The Advanced RPAS certificate: exam, flight review, and what it actually costs
The Advanced RPAS certificate has two parts: a written exam — 50 questions, 60 minutes, 80% to pass, written online from anywhere in Canada — and an in-person flight review with a Transport Canada recognized reviewer. There is no ground school requirement and no mandatory course. The certificate does not expire, but you must complete a recurrent training activity every 24 months. Budget roughly CA$250–500 all in, most of which is the flight review.
Do you actually need Advanced?
Canadian rules are risk-based, not purpose-based. There is no separate commercial licence — being paid does not by itself require Advanced. You need the Advanced certificate to do any of the following with an aircraft of 250 g or more:
- Fly in controlled airspace (with an RPAS Flight Authorization from NAV CANADA).
- Fly within 30 metres of bystanders horizontally, or over them.
- Fly closer than 5.6 km (3 NM) from a certified airport or 1.9 km (1 NM) from a heliport.
- Operate a medium RPAS of 25–150 kg — possible without an SFOC since 4 November 2025.
- Conduct sheltered operations or EVLOS with visual observers, both added in November 2025.
If none of that applies to your flying, Basic is enough and it is genuinely easy — the free Basic course on this site covers the whole syllabus at no cost. The honest test is location, not intention: if you live in a city, controlled airspace or the airport distance rule will catch you sooner or later. The four questions that decide it go through this properly.
Step 1 — Register the aircraft
Any RPA weighing 250 g or more must be registered with Transport Canada through the Drone Management Portal and marked with its registration number. Registration is per aircraft and does not expire. If you sell it, the buyer re-registers and pays the fee, but the registration number stays with the aircraft.
Step 2 — Pass the Advanced exam
| Questions | 50 multiple choice |
| Time | 60 minutes |
| Pass mark | 80% |
| Minimum age | 16 |
| Where | Online, Transport Canada Drone Management Portal — from anywhere with a connection |
| Retakes | 24-hour wait after a failed attempt; no cap on attempts, fee each time |
| Certificate fee | CA$25 |
Transport Canada applied an inflation adjustment to its service fees on 1 April 2026 under the Service Fees Act. Some published pages still show the earlier figures — confirm the current amount in the Drone Management Portal before you budget.
The exam is open book in the sense that nobody is watching, but the 60-minute limit means you cannot look everything up. At 72 seconds a question you have time to check two or three things, not thirty. The failure mode I see most often is candidates who can recite the rules but cannot apply them to a scenario — the exam is heavier on situational questions than the Basic exam and the 80% threshold leaves room for exactly ten wrong answers.
The syllabus is Transport Canada’s TP 15263 knowledge requirements at Advanced depth: air law, airframes and systems, human factors, meteorology, navigation, flight operations, theory of flight, and radiotelephony. Air law and meteorology carry the most weight and cause the most failures.
Free preparation on this site: a 20-question interactive practice test with every answer explained and a per-subject score breakdown — no account, no email. If you want a full 50-question exam weighted to the real thing, or a single reference that covers the whole Advanced syllabus, the store has both, and there is a free sampler if you want to see the style first.
Step 3 — Pass the flight review
This is the part people underestimate. The flight review is an in-person practical assessment conducted by a Transport Canada recognized flight reviewer. Every reviewer is associated with a self-declared drone flight school; Transport Canada publishes the school list rather than a reviewer directory, so you contact the school to book.
There are 1,357 flight reviewers in Canada as of 10 June 2026, and they are not evenly distributed. In southern Ontario and the Lower Mainland you have real choice. In the territories there are effectively none — candidates generally either bring a reviewer north or time the review around southern travel. Fees are set by the individual reviewer and run roughly CA$200–650 across the market.
What is assessed is not stick skill. It is whether you can plan, brief, and conduct an operation the way a professional would: site survey, airspace check, weather, aircraft condition, emergency procedures, and — the one that separates candidates most reliably — whether you can distinguish airspace authorization from land-use permission and say which one you actually hold. I have written up what actually happens on the day and the ten most common reasons candidates fail.
What Advanced lets you do that it did not in 2024
The RPAS Beyond Visual Line-of-Sight and Other Operations amendments came into force in two phases, 1 April 2025 and 4 November 2025. Advanced certificate holders picked up three meaningful privileges in the second phase:
- Sheltered operations — flying within 200 feet horizontally and 100 feet vertically of a structure, which is what makes close-in inspection work practical.
- EVLOS with visual observers — extended visual line of sight out to roughly 3.6 km using observers.
- Medium RPAS, 25–150 kg, VLOS, without an SFOC. Any medium drone operation is classified as advanced or higher.
One catch that trips people up: Advanced and Level 1 Complex operations with small or medium drones require a manufacturer safety assurance declaration under Standard 922. If your aircraft does not have one, the privilege exists on paper but not for you. Check before you buy.
Step 4 — Stay current
Pilot certificates do not expire. You must complete a recurrent training activity every 24 months and retain proof for 24 months. Transport Canada publishes a free self-paced recency study program that satisfies the requirement — you do not need to buy anything to stay legal. The recency page sets out what counts.
What it costs, realistically
- Drone registration — CA$10 per aircraft, one time
- Advanced exam attempt and certificate — CA$25
- Flight review — CA$200–650 depending on the reviewer; mine is CA$275 with travel included within about 50 km of Guelph
- Study material — CA$0 if you use the free resources here, more if you want a structured guide
Ground school is optional for both Basic and Advanced. It is only mandatory for Level 1 Complex, which requires a minimum of 20 hours through a flight school. Anyone telling you that you need a course to sit the Advanced exam is selling you a course. The full cost breakdown is here.
Where you fly is a separate question
A valid Advanced certificate is a national credential — the same in Nunavut as in Ontario. What changes across the country is the land you take off from. Provincial parks, municipal bylaws, conservation authorities, national parks and privacy law all vary, and Transport Canada explicitly will not advise you on any of them. All thirteen provinces and territories are compared here.
Questions
How hard is the Advanced RPAS exam?
Harder than Basic, and the 80% pass mark is the reason — fifty questions in sixty minutes means ten wrong answers is the entire margin. The content is Transport Canada's TP 15263 knowledge requirements at Advanced depth, weighted toward air law and meteorology. Most failures come from candidates who can recite rules but struggle to apply them to a scenario, which is what the exam mostly asks.
Do I need ground school for the Advanced certificate?
No. Ground school is optional for both Basic and Advanced. It is only mandatory for the Level 1 Complex certificate, which requires a minimum of 20 hours through a flight school. You can prepare for the Advanced exam entirely from free and paid self-study material and book a flight review directly.
How much does an Advanced drone licence cost in Canada?
Roughly CA$250 to CA$500 all in. The components are drone registration at CA$10 per aircraft, the Advanced certificate fee of CA$25, and the flight review, which is set by the individual reviewer and ranges roughly CA$200 to CA$650 across the Canadian market. Study material is optional. Note that Transport Canada applied a service-fee inflation adjustment on 1 April 2026, so confirm current amounts in the Drone Management Portal.
What happens if I fail the Advanced exam?
You wait 24 hours and try again. There is no cap on the number of attempts, though you pay the fee each time. The exam is written online through Transport Canada's Drone Management Portal, so a retake does not require travel or scheduling.
Does the Advanced certificate expire?
No. Canadian RPAS pilot certificates do not expire. You must complete a recurrent training activity every 24 months and retain proof of it for 24 months. Transport Canada publishes a free self-paced recency study program that satisfies the requirement, so staying current costs nothing.
Is my Advanced certificate valid across Canada?
Yes. It is issued federally by Transport Canada and the flying rules it authorises are identical in every province and territory. What varies by location is the land-use layer — provincial parks, municipal bylaws, conservation authorities and privacy law — which is set provincially and locally and which Transport Canada does not administer or advise on.
Written by Chris Jones, Transport Canada certified RPAS pilot and flight reviewer. Last reviewed 8 August 2026. Spot an error? Tell me and I'll fix it.