The Part 107 test is changing — and here’s what’s on it now

The following piece on the latest changes to the Part 107 test was written by Ritsuko Abrams, an FAA Part 107 certified remote pilot who writes about drone regulation for Office20, a U.S.-Japan consultancy aimed at helping pilots get U.S. certification from Japan.

If you are preparing to take the FAA Part 107 exam, there is a good chance the study guide you are using is giving you the wrong advice.

Over the past year, the Federal Aviation Administration made two significant shifts to the Unmanned Aircraft General (UAG) knowledge test. First, the agency quietly abandoned the longstanding scoring blueprint published in the Airman Certification Standards (ACS), nearly doubling the weight of Regulations while slashing Weather and Operations. Second, beginning Oct. 27, 2026, the exam will introduce dynamic, embedded chart images rather than relying exclusively on the static testing supplement book candidates have memorized for years.

If you build your study routine around outdated percentage tables or static chart figures, your preparation will no longer match what appears on the screen at the testing center. Here is a look at what has changed — and where you should spend your study time now versus what was in past tests.

Related read: I passed the FAA Part 107 test. Here’s exactly how I studied — and what test day is actually like.

If your Part 107 study guide still says Regulations make up 15–25% of the test and Operations 35–45%, it is using the old testing blueprint published in the Remote Pilot Airman Certification Standards (FAA-S-ACS-10B). In its August 2025 Airman Testing Community Advisory, the FAA said that blueprint would become obsolete, pointed to PSI’s Applicant Information Bulletin as the updated blueprint, and told applicants to use that bulletin until the ACS itself is revised. The change took effect Sept. 29, 2025.

Here is the old table beside the current one:

Regulations and operations have basically swapped places in terms of test importance, while weather and loading now make up just a tiny sliver of test questions. The big takeaway is thatRegulations now account for nearly half of the questions on the Part 107 test

Though the number of questions in each topic area is changing, the FAA says neither the topics themselves nor the two-hour time limit will change

Just note: The outdated percentage table remains available in the ACS on the FAA’s site, even though the FAA directs applicants to the PSI bulletin for the updated blueprint. If a study plan allocates time using the old ranges, its emphasis may no longer match the current blueprint.

One more thing from the same bulletin worth knowing before you sit down: The exam is 60 scored questions plus 5 unscored validation questions. You cannot tell which is which, and the time allowance includes them, so treat all 65 as if they count.

Related read: How to get a Part 107 drone license in 2026 (a step-by-step guide)

In its June 2026 Airman Testing Community Advisory, the FAA said that beginning October 27, 2026, the UAG knowledge test will include image-based questions using images not found in the test supplements. The advisory discusses the IRA and UAG changes together and lists VFR charts and IFR low-altitude charts as image sources. The two UAG examples it publishes are sectional-chart excerpts, but does not specify whether IFR low-altitude charts will also appear on the UAG exam.

That matters because Part 107 prep has leaned heavily on the fixed figures in FAA-CT-8080-2H, the testing supplement handed at test centers. The book is no secret. The FAA posts it free, and the same figures run through some study material. That is exactly why memorizing has worked: the excerpt on your screen is one you could have downloaded and studied for weeks.

The new images are different in the way that matters for studying: UAG questions can use current sectional-chart images outside the fixed test supplement. The FAA says the specific images used in live test questions cannot be previewed, because publishing them would compromise the exam.

You may still be asked to determine whether a flight is in controlled airspace, identify an obstruction, or interpret a Class C shelf. But the chart on the screen may be one you have never seen.

The skill that matters is not recognizing the picture. It is knowing how to read it.

How much of the test does that affect? Nobody outside the FAA and PSI can say, because the live question pool is not published. One useful public benchmark is the FAA’s own 46-question sample: 13 of those questions send you to a figure, and 10 of the figures are sectional excerpts. That is not a statistical sample of the real exam, but it suggests chart reading is not a corner of the test you can skip.

One detail in the FAA’s samples is easy to overlook. The embedded image carries a caption naming the chart and its validity dates — “Sectional: Las Vegas, dated 12 Jun 2025 to 7 Aug 2025.” You will know which chart you are reading, just not in advance.

If that format is unfamiliar, you can see it now. The same advisory tells candidates to check PSI’s free sample test regularly to get used to it, and the sample test already shows chart images inside the question rather than sending you to a numbered figure in the book. The chart in it still comes from the test supplement, so what changes on October 27 is where the picture comes from, not how it reaches your screen. Working through the sample is the cheapest way to find out whether reading a chart on a monitor is going to slow you down.

October 27 is not the announced retirement date of the testing supplement. The FAA says candidates keep access to it until a retirement date is set, and that date has not been set.

And it is not clear that every supplement figure will be replaced. The advisory discusses IRA and UAG together, while the UAG examples show sectional charts. The UAG supplement also contains non-chart figures: a METAR block and a load-factor graph both appear in the FAA’s own UAG sample questions, and the advisory does not say what will happen to them.

I put both of those questions to the FAA’s testing standards office in writing at the end of July. No answer yet.

So don’t throw away the supplement. Your weather and performance figures may still live there. Just don’t build your study strategy around memorizing its chart excerpts.

I wrote a 460-question practice bank against the ACS and tagged every question with the FAA document that governs its answer, so that any explanation could be checked against the original.

Then I had the tagging audited, and the result was humbling. On a sample of 50 questions, more than half of the ones I had attributed to a section of Part 107 were actually testing a rule established somewhere else. The answers held up. The attributions did not.

A few of the things I had wrongly filed under Part 107:

• What a rotating airport beacon signifies. That comes from the AIM, not from 107.51.
• How to read a Maximum Elevation Figure on a sectional. The Aeronautical Chart User’s Guide.
• What a Military Operations Area is and how to treat it. The AIM.
• Operating temperature limits and battery endurance. AC 107-2A and manufacturer data.

I am not telling you this to be self-flagellating. I am telling you because the mistake is the finding. Even with Regulations now accounting for 48% of the blueprint, studying for the test still means going beyond the text of Part 107 itself. After October 27, memorizing particular supplement figures becomes a much less reliable strategy

Beyond the text of Part 107, expect to draw on the FAA Remote Pilot Study Guide, the Aeronautical Chart User’s Guide, AC 107-2A, the Aeronautical Information Manual, the Aviation Weather Handbook, and Parts 48, 89 and 91.

Two sections of the regulation are worth reading closely in their own words, and both sit at the intersection of the two changes above.

The first is 107.41, which requires prior ATC authorization to operate in Class B, C or D airspace, or within the lateral boundaries of the surface area of Class E designated for an airport. Class G requires no authorization at all.

The rule itself is not complicated, but applying it is.

Before you can decide whether authorization is required, you have to identify the airspace. On a sectional chart that means locating the airport, working out the class, reading the boundaries, and interpreting the altitude of a shelf.

ComeOctober 27, that lookup will be harder to rehearse in advance.

The second is 107.49, the preflight rule.

Before flight, the remote pilot in command must assess the operating environment (including weather, airspace, people and ground hazards), confirm the control links are working, determine that enough power is available for the intended operation and brief everyone taking part.

This section covers weather, airspace, obstacles, power, crew in one go. Approach this section not as a paragraph to memorize, but rather as a framework for working through scenarios.

If I were studying now, I would prioritize four things.

1. Read the regulation, and read it in its own words. At 48% of the exam it is now the largest content area by a wide margin. 
2. Learn to read sectional charts as a procedure. Practice on charts you have not seen before. Airspace is a fifth of the exam, 107.41 sits on top of it, and after October 27, memorizing particular supplement figures becomes a much less reliable strategy.
3. Study 107.49 as a decision-making framework rather than a definition. Work through flight scenarios involving weather, airspace, equipment, people and ground hazards.
4. Rebalance rather than abandon weather and performance. Their published shares are now 5% and 2%, so they warrant proportionally less study time than under the old blueprint. But because both topics are important for your own safe operations, don’t just skip studying these questions and sacrifice a wrong answer. Get these answers right for your personal safety!

Ritsuko Abrams holds an FAA Part 107 remote pilot certificate and writes about drone regulation at office20.org/part107/.

This piece is a study aid only and is not intended as flight instruction or legal advice. Regulations and testing procedures change; always verify current requirements against FAA publications. The testing information in this article is current as of August 2026.

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