When does a new medical certificate actually start running?

It depends on which of the three things you are doing. MED.A.045(a)(5) counts an initial issue and a renewal from the date of the aero-medical examination, but a revalidation from the expiry date of the previous certificate. MED.A.045(b) lets the revalidation examination be taken up to 45 days before that expiry, so going early inside those 45 days costs you nothing. Going earlier than 45 days does cost you: the new period then runs from the examination and you lose the difference.

How long is an EASA class 1 medical valid?

Twelve months as standard under MED.A.045(a)(1). It drops to six months in two cases set out in MED.A.045(a)(2): once the holder has reached 60, and for a holder aged 40 or over who flies single-pilot commercial air transport carrying passengers. The same 40-year-old flying multi-crew keeps the full twelve months.

What is the difference between revalidation and renewal?

Revalidation happens while the rating is still valid and keeps the cycle running. Renewal happens after it has expired, and FCL.740(b) then requires an assessment of whether refresher training is needed, that training if it is, and a proficiency check before the privileges come back. The word on your paperwork changes what you have to do, so the tracker labels an expired item plainly rather than calling it due.

Does revalidating early shorten my cycle?

Only if you go before the window opens. FCL.740(a)(1) says that fulfilling the revalidation requirements earlier than prescribed starts the new validity period from the date of the proficiency check. Inside the window, three months before expiry for a type rating, multi-engine class rating or IR, the anniversary is kept. A SEP class rating has a twelve-month experience route, so the useful window there is longer.

How often is my language proficiency re-assessed?

FCL.055(c) sets it at every four years for operational level 4 and every six years for extended level 5. Expert level 6 is not re-evaluated at all, which is why the tracker records a level 6 date for your own reference and never puts an expiry against it.

What is not covered here?

National variations, UK CAA rules, which have been separately regulated since Brexit, sailplane and balloon licensing under Part-SFCL and Part-BFCL, instructor and examiner certificate cycles, and everything an operator requires of you under Part-ORO. Anything the tracker does not compute is left out rather than guessed at: an honest gap is better than a confident wrong date.

Licence, medical and recency

EASA currency and expiry tracker.

Put your medical, your ratings, your language level and your recent landings in one place, and see what is due, when the revalidation window opens, and which rule says so. Nothing leaves your browser.

Everything you type here stays in this browser. Nothing is sent to a server, there is no account, and clearing your browser data deletes it. Use the backup button below if you want a copy you keep yourself.

About you

Date of birth drives the medical validity bands, and the two switches change which rules apply to you.

Date of birthUsed only to work out medical validity. It never leaves this browser.

Single-pilot CAT with passengersHold a valid instrument rating

Medical and language

Enter the expiry printed on the certificate and the date your language proficiency was assessed.

Medical certificate

Medical expiresThe date on the certificate, not the date of the examination.

Language proficiency level

Language assessed onLevel 6 needs no re-evaluation, so the date is only for your own record.

Ratings

One row per class rating, type rating or instrument rating, with the expiry from your licence. The tracker works out when the revalidation window opens for each one.

No ratings yet. Add one to see when its revalidation window opens.

Recent experience

The dates of your last take-offs and landings, newest or oldest first, it makes no difference. Only the three most recent inside the 90-day window matter.

Take-off and landing dates

Night take-off and landing dates

Add a medical, a language level or a rating above and the dashboard fills in.

In the EASA ATPL exam

Licence privileges, validity and revalidation sit in ATPL Air Law (subject 010), and they are one of the most reliably examined parts of it because the rules are precise, dated and easy to write unambiguous questions about. The examiner is not testing whether you can look up a table. They are testing whether you know which date a period counts from, which is where the whole subject turns.

Exam-style example

Your class 1 medical expires on 1 September. You attend the aero-medical examiner on 12 August. When does the new certificate expire, and would 1 June have been better?

12 August is 20 days before expiry, inside the 45 days MED.A.045(b) allows for a revalidation examination.
MED.A.045(a)(5) therefore counts the new period from the expiry of the previous certificate, 1 September, not from the examination.
Class 1 runs 12 months under MED.A.045(a)(1), so the new expiry is 1 September the following year.
1 June is 92 days early, outside the 45 days. That examination would be a fresh issue for counting purposes, so the new period would run from 1 June and three months of validity would be lost.

Going early inside the window is free. Going early outside it is not, and this is the single most valuable thing on this page: a pilot who books the medical whenever it is convenient can quietly give away a quarter of a year, every year.

Common trap: Reading the 45 days as the thing that sets the new expiry. It does not. The 45 days is only how early the examination may be taken; MED.A.045(a)(5) is what decides the date the new period counts from, and the two do different jobs. The mirror-image trap is on ratings, where FCL.740(a)(1) works the other way round: an early check outside the window moves the anniversary and shortens the cycle.

ATPL Air Law guide EASA class 1 medical guide Night flight time calculator

How EASA validity and revalidation actually work

The definition, the formula, a worked example and how it shows up in the ATPL exams.

Why this is local only, and what that means for you

Everything you type stays in this browser. There is no account, no sign-up and no server call, so your licence dates, your medical and your last landings are never sent anywhere. That is a deliberate design decision, not a missing feature: this is exactly the personal data that should not be sitting in somebody else's database to make a free calculator work.

The consequence is that clearing your browser data deletes it, and it does not follow you to another device. The download backup button gives you a JSON file you keep yourself, and restore backup reads it back. Nothing else can read that file, and nothing else needs to.

What the tracker computes, and what it reads

Where the regulation computes a date, so does the tool: language proficiency expiry from the assessment date and the level, the revalidation window from the expiry and the kind of rating, and recent experience from the dates you flew. Where the regulation does not, the tool reads what your paperwork says: you enter the expiry printed on your medical certificate and on your licence rather than the tool guessing it from an examination date it has not seen.

That split matters. A medical expiry depends on your age at the examination, on whether you fly single-pilot commercial air transport carrying passengers, and on two age ceilings that can cut a certificate short before its period runs out. Rather than infer all of that and risk being wrong, the tracker takes the date on the certificate and explains the rule that produced it.

The revalidation windows, per rating

A type rating, a multi-engine class rating and an instrument rating are each valid twelve months and revalidate on a proficiency check in the three months immediately preceding expiry. A type or multi-engine class rating also needs route sectors during the period of validity: ten as pilot of the class or type, or one flown with an examiner, which may be flown during the check itself.

A single-engine piston class rating or TMG runs two years and has two routes. Either a proficiency check in the three months before expiry, or the experience route in the twelve months before it: twelve hours of flight time in the class including six hours as pilot in command, twelve take-offs and twelve landings, and at least one hour of refresher training with a flight instructor or class rating instructor. The tracker uses the twelve-month figure as the window because that is the date a pilot actually has to plan against.

Recent experience is a rolling window, not a date

FCL.060(b) requires three take-offs, approaches and landings in the preceding 90 days on the same type or class, or a full flight simulator representing it, before carrying passengers. For pilot in command at night you need one of those at night, unless you hold an instrument rating, which FCL.060(b)(2)(ii) accepts instead.

Because the window rolls, currency does not expire on a fixed date: it lapses when the third-newest qualifying landing falls out of the 90 days. The tracker works out that date and shows it, which is more useful than a yes or no, because it tells you when you have to fly rather than only whether you may today.

Good to know

Background and tips for getting the most out of this calculator.

It does not replace anything

Your licence, your medical certificate, your operator and your national authority are the record. This is a planning aid that shows the arithmetic and names the rule behind it, and it can be wrong about your case in ways it cannot detect.

Rules that were not verified are absent

Every date the tracker computes cites a provision read from the consolidated Aircrew Regulation. Anything not verified was left out rather than approximated, so a gap here means a gap, not a silent guess.

EASA member states only

UK CAA rules have been regulated separately since Brexit and are close but not identical. National authorities also vary in how some of this is administered, so confirm against your own authority before you act on a date.

Frequently asked questions

Tap to read the full background and answers.

When does a new medical certificate actually start running?: It depends on which of the three things you are doing. MED.A.045(a)(5) counts an initial issue and a renewal from the date of the aero-medical examination, but a revalidation from the expiry date of the previous certificate. MED.A.045(b) lets the revalidation examination be taken up to 45 days before that expiry, so going early inside those 45 days costs you nothing. Going earlier than 45 days does cost you: the new period then runs from the examination and you lose the difference.
How long is an EASA class 1 medical valid?: Twelve months as standard under MED.A.045(a)(1). It drops to six months in two cases set out in MED.A.045(a)(2): once the holder has reached 60, and for a holder aged 40 or over who flies single-pilot commercial air transport carrying passengers. The same 40-year-old flying multi-crew keeps the full twelve months.
What is the difference between revalidation and renewal?: Revalidation happens while the rating is still valid and keeps the cycle running. Renewal happens after it has expired, and FCL.740(b) then requires an assessment of whether refresher training is needed, that training if it is, and a proficiency check before the privileges come back. The word on your paperwork changes what you have to do, so the tracker labels an expired item plainly rather than calling it due.
Does revalidating early shorten my cycle?: Only if you go before the window opens. FCL.740(a)(1) says that fulfilling the revalidation requirements earlier than prescribed starts the new validity period from the date of the proficiency check. Inside the window, three months before expiry for a type rating, multi-engine class rating or IR, the anniversary is kept. A SEP class rating has a twelve-month experience route, so the useful window there is longer.
How often is my language proficiency re-assessed?: FCL.055(c) sets it at every four years for operational level 4 and every six years for extended level 5. Expert level 6 is not re-evaluated at all, which is why the tracker records a level 6 date for your own reference and never puts an expiry against it.
What is not covered here?: National variations, UK CAA rules, which have been separately regulated since Brexit, sailplane and balloon licensing under Part-SFCL and Part-BFCL, instructor and examiner certificate cycles, and everything an operator requires of you under Part-ORO. Anything the tracker does not compute is left out rather than guessed at: an honest gap is better than a confident wrong date.

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Every validity period and revalidation window on this page was read from the consolidated text of Regulation (EU) No 1178/2011, version 02011R1178 EN 04.08.2025 024.001, on EUR-Lex, and is cited by provision number on the item it produces. Aircrew rules are amended regularly and national authorities administer parts of them differently, so a rule can change after the date below. This tracker does not replace your licence, your medical certificate, your operator or your national aviation authority, and it does not cover UK CAA rules, sailplanes or balloons. Confirm any date before you act on it.

Last reviewed July 2026