2024 Update: FAA Practical Test (Checkride) Pass Rates

The first thing that jumps out is the overall FAA practical exam pass rate – 79.3% in 2023, down from 80.6% in 2022. 

Secondly, the Private Pilot exam was failed most often of all exams (74.5% pass, 25.5% fail) in 2023. The flight instructor checkride is no longer the most-failed FAA practical exam (76.1% pass, 23.9% fail). Note that this is quite contrary to “urban wisdom,” which says the Private exam is one of the easiest checkrides to pass, and the Flight Instructor exam one of the hardest. 

Many flight school hallways are filled with rumors of the Certificated Flight Instructor initial exam sporting a 50% (or even worse!) failure rate. That’s simply not the case, nor has it been for many, many years. Although approximately 1 out of every 4 candidates does fail, the CFI-Initial exam is not failed at nearly the rate you may have heard. The rate was basically unchanged in 2023 versus 2022; with a 23.9% fail rate in 2023, versus 23.8% in 2022.  

The Sport Pilot initial and Private Pilot initial exams are very similar in content (and ACS/PTS evaluation standards), yet the Sport Pilot pass rate is significantly higher than the pass rate for Private. This same pattern showed up in our exploration of Knowledge Test Pass Rates. Are the instructors of Sport Pilots doing a better job in preparing their candidates? Are the candidates themselves of a different demographic, more likely to succeed for some reason(s)?

To the question of “Should I take my exam with an FAA Inspector if given the chance?” — our answer here is “it depends on the exam.” The overall pass rate for exams administered for pilot certificates by FAA Inspectors (90.5%) was higher than it was for DPEs (79.2%). The sample size was extremely small here; only just over 590 checkrides (at all pilot certificate levels) were administered by FAA Inspectors in 2023. At the Private Pilot level, DPEs passed more candidates (74.6%) than FAA Inspectors (59.1%). The Flight Instructor pass rate for DPEs (76.0%) vs. FAA Inspectors (81.1%) leaned toward the FAA inspector. 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 the FAA pass-fail statistics do not provide data on whether an exam was an initial 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 initial 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 (an initial 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 initial take pass rate for any of these tests is likely to be slightly lower than the overall pass rate.