FAA Checkride Pass Rates

The Private Pilot exam had the highest failure rate in 2024 (73.9% pass, 26.1% fail). The next most-failed exam was the Certificated Flight Instructor-Initial (75.2% pass, 24.8% fail), followed closely by the Commercial Pilot (76.6% pass, 23.4% fail). 

Private Pilot candidates: You’re going to want to make sure you’re well-prepared and comfortable in the checkride environment. The Private Pilot exam is failed at a 26.1% rate; that’s to say, more than 1 of every 4 candidates fails. One explanation for the high failure rate at the Private Pilot level is that this is the candidate’s first encounter with the FAA testing process, and thus the most stressful with the most unknowns. If you’re concerned about your prep, let us know. We can run you through a comprehensive mock checkride and/or conduct targeted ground instruction to make sure you’re checkride ready!

Commercial candidates: Take this checkride seriously. It’s failed just as frequently as others. Though you may have heard that the Commercial is “just another Private Pilot ride with a power-off 180 and some stuff about operating privileges,” don’t take this one lightly. According to the FAA’s data, it’s failed at a comparable rate to the Private and CFI-Initial. 

CFI candidates: Your upcoming exam is tough, but not impossible. Many flight school hallways are filled with rumors of the CFI-Initial exam sporting a 50% (or even worse!) failure rate. That’s simply not the case, nor has the failure rate been anywhere near that high for many, many years. Although approximately 1 out of every 4 candidates failed their CFI-Initial in 2024, the CFI-Initial exam is not failed at nearly the rate purported by urban myths. Additionally, you’ve already got several FAA checkrides under your belt, so the “checkride nerves” shouldn’t be as prominent as they might’ve been on your first ride. 

Sport Pilot candidates: keep it up! The Sport Pilot initial and Private Pilot initial exams are very similar in content (and ACS/PTS evaluation standards), yet the 2024 Sport Pilot pass rate of 91.5% is significantly higher than the pass rate for Private. Are the instructors of Sport Pilot candidates doing a better job in preparing their candidates? Are the candidates themselves of a different demographic, more likely to succeed for some reason(s)? This will be especially interesting to watch after October 2025, as MOSAIC comes into effect and Sport Pilot may become a more popular initial certificate pathway. Interestingly, the same pattern of Sport Pilot candidate success shows up in our exploration of Knowledge Test Pass Rates. 

To the question of “Should I take my exam with an FAA Inspector if given the chance?” Our answer here is “it probably depends on the exam.” In 2024, the overall pass rate for exams administered for pilot certificates by FAA Inspectors (88.1%) was higher than it was for DPEs (78.1%). The sample size was extremely small here; only 575 checkrides (at all pilot certificate levels) were administered by FAA Inspectors in 2024. 

At the Private Pilot level, DPEs passed more candidates (73.8%) than FAA Inspectors (65.6%). The Flight Instructor pass rate for DPEs (75.2%) vs. FAA Inspectors (81.2%) leaned toward the FAA inspector, as did other certificates and ratings. Exams administered by FAA Inspectors are done at no cost (versus at a cost of hundreds or thousands with a DPE), so, given the similarity in pass rates, it would seem to be wise to take the FAA up on the offer should the opportunity ever arise.  

Note that FAA pass-fail statistics do not provide data on whether an exam was an first-time take or a retake. Think about it this way. A group of 15 CFI candidates take their CFI-Initial exams at the same time. Of that group, 10 pass and 5 fail. The 5 that failed pass on their second try. The first-take pass rate is 66%, but the overall pass rate (what the FAA statistics document) is higher at 75%. This may also be affected in the other direction by a few poor candidates with multiple retakes. If 14 of those 15 passed on the first try (a first-take pass rate of 93%), and one applicant needed 6 total tries to pass, we’d still end up with the same overall pass rate of 75%. We believe that multiple failures are uncommon, so the first-take pass rate for any of these tests is likely to be slightly lower than the overall pass rate.