chart User's Guide, and the relevant Advisory Circulars. Add the free courses on FAASafety.gov and you have a complete syllabus. Expect roughly 15 to 25 hours of study if you are starting without aviation background, most of it on airspace and charts.

The paid route. Commercial prep courses generally run $59 to $299. What you are buying is structure — video lessons in a sensible order, chart-reading walkthroughs, and large banks of practice questions with explanations. Most reputable providers include a pass guarantee, typically refunding the course or covering your retest fee if you fail after completing the material. Read the specific terms: guarantees usually require you to have finished every module and scored above a threshold on the practice exams.

Which to choose is mostly about how you learn. If you are comfortable working through official documents and enjoy the chart work, the free path is genuinely sufficient. If you want the airspace material explained on video and a practice-test engine to grind, a course is a reasonable $100 to save several hours of confusion.

One last warning about the market: nobody can sell you a Part 107 certificate, expedite the FAA's vetting, or take the test on your behalf. Any service claiming otherwise is not offering training. The only mandatory payment in this whole process is the $175 test fee at the PSI center.