How the aviation maintenance technician certificate works

01 Who is allowed to apply

The floor is low and specific. You must be at least 18 years old and able to read, write, speak, and understand English, with certain exceptions permitted. The FAA does not prescribe any general education requirements at all, though some employers ask for a high school diploma or evidence of passing the GED exam. A disability does not disqualify you unless it affects the eligibility requirements themselves, and in that case the FAA directs you to your local Flight Standards District Office.

Everything else runs through practical experience. For a single rating you need at least 18 months working with the procedures, practices, materials, tools, machines, and equipment used in constructing, maintaining, or altering an airframe or a powerplant, appropriate to the rating you seek. For both ratings at once, the number is 30 months of practical experience gained concurrently across the duties of each. The FAA does not allow anything shorter: 14 CFR part 65 does not provide for less than 18 months for a single rating or less than 30 months for an A&P.

02 Can training replace the time in the shop?

Partly, and only through named routes. Graduating from an FAA-approved Aviation Maintenance Technician School is one way to meet the experience requirement, and completing the Joint Service Aviation Maintenance Technician Certification Council training course does the same for military personnel. Neither route removes the tests. An approved school curriculum makes you eligible to take the knowledge tests on the strength of your graduation certificate, but the rest of the sequence still applies.

Experience earned outside aviation counts if the work itself fits. If you performed maintenance on an airframe, a powerplant, or both, that experience qualifies. The FAA expects it to look like a full-time job measured against a typical 40-hour work week, and it must be documented. Acceptable paperwork includes pay receipts for tasks accomplished, or records and logs signed by a certificated supervisor showing the hours spent, the exact task experience, and the registration number of the aircraft worked on.

03 Which tests stand between you and the certificate

Three knowledge tests cover the Aviation Mechanic certificate with Airframe and/or Powerplant ratings. You take the knowledge test or tests before you can sit the oral and practical portions. The questions are objective and multiple choice, and many of them are drawn from the AMT General, Airframe, and Powerplant handbooks. A passing score is 70 percent or greater. The FAA publishes the number of questions and passing scores separately.

Which standards apply depends on when you test. Until July 31, 2023, the subject areas came from the Aviation Mechanic General, Airframe, and Powerplant Practical Test Standards. After that date, they come from the aeronautical knowledge subject areas in the Aviation Mechanic General, Airframe, and Powerplant Airman Certification Standards. A Designated Mechanic Examiner administers the oral and practical tests once your knowledge tests are behind you, and the knowledge test questions themselves come from the AMT handbooks the FAA names directly.

04 How the application day actually runs

You make an appointment to visit a Flight Standards District Office and bring two completed FAA Form 8610-2 applications along with all documentary evidence of your experience for an aviation safety inspector to evaluate. If the inspector finds the documentation adequate, you receive authorization to take the AMT knowledge tests. Military applicants bring more: DD Form 214 with length of service, schools attended, and the MOS codes worked under; personal evaluation records; and a letter from an executive officer or classification officer. AMTS graduates present a graduation certificate instead.

After the knowledge tests, you make an appointment with a Designated Mechanic Examiner and hand over your knowledge test results. The examiner then runs the oral and practical portions. Clear those and you receive a Temporary Mechanic Certificate. The FAA notes that some military bases overseas can administer the knowledge tests, but as of its page there are no Designated Mechanic Examiners located outside the United States to give the oral and practical portions, which is a real constraint for anyone testing from abroad.

05 What happens if a test goes badly

You may apply for retesting 30 days after the date you failed any part of the knowledge or oral and practical tests. The wait can be cut short if you present a signed statement from an airman holding the certificate and rating you are seeking, certifying that you have received additional instruction in each subject you failed and that the certifier considers you ready to retest. Testing fees at the commercial, FAA-approved centers are set by the provider. Eligible military and federal personnel, including active duty, guard, and reserve members, their dependents, military retirees, Department of Defense civilians, and Department of Homeland Security civilians, can take the AMT knowledge tests at no cost.

06 Avionics, repairmen, and the certificate question

No additional regulatory certification is required to work on avionics equipment, but the absence of a requirement is not permission to work unsupervised. If you hold no Aviation Mechanic certificate or Repairman certificate with the right privileges, you may perform aviation-related work only under the supervision of someone who holds a valid certificate with an Airframe rating, a Powerplant rating, or both. Without a certificate you cannot approve an airframe, powerplant, propeller, appliance, or component part for return to service, and the FAA states plainly that you are less likely to advance to the top of the career field. Many employers add their own qualification requirements for avionics work, which is why the training and experience path for an avionics technician differs from the AMT path.

A Repairman certificate is a separate track. It requires you to be at least 18, able to read, write, speak, and understand English, qualified to perform the specified maintenance, employed in a job requiring those special qualifications at an FAA-certified repair station, commercial operator, or air carrier, recommended by your employer, and either holding 18 months of practical experience in the specific job or having completed a formal FAA-approved training course. A foreign certificate or license does not shortcut any of this; you still meet the FAA eligibility requirements and pass the FAA tests.

07 Does the certificate expire?

It stays valid until it is surrendered, suspended, or revoked. There is no recurring renewal cycle to track. The work that keeps a mechanic current is the work itself, and the privileges are wide: a certificate holder is relatively unrestricted on a particular type of aircraft or specialized maintenance function as long as the knowledge and skill to do the job properly are there. That breadth is deliberate, and it is why the basic knowledge and skill requirements span so many areas in the first place.

08 Where the questions are answered in more depth

Advisory Circular 65-2 holds the detailed requirements, application procedures, and the knowledge and oral and practical testing information in one place. The FAA also maintains a guidance index that collects the forms, the standards, the testing matrix, and the PSI practice exams in a single list.

Read Advisory Circular 65-2 before you book anything, because it names the documents and procedures that the summary pages only point toward. What the pages here do not answer is the part that depends on you: how your own logged hours, school transcripts, or military records map onto the experience requirement is a judgment an aviation safety inspector makes on the day, with your paperwork in front of them.

09 Where to continue

The pages below take how the aviation maintenance technician certificate works a step further inside careers and certificates, beginning with Pilot certificates and ratings and what each one allows, then move on to the next trade. Each one names the agency that holds the rule it describes.