FAA Checkride Pass Rates by Certificate (2026 Data)

What does the FAA actually publish on checkride pass rates?

The FAA publishes airman certification data through its U.S. Civil Airmen Statistics program, which AOPA's coverage of that reporting describes as reporting pass rates on the issuance of specific certificates every year. That program's primary output is certificates and ratings issued, a count of successful outcomes, not a standardized, per-certificate practical-test pass/fail table that every certificate is tracked in identically.

AOPA's reporting confirms the FAA does report pass-rate figures for some certificates as part of this program, but the underlying FAA pages block automated retrieval, and we were unable to independently pull the current-year source tables ourselves during this review cycle. Rather than reproduce a number we could not verify firsthand, the figures below are attributed explicitly to AOPA's confirmed reporting on the FAA data, with the year each figure applies to stated plainly. Where neither the FAA's public page nor AOPA's reporting isolates a certificate cleanly, the table says so instead of guessing.

Summary table: what's known versus what isn't

Two rows in that table are deliberately imprecise, and that's the point: a table that manufactures a clean-looking percentage for the Instrument Rating or Commercial Pilot checkride would be less accurate than one that says plainly no such standalone number exists in a form we could verify, while still surfacing the comparative claim AOPA does make about Commercial Pilot.

What does the Private Pilot pass-rate figure actually tell you?

The 78% figure AOPA reports for 2021 is a full-year pass rate on private pilot certificate issuance, not a first-attempt rate, AOPA's reporting does not state whether retests are excluded, and treats the number as an overall outcome rate. The same article notes a 73.9% figure for 2014, which shows the rate moving within roughly a 4-point band rather than a single fixed number over time.

AOPA's own analysis cautions against reading too much into year-to-year movement on its own: the article notes "an interesting correlation" between active airline hiring and lower pass rates, reasoning that when airlines pull experienced CFIs away, flight schools are left with less-experienced instructors teaching students, which can drag pass rates down, not applicant preparation alone. Separately, AOPA notes that the long-term shift toward Designated Pilot Examiners conducting the large majority of tests (rather than FAA inspectors) means comparing pass rates across that transition "no longer holds much validity for analysis", a caveat about comparing eras, not a stated cause of any single year's rate. Treat the 78% figure as a snapshot of one year's outcomes, not a fixed target or a current-year guarantee.

What does the CFI pass-rate figure actually tell you?

AOPA's reporting describes CFI-initial pass rates as historically running "just shy of the 70 percent rate," with recent years at the time of that 2022 article approaching the private pilot rate rather than trailing it significantly. That phrasing is intentionally imprecise in the source material itself, AOPA did not publish a single exact CFI percentage tied to one specific year the way it did for private pilot, so we're not manufacturing false precision by narrowing it further here.

The CFI initial checkride is widely regarded as one of the most rigorous practical tests in the certification path, since it requires the applicant to both fly to Commercial Pilot standards and teach each maneuver and ground subject on demand. A pass rate in the high-60s to low-70s percent range is consistent with that added teaching-demonstration burden, though AOPA's reporting doesn't attribute the rate to any single cause.

Why isn't there a clean Instrument Rating pass rate?

Because neither the FAA's public Civil Airmen Statistics page nor AOPA's reporting on it, the two sources we checked against this page's sourcing standard, isolates the Instrument Rating practical test as a standalone, independently verifiable figure. We looked specifically for this number and could not confirm one, and we are not going to guess at the mechanism behind that gap (for example, how the FAA's certification records categorize an added rating versus an initial certificate) without a source we can cite for it.

If you see a specific "instrument rating pass rate" cited elsewhere, ask what it's actually built from: is it drawn from an isolated FAA table, backed out of a broader multi-rating aggregate, or simply estimated? Without that methodology stated, treat the number skeptically. See the Instrument Rating checkride requirements page for what is fully sourced about that checkride's actual content and structure.

What does AOPA actually say about the Commercial Pilot pass rate?

AOPA does not publish a bare Commercial Pilot percentage the way it does for Private Pilot, but its reporting is not silent on the certificate either. AOPA's article states that "the pass rates for private pilot certificates tend to be a little bit lower than that for commercial certificates," and that both certificates have stayed in a relatively stable range over the years it covers.

That comparative claim is real and citable: Commercial Pilot applicants pass at a somewhat higher rate than Private Pilot applicants, per AOPA, even though neither the FAA's public Civil Airmen Statistics page nor AOPA's reporting isolates an exact Commercial Pilot percentage or states the specific data year behind that comparison. Other aviation sites publish specific Commercial Pilot percentages, but we could not trace those numbers to a source that meets this page's bar: a citation we can link to that states its own methodology (data year, whether retests are counted, and how the certificate is isolated from adjacent categories).

Rather than reproduce an unverified bare figure, this section will be updated the moment MockDPE Editorial Team can confirm an exact Commercial Pilot pass-rate percentage against either a directly-accessible FAA table or an authoritative secondary source that documents its methodology. See the Commercial Pilot checkride requirements page for everything that is fully sourced about that checkride today.

How current is this data, and why does it lag?

The most specific figures in this article: 78% for private pilot in 2021, and the CFI range described in a 2022 article: are several years old, and that gap is intentional rather than an oversight. FAA Civil Airmen Statistics reporting is compiled annually from certification records, and the specific per-certificate figures cited above come from AOPA's published analysis of that reporting rather than a live FAA dashboard we can refresh in real time. We link the FAA's own statistics page above so you can check for more recent tables directly, but we did not present current-year figures we could not personally verify by fetching and reading the underlying FAA tables ourselves.

If you find a more recent FAA table with a directly verifiable pass rate for the Instrument Rating, Commercial Pilot, or an updated Private Pilot / CFI figure, email [email protected]. This page will be updated with the new number and its source, not left stale.

What should you actually do with pass-rate data as an applicant?

Use it as a rough calibration of how demanding a checkride is on average, not as a predictor of your own outcome. AOPA's reporting points to a factor outside your control: a correlation between active airline hiring pulling experienced CFIs away and dips in pass rates, as less-experienced instructors take over training: so a certificate with a lower published pass rate isn't a signal you're more likely to fail, and a higher one isn't a guarantee you'll pass. The single biggest lever you control is how thoroughly you've prepared against your certificate's actual ACS standards before you ever sit down with a DPE.

If you're pursuing the Instrument Rating specifically, the pass-rate data above is one of the least useful numbers to focus on precisely because it doesn't exist in isolated form, what does exist is the Instrument Rating ACS itself, which tells you exactly which Knowledge, Risk Management, and Skill elements a DPE will evaluate. See the Instrument Rating checkride requirements page for the full breakdown, and MockDPE's pricing to start practicing against those exact standards with an AI examiner.

If you're preparing for the Private Pilot, Commercial Pilot, or CFI checkride, MockDPE does not currently offer a practice product for those certificates. This page exists to give you honest data regardless of which checkride you're studying for, not to funnel every reader toward a product built for a different rating.

Practice Questions

1. A pass rate of 78% for a given certificate and year: does that figure, as reported by AOPA, distinguish first-attempt applicants from those retesting after a Notice of Disapproval? What does that ambiguity mean for how you should interpret the number?

2. If a source cites a specific Instrument Rating checkride pass rate but doesn't say whether that figure comes from an isolated FAA table or an estimate built from a broader aggregate, what should that ambiguity tell you about how much weight to put on the number?

3. AOPA's reporting notes a correlation between active airline hiring and dips in pass rates, reasoning that airlines pulling experienced CFIs away leaves less-experienced instructors teaching students. Why would instructor experience plausibly move a national pass-rate figure independent of any individual applicant's preparation?

4. If you found a website citing a specific, precise instrument rating checkride pass rate, what would you want to see cited alongside that number before treating it as reliable data to plan your own preparation around?

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Why doesn't the FAA publish a clean instrument rating checkride pass rate?

We could not find a reliable, citable Instrument Rating-specific pass-rate figure in the FAA's U.S. Civil Airmen Statistics program or in any secondary source we could independently verify. The FAA's own program description centers on certificates and ratings issued rather than a standardized practical-test pass/fail table, which makes isolating any single checkride's rate difficult, but we have not confirmed the exact reason the Instrument Rating specifically is absent, so we're not offering an unverified explanation for the gap.

Q: Does a checkride pass rate include retests?

We could not confirm, from any source we independently verified, whether the FAA's published pass-rate figures distinguish first attempts from retests. Where the underlying data is described as certificates issued versus applications submitted, that structure would not obviously separate the two: so treat any published pass rate as an overall rate, not a confirmed first-attempt rate, unless the source explicitly says otherwise.

Q: Where does FAA checkride pass-rate data actually come from?

The FAA's U.S. Civil Airmen Statistics program, which AOPA describes as reporting pass rates on certificate issuance every year. The FAA publishes the underlying files at faa.gov, but the page blocks automated retrieval, which is why this article cites AOPA's confirmed reporting on that data rather than reproducing FAA figures we could not independently verify this review cycle.

Q: Is a lower pass rate the same as a harder checkride?

Not necessarily. AOPA's reporting notes an interesting correlation between active airline hiring and lower pass rates, reasoning that airlines pulling experienced CFIs away leaves less-experienced instructors teaching students. Treat pass rate as one data point shaped by instructor experience trends, not a direct measure of checkride difficulty.

Q: Does MockDPE have its own pass-rate data for checkride candidates?

No. MockDPE tracks in-app practice performance, not real checkride outcomes, and we don't have a mechanism to confirm whether a user who practiced with us went on to pass or fail an actual FAA practical test. We won't invent a marketing statistic where none exists.

Sources

• FAA, U.S. Civil Airmen Statistics
• AOPA, Tracking pass rates on practical tests

This article was researched from FAA primary sources (U.S. Civil Airmen Statistics) and AOPA's published reporting on that data, and reviewed against current availability by MockDPE Editorial Team. Where a clean, independently verifiable per-certificate figure could not be confirmed, this page says so rather than estimating. Last reviewed: July 2026. If you spot an inaccuracy, or can point us to a more current, verifiable source, email [email protected].