How To Become A Commercial Pilot: Every Step

Becoming a commercial pilot means passing an FAA medical, earning a private pilot certificate, adding an instrument rating, building to 250 hours of flight time, and passing the commercial knowledge and practical tests under 14 CFR 61.129. Flying full-time that takes about nine to twelve months and roughly $40,000 to $60,000 from zero; flying part-time it takes two to three years and costs more, because hours spread thinly are hours repeated.

This page is the national route, in order, with the decisions that actually change the outcome. If you are training in California specifically, our page on becoming a commercial pilot in California covers the state angle, and the commercial pilot license in Los Angeles is the pillar this sits under. If you are earlier than that, start at how to become a pilot.

The Whole Route On One Page

Everything through step 6 is the certificate. Steps 7 and 8 are about employability, and for most people they are where the career actually starts. The Airline Pilot Career Program bundles steps 3 through 8 into one $84,000 price over about nine months, finishing at 260 logged hours.

Step 1: Get The Medical Before You Spend Anything Else

This is the single most important sequencing decision on the page, and it is the one most people get wrong. A commercial pilot needs at least a second-class medical certificate to exercise the privileges, under 14 CFR 61.23(a)(2). If there is anything in your medical history that might complicate an FAA medical — a psychiatric diagnosis, a cardiac history, certain medications, vision or hearing questions — you want to know that before you have spent $10,000 on a private certificate you cannot use professionally.

Go to an Aviation Medical Examiner and apply for a second-class medical at the outset, even though a third class is all you legally need to train. A second-class medical certificate covers third-class privileges as well, so there is no downside. Our pages on FAA medical certificate classes and the second-class medical explain the differences, and what disqualifies you from being a pilot covers the conditions that need a conversation with an AME first.

One warning that applies nationally: an application that is denied closes doors that were otherwise open, including some alternative certificate routes. If you have a genuine concern, speak to an AME or an aviation medical consultant before submitting an application, not after.

Step 2: The Student Pilot Certificate

You apply through the FAA's IACRA system with the help of an instructor, and it costs nothing. You must be at least 16 to fly solo in an airplane, and you must be able to read, speak, write and understand English. There is no minimum age to start lessons — we train teenagers regularly — but the solo endorsement waits for 16 and the private certificate for 17.

If you are not a US citizen or permanent resident, you must be vetted under the TSA's Flight Training Security Program before beginning flight training toward the private, instrument or multi-engine ratings. That process runs alongside your first lessons rather than blocking them entirely, and our international student pilots page explains it. We train under Part 61 and do not issue I-20 forms, so we cannot sponsor an M-1 student visa — international students train with us on other visa statuses. We say that plainly rather than leaving it to be discovered later.

Step 3: The Private Pilot Certificate

This is the foundation and the longest single stage. 14 CFR 61.109 sets a 40-hour minimum, and the national average has sat between 60 and 70 hours for decades. The variable is frequency: students flying three times a week commonly finish between 45 and 55 hours, students flying once a week commonly need 65 to 75, and the difference is money.

Our private packages are $10,400 for the Standard, built around 38 aircraft hours plus 2 simulator hours, and $15,400 for the Comprehensive, built around 55 aircraft hours plus 5 simulator hours. For a commercial-track student the Comprehensive is usually the right choice, because the extra hours are hours you need anyway on the way to 250. Our page on private pilot license cost has the full arithmetic.

While you are here, do two things a commercial-track student should do and a recreational student need not. Log your cross-country pilot-in-command time separately and watch it accumulate, because you will need 50 hours of it for the instrument rating. And fly cross-countries to real destinations rather than the same three practice airports, because those hours count twice.

Step 4: The Instrument Rating

Legally you could skip this. Practically you cannot. 14 CFR 61.133(a)(2) provides that a commercial pilot certificate issued without an instrument rating in the same category and class carries a limitation prohibiting the carriage of passengers for hire on cross-country flights of more than 50 nautical miles or at night. That removes most of the paid work a 250-hour pilot can get.

The rating requires 50 hours of cross-country pilot-in-command time and 40 hours of instrument time under 14 CFR 61.65(d), and our course is $11,700. The cross-country prerequisite is the part that surprises people, and it is the reason we tell private students to start logging that column deliberately. Our pages on instrument rating requirements and instrument rating cost cover the detail, and IFR explained covers what you are actually learning to do.

Step 5: Building To 250 Hours

Here is the part nobody puts on a brochure. After the private certificate and the instrument rating you will hold somewhere around 130 to 150 hours. The commercial course adds roughly 50. The remainder — usually 60 to 110 hours — is flying you arrange and pay for yourself with nobody teaching you anything.

There are four sensible ways to do it, and most pilots use more than one.

• Fly with other people and share costs. As a private pilot you may share the pro rata share of operating expenses with passengers under 14 CFR 61.113(c), and rental fees count. One passenger halves your hourly cost legally, provided you are not holding the flight out as transport for hire.
• Fly with another time-building pilot and swap seats. Each of you logs the time you act as pilot in command, and the safety-pilot arrangement lets you both stay useful. Our page on time building covers the logging rules carefully, because they are easy to get wrong.
• Fly somewhere worth going. The 300-nautical-mile commercial cross-country, the 100-mile day and night flights, and the instrument cross-country requirement can all be folded into trips you would want to make anyway. Cross-country destinations from Van Nuys is our list.
• Use approved simulator time to the legal cap. 14 CFR 61.129(i) allows up to 50 hours of approved simulator or training device time toward the 250 at a Part 61 school. At $120 an hour against $269 for an airplane, that is the largest single saving on this page.

What you should not do is buy blocks of aimless circuits. Hours logged without purpose are the most expensive hours in aviation, and an examiner reading a logbook full of 0.7-hour local flights forms an opinion before the oral starts.

Step 6: The Commercial Certificate

The commercial course itself is the shortest stage of the whole ladder. You need 20 hours of training on the commercial areas of operation under 61.129(a)(3), including 10 hours of instrument training, 10 hours in a complex, turbine-powered or technically advanced airplane, a 2-hour day cross-country and a 2-hour night cross-country each more than 100 nautical miles from departure, and 3 hours of preparation within the two calendar months before the test. Plus 10 hours solo or performing the duties of pilot in command under 61.129(a)(4), including the 300-nautical-mile cross-country and 5 hours of night VFR with 10 takeoffs and 10 landings at a towered airport.

Our commercial course is $15,400 and runs 130 program hours: 30 aircraft, 20 simulator, 50 flight instruction and 30 ground. The flying is different from anything before it. Commercial maneuvers — chandelles, lazy eights, steep spirals, eights on pylons — are flown to tolerances tighter than a private checkride and they are, genuinely, the most satisfying flying most pilots ever do. Our page on commercial pilot maneuvers takes them one at a time.

Then a knowledge test at about $175, and a practical test with a designated pilot examiner at roughly $900 to $1,200 in Southern California, flown to the Commercial Pilot – Airplane ACS, FAA-S-ACS-7B, effective 31 May 2024.

Step 7: What Happens After The Checkride

A commercial certificate at 250 hours makes you legally employable and practically underqualified for most of the jobs people imagine. Airlines operating under Part 121 require an airline transport pilot certificate, which under 14 CFR 61.159 means 1,500 hours, reduced to as low as 750 or 1,000 under the restricted ATP provisions in 61.160 for military pilots and graduates of authorized degree programs.

So the honest answer to what happens next is: you find flying that pays, and you keep logging. Flight instruction is how the large majority of American pilots cross that gap, because it pays while you build and it makes you a better pilot than any other route. Our CFI, CFII and MEI program is $15,400, and we review graduates for an instructor position when they finish. Other routes exist and we set them out on what a commercial pilot does and time-building jobs for new commercial pilots.

For the airline path specifically, read the 1,500-hour rule and R-ATP, airline hiring minimums, and commercial pilot versus airline pilot, which explains why those two phrases describe different things.

How Long It Really Takes

The bottom row is not just slower, it is more expensive, because skills decay between lessons and every gap has to be re-bridged. If your circumstances only allow one lesson a week, the honest advice is to save until you can afford two, rather than to start on a cadence that will cost you an extra $8,000 in repeated ground.

The Four Decisions That Change The Outcome

How Often You Fly

Already covered, and it dominates every other variable on this page. Nothing else you decide will move the cost or the timeline as much.

Part 61 Or Part 141

A Part 141 approved course can issue a commercial certificate at 190 hours rather than 250, at the cost of a rigid syllabus and stage checks. We train under Part 61, so 250 applies here, and we say so rather than letting the smaller number float in the background. In practice most Part 141 students finish above 190 anyway, and the flexibility of Part 61 suits people with jobs. Our page on Part 61 versus Part 141 lays out both sides.

Degree Or No Degree

A college degree is not required for any FAA certificate. It matters only in two places: some major airlines still prefer one, and an aviation degree from an authorized institution can reduce the ATP minimum to 1,000 or 1,250 hours under 61.160. Whether that is worth four years and the tuition is a personal calculation, and do you need a degree to be a pilot works through it.

Whether You Intend To Instruct

This decision reshapes the budget more than any other after flight frequency. A pilot who instructs converts the 1,250 hours between commercial and ATP from an expense into an income. A pilot who does not must find another way to fly them, and most of the alternatives pay less or are harder to get at 250 hours.

Where You Train Matters Less Than People Think, Except Where It Does Not

The FAA certificate is federal and identical everywhere. What changes by location is how many days a year you can actually fly, how much airspace complexity you learn to handle, and how long you wait for an examiner.

Southern California scores well on the first two. Van Nuys is a Class D tower under the Los Angeles Class B shelf and one of the busiest general aviation airports in the world, which means a pilot trained here is comfortable in airspace that intimidates pilots trained at quiet fields. The weather permits a schedule almost year-round, with the marine layer providing genuine instrument conditions rather than canceling training outright. Our page on becoming a commercial pilot in California covers the state in detail, and the best airport for flight training in Los Angeles compares the local fields.

Related Reading

• Commercial pilot license requirements under 61.129 — every hour, in regulation order.
• Commercial pilot license cost — the whole ladder, priced.
• How to become a commercial pilot in California — the state-specific version of this page.
• What does a commercial pilot do — the work available at 250 hours.
• Commercial pilot versus airline pilot — certificate against job title.
• The Airline Pilot Career Program — every rating in one nine-month package.

How To Become A Commercial Pilot FAQ

How Long Does It Take To Become A Commercial Pilot?

Nine to twelve months flying four or five times a week, fifteen to twenty months flying three times a week, and two to three years or more flying once or twice a week. The variable is almost entirely how often you fly, because skills decay between lessons.

How Much Does It Cost To Become A Commercial Pilot?

At our package prices, $10,400 for the private certificate, $11,700 for the instrument rating and $15,400 for the commercial course is $37,500, plus roughly $8,000 to $19,000 of time building to reach 250 hours. Our Airline Pilot Career Program bundles everything through multi-engine instructor at $84,000.

What Are The Steps To Become A Commercial Pilot?

Pass an FAA medical, get a student pilot certificate through IACRA, earn a private pilot certificate, add an instrument rating, build to 250 hours of total flight time, then complete the commercial training and pass the knowledge and practical tests under 14 CFR 61.129. Most pilots then add CFI certificates to build toward an ATP.

Do You Need A Degree To Be A Commercial Pilot?

No. No FAA certificate requires a college degree. A degree from an authorized institution can reduce the ATP hour requirement to 1,000 or 1,250 hours under 14 CFR 61.160, and some major airlines still prefer one, but neither affects the commercial certificate itself.

Can You Get A Job With Just A Commercial Pilot License?

Yes, but not an airline job. Part 121 airlines require an airline transport pilot certificate and 1,500 hours, or 750 to 1,250 under the restricted ATP provisions. At 250 hours the realistic work is flight instruction, banner towing, aerial survey, pipeline patrol, skydive operations and some Part 135 second-in-command roles.

What Is The Minimum Age To Become A Commercial Pilot?

18, under 14 CFR 61.123(a). You may start lessons at any age, fly solo from 16, and hold a private pilot certificate from 17, so it is entirely possible to hold a commercial certificate on your eighteenth birthday.

Do I Need An Instrument Rating To Become A Commercial Pilot?

Not to be issued the certificate, but without it 14 CFR 61.133(a)(2) adds a limitation prohibiting carriage of passengers for hire on cross-country flights over 50 nautical miles or at night, which removes most of the employable value. Every commercial student we train holds the instrument rating first.

Is Becoming A Commercial Pilot Worth It?

That depends on what you want from it. It is a serious financial and time commitment with a genuine career at the end, and pay data for the sector is on our pilot pay guide. It is not a quick route to an airline flight deck, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling something.

Start With A Conversation, Or With One Flight

If you are serious about this, the useful first step is a free consultation: bring any logbook you have, any medical history you are unsure about, and your real weekly availability, and we will map the route with dates and numbers rather than ranges. If you have not flown a light aircraft yet, do that first — a 60-minute discovery flight is $229, you fly it from the left seat, and it is logged as dual instruction toward every certificate above. Call (818) 330-1318 any day from 9 AM to 9 PM. We are at 7900 Balboa Blvd, Van Nuys, CA 91406, on Van Nuys Airport.