The FAA medical

What Actually Disqualifies You From Being a Pilot?

✓ Reviewed against current FAA sources on October 28, 2026

The question gets asked constantly and answered badly, usually by pages that list every illness a pilot might worry about without saying which ones the regulation names. So here is the actual list. It is shorter than almost anyone expects, and most of what people fear is not on it.

What does the FAA list as disqualifying?

The medical standards are in 14 CFR Part 67. For a first class certificate the conditions named outright run across four sections. This is the whole of what the regulation names:

• Mental, 14 CFR 67.107 (opens in a new tab). A personality disorder severe enough to have repeatedly manifested itself by overt acts; psychosis; bipolar disorder; substance dependence; and substance abuse within the preceding two years.
• Neurologic, 14 CFR 67.109 (opens in a new tab). Epilepsy; a disturbance of consciousness without satisfactory medical explanation of the cause; a transient loss of control of nervous system function without satisfactory medical explanation.
• Cardiovascular, 14 CFR 67.111 (opens in a new tab). Myocardial infarction; angina pectoris; coronary heart disease that has required treatment or has been symptomatic or clinically significant; cardiac valve replacement; permanent cardiac pacemaker implantation; heart replacement.
• General medical, 14 CFR 67.113 (opens in a new tab). Diabetes mellitus requiring insulin or another hypoglycemic drug for control.

That is it. Four sections and roughly fifteen named conditions.

What is not on the list

The absences matter more to most readers than the entries, because the fears are mostly about things the regulation never names.

No criminal offense appears anywhere in Part 67. Not assault, not theft, not fraud, not a sexual offense and not a drug conviction. The standards reach medical conditions, and a conviction is not one. You still have to disclose it, which is a separate matter covered in our guide on a criminal record and the FAA medical.

Depression, anxiety and attention deficit disorder are not named either. Section 67.107 (opens in a new tab) lists four mental conditions and none of them is depression, anxiety or ADHD.

Wearing glasses does not disqualify anyone. The vision standards are written as with or without corrective lenses.

The part people miss: the Federal Air Surgeon clause

Each of those four sections closes with a judgment clause. Section 67.113 (opens in a new tab)(b) is the broadest: no other organic, functional, or structural disease, defect, or limitation that the Federal Air Surgeon finds would make the person unable to safely perform the duties or exercise the privileges of the certificate. Section 67.107 (opens in a new tab)(c) does the same for any other mental condition, and 67.109(b) for any other seizure disorder, disturbance of consciousness or neurologic condition.

So the list is not a closed catalog of everything that can stop you. It is a list of what is disqualifying on its face, plus a standard for weighing everything else. That cuts both ways, and the second way is the one nobody mentions: a condition you do not see on the list is not automatically a problem, it is a thing to be assessed.

What about medication?

Section 67.113 (opens in a new tab)(c) is the medication clause, and it is written the same way: no medication or other treatment that the Federal Air Surgeon finds would make the person unable to safely perform the duties or exercise the privileges of the certificate. There is no list of banned drugs inside Part 67. What there is instead is a judgment about whether the medication or the condition it treats affects your ability to fly safely.

One thing follows from that and it is worth stating plainly. Stopping a prescribed treatment to avoid disclosing it is both a disclosure problem and a safety problem, and it is not a strategy. Treatment decisions belong with the clinician treating you.

The list is not the end of the process

Even a named condition is not automatically the end, which is the single most useful thing to understand about this system.

Substance dependence, one of the four mental conditions, carries its own exception in 67.107(a)(4): established clinical evidence, satisfactory to the Federal Air Surgeon, of recovery, including sustained total abstinence from the substance for not less than the preceding two years.

Beyond that, 14 CFR 67.401 (opens in a new tab) provides two routes for a person who does not meet the standards. An Authorization for Special Issuance may be granted where the applicant shows that the duties of the certificate can be performed without endangering public safety, for a specified period. A Statement of Demonstrated Ability is for a static or nonprogressive condition, does not expire, and lets an examiner issue the certificate directly while the condition is unchanged.

And in the other direction entirely, the FAA runs a program called CACI, for Conditions AMEs Can Issue, covering 29 ordinary conditions your examiner can issue on the spot where you meet the published worksheet. Hypertension, migraine, hypothyroidism, prediabetes, glaucoma, kidney stones and several cancer histories are all on it.

So what actually stops people?

In practice, two things, and neither of them is usually the diagnosis. The first is an incomplete answer that becomes a deferral and a long wait, because the documentation a condition needs was not in the room on the day. The second is a false one. Section 67.403 (opens in a new tab) separates an incorrect statement, which reaches your medical certificate, from a fraudulent or intentionally false one, which is grounds to suspend or revoke all airman, ground instructor, and medical certificates and ratings held by that person.

An honest mistake costs you your medical. A deliberate lie costs you every certificate you have ever earned. The list of disqualifying conditions is short. The cost of answering it dishonestly is not.