EASA CPL Theory Exams: All 13 Subjects Explained

The EASA CPL(A) is examined in thirteen theoretical knowledge papers, each passed independently at 75% — not the nine you will still see quoted on half the internet. The subject headings are the same ones the ATPL is built on, drawn from the same European Central Question Bank, but tested against a reduced set of learning objectives written for the CPL. This guide covers all thirteen papers — at length where the step up from PPL level is biggest, in brief where it is not — along with the deadlines that quietly destroy passes and the specific places where pilots stepping up from the PPL lose marks.

Thirteen papers, not nine

Part-FCL sets the requirement in FCL.310, and its subject list is thirteen long. These are the papers, with the subject numbers your ATO and your question bank will use:

Subject 090 Communications is a recent consolidation: from 1 February 2022 it merged the former 091 VFR and 092 IFR papers into a single subject. Only 091 ever applied to the CPL — 092 belonged to the IR and the ATPL — which is part of why the legacy CPL count was nine rather than ten. What changed for the CPL is the subject number and the learning objectives behind it, not the amount of IFR communications examined. Those objectives are tagged by licence in the appendices to AMC1 FCL.310, which is why a CPL and an ATPL paper can share a subject number and still be different examinations. The approved modular CPL(A) theoretical knowledge course runs to at least 250 hours under Appendix 3 to Part-FCL; the integrated CPL(A) course carries its own, higher figure, so check the section of Appendix 3 that matches your route. Either way, your ATO must recommend you for each paper before you sit it.

One thing Part-FCL does not set is how long each paper is. The number of questions and the time allowance are specified per licence and per subject in AMC1 ARA.FCL.300(b) and implemented by your competent authority, and they are not the same for a CPL paper as for the ATPL paper carrying the same number. Take the current table from your authority or your ATO rather than from a forum post or an old course handout — it is revised from time to time, and an out-of-date allowance will wreck your pacing on the day.

The five numbers that decide whether your passes survive

FCL.025 governs the process, and five figures do most of the damage.

The 18-month clock is more generous at the start than people expect and far less forgiving at the end: it runs from the end of the calendar month of your first attempt, so sit your first paper on 4 March 2026 and the clock starts on 31 March 2026, expiring on 30 September 2027 — and not one day past it. The concession at the front is worth a few weeks; the deadline at the back tends to land in the middle of your hour-building.

A sitting is not left wholly to national invention. AMC1 FCL.025 defines it as a period established by your competent authority within which you may take examination papers, and caps that period at not more than 10 consecutive days. Your authority chooses the window inside that cap — so several papers taken across up to ten consecutive days can still count as a single sitting. Ask your ATO how yours is set before you plan the order. The same AMC allows only one attempt at any given paper within a single sitting, and that couples two of the limits in the table: four attempts at one subject necessarily consume at least four of your six sittings, so a paper you have already failed twice is a threat to the whole set rather than to itself alone.

Breach any of those limits and every pass goes. Fail one subject a fourth time, run past 18 months, or exhaust six sittings, and you retake the complete set of thirteen after further training at an ATO — almost always a scheduling failure rather than a knowledge failure, and rarely one trigger acting alone.

The 36-month validity catches modular students in particular. It runs from completion of the exams to the issue of the licence. What has to fit inside it is not the headline 200 hours: total time of 200 hours, including 100 as pilot-in-command, is a cumulative requirement built up from the very beginning of your flying, so your PPL, your hour-building and everything flown before the exams all count towards it. What must fit in the window is whatever you still owe — the remaining hour-building, the CPL flight instruction course, the skill test and the licence application. Count what is left, not the total, and remember that the part still outstanding is exactly the part that slips for weather, money or aircraft availability.

Credits, and why most career students skip CPL theory

Two credits under Appendix 1 to Part-FCL are worth knowing before you commit:

• A pass in the ATPL examinations credits the theoretical knowledge requirements for the LAPL, PPL and CPL — and, except for helicopters, the IR — in the same aircraft category. One set covers everything downstream, which is why most students with airline ambitions never sit a CPL paper.
• An applicant for a CPL who has already passed the IR examinations in the same category is credited in Human Performance and Meteorology. The other eleven still have to be sat, so if you are also working through the IR theory exams, sequence the two deliberately.

CPL theory is the right buy for single-pilot commercial work — instructing, survey, parachute dropping, air taxi — without the 650 hours of theoretical knowledge instruction the modular ATPL course demands. It is the wrong buy if the plan is an airline: the credit does not run in the other direction.

Performance: certification floors and operational margins

Subject 032 is where the step up is most obvious. The PPL asks you to read a take-off chart; the CPL asks what the aeroplane had to prove to be certificated, what the operating rules add on top, and which of the two limits you on the day.

The performance classes

Part-CAT sorts aeroplanes by engine type, maximum operational passenger seating configuration (MOPSC) and mass, and examines the definitions on their edges:

Read the conjunctions: Class B needs both conditions, Class A and Class C need either. A four-seat business jet is Class A on being a multi-engine turbojet alone.

The CS-23 climb requirements

The aeroplanes a new CPL flies are certificated to CS-23 or its FAR 23 equivalent, whose climb requirements sit beneath every number in the flight manual. For reciprocating-engine aeroplanes of 2 722 kg (6 000 lb) or less:

• All engines operating. A steady climb gradient at sea level of at least 8.3% for landplanes, or 6.7% for seaplanes and amphibians — maximum continuous power, gear retracted, flaps in the take-off position.
• One engine inoperative. A multi-engine aeroplane in the same bracket must hold at least 1.5% at a pressure altitude of 5 000 ft, critical engine inoperative with its propeller in the minimum drag position — but only where VSO exceeds 61 kt. Where VSO is 61 kt or less, the gradient need only be determined and published.
• Above 2 722 kg it becomes a measurably positive gradient at 400 ft above the take-off surface and at least 0.75% at 1 500 ft.

CS-23 was restructured in 2017 into a performance-based standard that no longer prints these percentages, but the light fleet was certificated under the earlier amendments and these are the figures the syllabus still works to.

Certification is the floor; the operating rules add the margin — and which margin depends on the domain the question is set in. For commercial air transport in Performance Class B, CAT.POL.A.235 requires the landing mass to allow a full-stop landing from 50 ft above the threshold within 70% of the landing distance available, at the destination and at any alternate. That is the 1.43 factor, and it is a requirement, not advice. It is also the dry case: where the weather reports suggest the runway may be wet at the estimated time of arrival, the landing distance available must be at least 115% of the dry figure — an effective factor of roughly 1.64 — and contaminated surfaces are handled separately again. Wind is treated asymmetrically throughout: no more than 50% of a reported headwind, no less than 150% of a reported tailwind. And know which speed answers which question: Vx gives the best angle, Vy the best rate, converging in indicated terms with altitude until they meet at the absolute ceiling — the aerodynamics behind that pair sit in our PPL principles of flight guide. An obstacle problem is always a gradient problem.

Mass and balance: the shortest paper, and a common retake

031 is the smallest subject on the list and one of the papers most often reported as a resit, because it is almost entirely arithmetic under time pressure. Start with the vocabulary, which runs well beyond PPL level and on which the questions are built: basic empty mass, dry operating mass (the aeroplane ready for a type of operation — crew and their baggage included, no traffic load, no usable fuel), zero fuel mass, traffic load, and the certificated limits MTOM, MLM, MZFM and maximum ramp mass.

The most-examined calculation is the limiting take-off mass: the lowest of four numbers. Marks are routinely lost by candidates who find three and stop.

1. The structural MTOM.
2. The performance-limited take-off mass for the runway, pressure altitude, temperature, slope, surface and wind on the day.
3. MZFM plus total fuel on board at take-off.
4. MLM plus trip fuel — the take-off mass still legal on arrival.

Centre of gravity is the other half. Learn the consequences in both directions rather than memorising which end is "safe":

One relationship covers most load-shift questions: mass moved × distance moved = total mass × distance the CG moves. Rearranged, it answers "how much, and how far?" too.

Finally, know which standard masses you are entitled to use. They apply to aeroplanes with 20 or more passenger seats — 88 kg male and 70 kg female, an all-adult value of 84 kg where there are 30 or more seats, and 35 kg for children of two and above but under twelve — and they include hand baggage, with lower values for holiday charters. Aeroplanes with 19 seats or fewer, the machines a new CPL actually flies, have their own table. Applying a 20-seat figure to a nine-seat aeroplane is a wrong answer that looks convincingly right.

Flight planning and monitoring: the fuel scheme, and the 45/30 split

033 is where the CPL stops being a licence to fly and becomes a licence to dispatch. The PPL asks for a fuel plan with a sensible reserve; the CPL asks you to build a commercial fuel scheme from named components.

• Taxi fuel — startup, APU and ground movement.
• Trip fuel — take-off, climb, cruise, descent and approach at the destination.
• Contingency fuel — 5% of the planned trip fuel as the default, and never less than five minutes' holding at 1 500 ft above the destination aerodrome in standard conditions. It comes down to 3% only where an en-route alternate lying within the distance criteria the rule specifies is available and the reduction is approved by the competent authority, and the scheme also allows approved fuel-consumption-monitoring and statistical methods in place of a flat percentage. Learn 5% as the baseline you must justify departing from, not as the only lawful number.
• Alternate fuel — missed approach, climb, cruise, descent and approach at the alternate.
• Final reserve fuel — the one you may not plan to use.
• Additional fuel — for isolated aerodromes or an assumed failure en route.
• Extra or discretionary fuel — the commander's judgement, added last.

Final reserve fuel is where the marks are. The regulation draws its line by engine type, not by aeroplane size:

Then keep your regulatory domains apart — and note that there are three of them, not two. Those figures above are the commercial air transport scheme, and Part-NCC (non-commercial operations with complex motor-powered aircraft) and Part-SPO (specialised operations — survey, parachute dropping, aerial work) run the same component-based scheme, with the final reserve split by engine type in exactly the same way: 45 minutes for aeroplanes with reciprocating engines, 30 minutes at holding speed at 1 500 ft above aerodrome elevation for aeroplanes with turbine engines, under NCC.OP.131 and its Part-SPO equivalent. It is Part-NCO — the light, non-complex end where a good deal of new CPL flying starts — that is built differently, and it moved in 2022: NCO.OP.125 now states an outcome and carries no figures at all. They sit in AMC1 NCO.OP.125(b), expressed at holding speed at 1 500 ft above the destination rather than at cruising altitude: 30 minutes for VFR by day, 45 minutes for VFR by night and for IFR, the IFR figure sitting on top of the fuel to reach the alternate. A local flight that stays in sight of its departure aerodrome needs only 10 minutes, and that one is at maximum continuous cruise power. Anyone still quoting “normal cruising altitude” is answering the pre-October-2022 rule. Three domains, three answers to the same-looking question, and the paper does not always announce which one it is set in.

The rest of 033 is mechanics: the ATS flight plan, the effect of mass and altitude on specific range, the point of no return and the point of equal time (which moves into wind), and monitoring actual burn against planned so a deviation is caught while it is still a decision. None of it works without the upper winds and temperatures behind it, which is why 050 belongs before 033 — our ATPL-level meteorology question set is a quick way to find out whether yours is solid.

Commercial air law, operational procedures and single-pilot human factors

Air Law (010)

The PPL air law paper describes the airspace you fly in. The commercial paper describes the industry about to employ you: the Chicago Convention and the ICAO Annexes, the split between Annex 6 Part I (commercial air transport) and Part II (general aviation), the architecture of the European rules — 1178/2011 for aircrew, 965/2012 for air operations with its Part-CAT, Part-NCC, Part-NCO and Part-SPO subdivisions, 923/2012 for the rules of the air — and the operator framework: the air operator certificate, the operations manual, and the authority of the commander.

Your own privileges under FCL.305 are examinable. A CPL holder may exercise LAPL and PPL privileges, act as pilot-in-command or co-pilot in operations other than commercial air transport, act as pilot-in-command in commercial air transport in any single-pilot aeroplane, and act as co-pilot in commercial air transport. Read that single-pilot wording carefully — it is the boundary the whole licence is built around. If your air law is rusty, 30 exam-style ATPL air law questions will find the gaps.

Operational Procedures (070)

A broad, memory-heavy paper, easy to leave until last and expensive to underestimate. The reliable content: dangerous goods under the ICAO Technical Instructions — the nine classes and the operator's and commander's duties; the MEL, how it derives from the manufacturer's MMEL and why it can only ever be more restrictive; ground de-icing and the clean aircraft concept; contaminated runways; wake turbulence categories; noise abatement departures; low visibility operations; and emergency drills.

Aquaplaning deserves its own warning: the familiar speed estimate based on the square root of tyre pressure is an empirical approximation, not a certificated limitation. Do not let a question talk you into treating it as a limit.

Human Performance and Limitations (040)

The physiology is the PPL syllabus examined harder: hypoxia and time of useful consciousness, hyperventilation, the ear and sinuses, night vision, and the vestibular illusions covered in our guide to spatial disorientation and visual illusions. What is new is the second half, written for a pilot about to be paid to decide alone: threat and error management, error versus violation, situational awareness and how it is lost, decision-making models, stress, fatigue and the circadian rhythm, and the human relationship with automation.

The framing that matters is single-pilot commercial: no monitoring pilot to catch the mis-set altimeter, and an incentive pulling one way while the weather pulls the other. Plan continuation bias is not an abstraction here — it is the mechanism the syllabus expects you to name, recognise in yourself, and interrupt.

The other seven papers, in brief

Six subjects carry most of the step up from PPL level, and they have had most of this guide. The remaining seven are still seven thirteenths of the problem — each passed separately at 75%, each able to end the whole set on a fourth failure — so here is what changes in them.

021 Airframe, Systems, Electrics, Power Plant and Emergency Equipment

The PPL asks what a system does; 021 asks what happens when part of it stops. Piston and turbine powerplants, propellers, fuel, hydraulics, landing gear and brakes, pressurisation, ice and rain protection, electrics from the bus bar outwards, and emergency equipment. Revise it as failure cases, warnings and drills rather than as diagrams to memorise — that is the shape the questions come in.

022 Instrumentation

Pitot-static and gyroscopic instruments and their errors, air data and attitude sources, the magnetic compass, and the autoflight and warning systems built on top of them. The dependable marks are in the error behaviours: which instrument misreads, in which direction, and why. Altimetry in non-standard temperatures is a favourite, and we cover it in detail in cold weather altimetry explained.

050 Meteorology

The PPL paper asks whether the weather is flyable. 050 asks you to read the products a dispatcher reads — METAR, TAF, SIGMET, significant weather charts, upper wind and temperature charts — and to reason from them about icing, turbulence, thunderstorms, jet streams and pressure systems. Take it before 033, which assumes you can already read the winds aloft.

061 General Navigation

Great circles and rhumb lines, chart projections and convergency, time and the Earth, magnetism, dead reckoning and in-flight navigation with a wind. It is arithmetic against the clock, like the three calculation papers, and it fails the same way: sign errors, unit errors, and treating an approximation such as the 1-in-60 rule as an exact method.

062 Radio Navigation

Propagation, VOR, DME, NDB and ADF, ILS, radar, area navigation and GNSS — what each aid actually measures, what its errors and coverage limitations are, and what the display is therefore telling you. Candidates who learn needle behaviour without the measurement underneath come unstuck the moment a question is set from the aid's side rather than the cockpit's.

081 Principles of Flight

Lift, drag and the drag curve, stability and control, high-lift devices, limitations and the flight envelope, propellers, and stalling and spinning. Sit it early, because 032 and 031 both lean on it. Our PPL principles of flight guide is the foundation the 081 objectives build on.

090 Communications

Radiotelephony procedures and phraseology, the meaning of the standard words, communication failure actions, and distress and urgency handling. It is a short paper and the easiest of the thirteen to throw away through carelessness. Because the subject is a merge of the old 091 and 092, check which of its learning objectives your syllabus tags for the CPL before you revise from ATPL material.

What catches candidates moving up from the PPL

Most CPL theory failures are caused not by hard subjects but by a few predictable misjudgements about what has changed.

Assuming it is the same syllabus with harder questions. The PPL asks whether you can fly an aeroplane safely for your own reasons; the CPL asks whether you can operate one safely for somebody else's, inside a regulatory framework, with commercial pressure behind you. 010, 040 and 070 change most because of it.

Underestimating the calculation load. 031, 032 and 033 are worked from a supplied booklet of graphs, tables and loading charts, against the clock. The theory in them is thin; the execution is everything. Get the data booklet your authority issues and work in it until reading a graph accurately is automatic. Candidates who revise these three by reading rather than by calculating are the ones who resit them.

Carrying PPL rules of thumb into a commercial paper. An approximation and a requirement look alike on a multiple-choice paper and are marked very differently. The 1-in-60 rule and the aquaplaning estimate are approximations; the 70% landing distance rule for Class B, the contingency fuel rule — 5% of trip fuel as its baseline — and the 45-minute piston final reserve are requirements.

Mixing regulatory domains. CAT, NCC/SPO and NCO do not all answer the same question the same way, and neither do Performance Class A and Class B. Learn where they agree as well as where they differ — NCC and SPO follow CAT on final reserve fuel; NCO is the one that does not. Fix which operation the question is set in before computing anything: the distractors are usually the correct answer for the other domain.

Sitting a paper "just to see what it is like". That casual attempt starts the 18-month clock on all thirteen and consumes one of six sittings. Nothing here is as cheap to avoid or as expensive to undo.

On sequencing: take 081 and 021/022 early, because they underwrite performance and mass and balance, and take 050 before 033, because flight planning assumes you can already read the upper winds.