FAA Part 107 Exam Overview

What the Part 107 Certificate Is

The FAA Part 107 Remote Pilot Certificate is the federal credential required to fly a drone (a small unmanned aircraft system, or sUAS) commercially in the United States. Title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations (14 CFR) Part 107, titled Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems, governs commercial operation of aircraft weighing less than 55 pounds including everything on board at takeoff (payload, batteries, gimbals, cameras).

The rule was finalized August 29, 2016. Two amendments dominate the modern test: the Operations Over People and Night Operations final rule (effective April 21, 2021) and the Remote Identification (Remote ID) mandate, fully enforced as of March 16, 2024. Memorize these dates and the 55-pound ceiling — both appear as direct recall questions.

Who Needs the Certificate

You need a Remote Pilot Certificate for any commercial purpose — meaning you are compensated or the flight furthers a business. The recreational carve-out (the Exception for Limited Recreational Operations, often called the TRUST pathway) covers only flights flown strictly for fun.

Trap: Posting footage on a monetized YouTube channel, even one video, is a commercial operation requiring Part 107. The FAA judges intent, not the size of the paycheck.

The Knowledge Test at a Glance

The test is officially the Unmanned Aircraft General – Small (UAG) exam. The headline logistics below are the single most-tested facts in this chapter.

The Five Content Areas

Questions are drawn from five weighted areas. Knowing the weights tells you exactly where to invest study hours.

Worked example: If your weakest topic is Loading & Performance (≈7-11%, only 4-7 questions), even missing all of them still leaves room to pass — but missing half of Operations (21-27 questions) almost certainly fails you. Allocate study time to the largest, not the hardest, bucket first.

Numbers the Exam Tests Constantly

The exam loves exact regulatory thresholds. Commit these to memory because they appear as direct recall questions and as the basis for scenario questions:

• Maximum altitude: 400 feet above ground level (AGL), or within 400 feet of a structure if flying above 400 feet near that structure.
• Maximum groundspeed: 100 mph (87 knots).
• Minimum flight visibility: 3 statute miles from the control station.
• Cloud clearance: stay 500 feet below and 2,000 feet horizontally from clouds.
• Operating hours: daylight or civil twilight (30 minutes before sunrise / after sunset) with anti-collision lighting visible for 3 statute miles; night operations are allowed without a waiver once the remote pilot has current training and the aircraft carries the required lighting.
• Registration threshold: any sUAS flown commercially must be registered, and all drones over 0.55 pounds (250 grams) must be registered regardless of use.

When a scenario gives you a wind, a visibility, and an altitude, your job is usually to compare those numbers against the limits above and decide whether the flight is legal. Memorizing the thresholds turns those questions into quick arithmetic.

Test Day Logistics

1. Arrive early with a valid government-issued photo ID; PSI verifies your identity before seating you.
2. No phones, smartwatches, notes, or study materials enter the testing room — they go in a locker.
3. You receive the FAA-CT-8080-2 testing supplement: sectional chart excerpts, METAR/TAF reports, legends, and figures referenced by question numbers.
4. The testing center provides scratch paper or a marker board.
5. You get a preliminary pass/fail result on screen immediately; the official Airman Knowledge Test Report (AKTR) posts within days.

After You Pass

1. File an FAA Airman Certificate Application in IACRA (or paper FAA Form 8710-13).
2. Clear an automatic TSA security background check.
3. Receive a temporary certificate valid for 120 days while the plastic card is mailed.
4. Your Remote Pilot Certificate never expires, but its privileges lapse unless you complete free recurrent online training every 24 calendar months via FAASafety.gov. The new 24-month clock starts from the month you finish training, not your old expiration date.

How This Chapter Connects to the Rest of the Guide

Everything in the four content chapters that follow ties back to the logistics above. Regulations chapters expand the numeric limits; the airspace chapter teaches the sectional-chart and class boundaries the supplement booklet quizzes you on; the weather chapter drills the METAR and TAF decoding that appears in roughly one in seven questions; and the operations chapter covers crew resource management and aeronautical decision-making, the single biggest scoring area. Treat this overview as your map: know the 60-question, 70%, 120-minute, 55-pound, 400-foot anchors cold, and the rest of the guide fills in the detail behind each of them.