How to become an A&P mechanic: the FAA certificate and its tests

It’s a mechanic who holds the FAA’s Aviation Mechanic certificate with both the Airframe and the Powerplant rating. The FAA issues one certificate and adds the ratings to it, and you can hold only one if you like. With the certificate, a mechanic may maintain and alter the aircraft and parts they’re rated for and approve that work for return to service, within limits the rules set. The FAA says “certificate” and “license” get used for the same thing, so an “A&P license” is this certificate.

24 months. 14 CFR 65.71 says you must pass all the prescribed tests within a period of 24 months, and the FAA’s companion guide to the mechanic ACS says a knowledge test report expires 24 calendar months after the month you took the test. If your report expires before you finish the practical test, you retake that knowledge test. There’s one exception: US military and civilian staff who served outside the United States in support of US Armed Forces operations may use an expired report under 14 CFR 61.40 if they take the practical test within 6 calendar months of returning.

Yes. The FAA’s testing matrix lists no minimum age for the General, Airframe and Powerplant knowledge tests, but the certificate itself needs you to be 18. The companion guide says an applicant under 18 who passes every test keeps the paperwork, then takes the test reports and Form 8610-2 to a Flight Standards office or an examiner after turning 18 to get the temporary certificate. Watch the 24-month window while you wait.

No. The FAA says there’s no requirement to get both. Everyone takes the General test, and you take it once: if you add the other rating later, you only take its own test and its oral and practical test. An added rating needs its own experience, and 14 CFR 65.71(b) gives you 24 calendar months to pass its tests.

No. A mechanic certificate stays in effect until it’s surrendered, suspended or revoked, and the FAA charges nothing to issue it. To use its privileges, though, you need enough work as a mechanic in the past 24 months, under 14 CFR 65.83. The career page sets out that rule.

On July 1, 2026 the FAA published a proposal to replace the inspection authorization (IA) with an inspection rating on the mechanic certificate. The rating wouldn’t need renewing each odd-numbered year, and mechanics holding an IA when a final rule takes effect would be entitled to a replacement certificate with the rating. Comments closed on August 31, 2026. Until a final rule takes effect, the rules on these pages apply. The proposal is docket FAA-2026-6671. The same proposal would write “24 calendar months” into the rule for passing all your tests, which the FAA says is how it has counted them in practice.