Recognition of licenses

In principle, licences issued by EASA member states are valid in all EASA member states.

However, experience shows that operators / airlines require the nationally controlled licence of their home country, and a valid medical certificate of the respective country must also be available.
Medical & licence must be issued in the same member state. This can make things very complex in individual cases.

A corresponding application ( SOLI, State of Licence Issue ) for a change of responsibility of the licence issuing authority to the LBA can be found on the home page of the LBA.

Recognition of foreign commercial licenses not issued by EASA member states (so-called third countries) may be possible under bilateral agreements.

Even in the case of recognition, it is often still difficult to operate in the EASA area without an EASA license. In most cases an EASA license must still be issued because otherwise all licensing issues (e.g. entry of a TR or check flights) would have to be dealt with by the respective competent national authority under the respective national rules.

Thus, a simple conversion of commercial licenses is generally not possible.

In order to acquire an EASA license, training and an examination must be completed. The extent to which training and/or examination alleviations may be granted must be agreed upon between the responsible flight school and the LBA (usually after a competence assessment by the flight school).

Holders of a license issued by a non-European country should forward their requests concerning the verification of authenticity of foreign license and/or ratings to the responsible civil Aviation Authority of the respective EU state.

The German Aviation Authority is the Luftfahrt Bundesamt (LBA) and should be contacted by E-Mail: aircrew@lba.de

Holders of non-European licenses should check the following relevant laws: (EU) No 1178/2011, with amendments (in particular, pages 211/212) - Part FCL.