The FAA medical

Can You Get an FAA Medical Certificate With a Criminal Record?

✓ Reviewed against current FAA sources on October 28, 2026

This is one of the most searched questions in aviation and one of the worst served. The short answer is that the FAA's medical standards do not list crimes at all. The longer answer matters more, because a conviction still has to be disclosed, it can still matter indirectly, and there is a separate rule that has nothing to do with the medical and stops some people anyway.

What the medical standards actually list

The standards sit in 14 CFR Part 67. For a first class certificate the conditions named outright run across four sections, and the whole of it is shorter than people expect.

• 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.

No criminal offense appears anywhere in that list. Not assault, not theft, not fraud, not a sexual offense and not a drug conviction. What the standards reach is a medical condition, and a conviction is not one.

You still have to disclose it

Not being a disqualifier is not the same as not being asked about. The application asks twice. Item 18.v covers arrests, convictions and administrative actions involving driving while intoxicated by, impaired by or under the influence of alcohol or a drug, and anything that led to your driving privileges being denied, suspended, canceled or revoked. Item 18.w is worded History of nontraffic conviction(s)(misdemeanors or felonies).

Neither carries a lookback period. People are told constantly that some number of years puts a conviction behind them. The form does not say that, and the whole of Item 18 is framed as whether you have ever in your life been diagnosed with, had, or presently have any of the following. The only time windows near it are a two year one for illegal substance use inside Item 18, and the three year window in Item 19 for visits to a health professional, which is the one people are usually thinking of.

What a wrong answer costs is set out in 14 CFR 67.403 (opens in a new tab), and the two halves of it are very different. An incorrect statement the FAA relied on reaches your medical certificate. A fraudulent or intentionally false statement 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.

Where a conviction can matter indirectly

The offense is not a standard, but the circumstances behind it can be medically relevant. The clearest route is 67.107, which disqualifies substance dependence and substance abuse within the preceding two years. An alcohol related driving conviction is the kind of fact that leads an examiner to look at that standard, which is why documentation of what happened and what followed matters more than the charge itself.

Substance dependence carries its own way back. Section 67.107 (opens in a new tab)(a)(4) excepts 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.

The pilot certificate is a separate question

Medical certification and airman certification are decided separately, and the FAA answers the second one in its own words: you can get an FAA certificate if you have a felony conviction, unless the conviction is for a drug or alcohol related offense. The mechanism behind that sentence is 14 CFR 61.15 (opens in a new tab)(a), under which a drug conviction is grounds for denying an application for up to one year after the date of final conviction, or for suspending or revoking a certificate already held.

There is also a duty most people miss entirely. Under 14 CFR 61.15 (opens in a new tab), a motor vehicle action requires a written report to the FAA Civil Aviation Security Division in Oklahoma City not later than 60 days after it, and that runs whether or not you are applying for anything. A motor vehicle action is not only a conviction: an administrative suspension of your license for an alcohol or drug related cause counts even if you were never convicted. Failing to send the report is separate grounds for denial, suspension or revocation.

The gate that is not the FAA's

Here is the part that catches people who have cleared both of the above. Most airline flying needs unescorted access to the secure areas of an airport, and that access requires a fingerprint based criminal history records check under 49 CFR 1542.209. Paragraph (d) of that section lists 28 categories of disqualifying conviction, and unlike Part 67 it does name offenses: murder, assault with intent to murder, kidnapping, rape or aggravated sexual abuse, extortion, armed or felony unarmed robbery, felony arson, distribution of a controlled substance and a felony involving a threat, burglary, theft, dishonesty, fraud or misrepresentation, possession or distribution of stolen property, aggravated assault or bribery.

The window reaches a conviction during the 10 years before the date of the individual's application for unescorted access authority, or while the individual has unescorted access authority. It runs backward from the day you apply for the access. Not from your release, and not from the end of probation. The same test appears again in 49 CFR 1544.229, which is the airline's own version, so being employed by the airline rather than the airport does not route around it.

Two absences are worth as much as the entries. An ordinary DUI is not on that list. Neither is simple misdemeanor assault.

The seven year rule does not say what people think

Almost everyone believes convictions stop being reported after seven years. Federal law does not say that. The Fair Credit Reporting Act limits how long some adverse information may be reported, but 15 U.S.C. 1681c(a)(5) expressly carves out records of convictions of crimes from that seven year limit, and under 1681c(b) the limits do not apply at all to a report used for employment at an annual salary of $75,000 or more. State law may add restrictions. Federal law does not supply the seven years.

What to actually do

Get the complete record of what happened, in documents rather than memory: the statute, the dates, the disposition and anything that followed. Answer the questions as asked, because the cost of an intentionally false answer is categorically worse than the cost of a disclosure. And settle your questions before the application is imported rather than after, because the FAA's Medical Examination Bill of Rights allows you to terminate an examination with the understanding that if the application has been imported by the Aviation Medical Examiner or the exam has begun, the AME must submit the incomplete application. There is no walking out with nothing having happened.

Before you pay for an attorney

People in this position often price a legal retainer first, and for most of them that is the wrong first step. Several national pilot membership organizations include medical certification guidance with membership, and some offer an upgraded tier that adds help with FAA correspondence or a review of your documentation before it is submitted. An internet search for pilot membership organizations will find them. We do not name or recommend any of them and we have no relationship with any, so read what a plan actually covers before paying, and note that many exclude anything that happened before you joined.

That kind of help is enough for most applicants and costs a fraction of a retainer. An attorney earns the money in a narrower set of situations: a genuine question about whether something must be disclosed at all, an FAA investigation or any suggestion of falsification, a denial you intend to appeal, or a record complicated enough that the answer turns on the exact statute you were convicted under. Nothing here is legal advice.

A conviction is not a medical standard. It is a disclosure. Sometimes it is a piece of context, and occasionally it is a separate problem under a different agency's rule. Those are three different things and they are worth keeping apart.