Test strategy
Is the Part 107 Test Hard? What the FAA's Own Numbers Show
✓ Reviewed against current FAA sources on October 22, 2026
In this guide
In short
In calendar year 2025 the FAA recorded 73,914 Unmanned Aircraft General - Small tests with a pass rate of 82.96 percent and an average score of 79.31 percent. About one candidate in six failed, and the average passing margin was just over nine points above the 70 percent standard.
The honest answer is that the Part 107 knowledge test is passable by most people who prepare properly, and that a meaningful minority do not. The FAA publishes the numbers each year, and they are more useful than any anecdote.
What the FAA recorded for 2025
The FAA's calendar year 2025 Airman Knowledge Test volume report lists the Unmanned Aircraft General - Small test as follows:
- 73,914 tests taken
- 82.96 percent pass rate
- 79.31 percent average score
Three things follow from those figures, and all three should shape how you study.
About one in six candidates failed
A pass rate of 82.96 percent means a failure rate of 17.04 percent, or roughly one candidate in six. That is not a trivially easy test, and it is not a brutal one. It is a test that punishes unfocused preparation.
The average margin is thinner than people assume
The passing standard is 70 percent. The average score was 79.31 percent. The average candidate therefore passed by about nine points, which on a 60-question test is a little over five questions. There is not a wide cushion between the typical result and a failure.
Why unfocused study is the usual cause of a failure
The test is weighted. Regulations carry far more questions than weather does. A candidate who spends a week on weather and an evening on the rules has prepared for a test that does not exist. The blueprint tells you where the points are, and your hours should follow it.
If you want the weighting itself, we set it out in the 2025 test blueprint, and the study plan built from it is in how to pass the Part 107 test.
What the score report gives you if you fail
A failed test is not a dead end. The report lists Airman Certification Standards codes for the areas you missed, which tells you exactly what to restudy. Section 107.71 (opens in a new tab) governs retesting, including the waiting period before you may sit again.
A reasonable expectation
If you work through the material in proportion to the blueprint, drill practice questions until your weak areas are no longer weak, and read the rules themselves rather than summaries of them, the test should not surprise you. The 17 percent who fail are, overwhelmingly, the ones who skipped that last part.
Source: FAA, Airman Knowledge Test volume, pass rate and average score, calendar year 2025.