If you hold a Light Aircraft Pilot Licence for aeroplanes, the LAPL(A), there’s a deadline worth knowing about, and it’s close: 1 October 2026.
What’s actually changing
This follows on from a bigger reform: since 1 October 2025, the CAA has stopped issuing new LAPL(A) licences altogether. New students now get an NPPL(A) or a Part-FCL PPL(A) instead. If you already hold an LAPL(A), that part doesn’t touch you directly, your licence still exists.
What does touch you is this: existing LAPL(A) holders need to bring their licence into line with the standard Part-FCL revalidation rule, FCL.740.A, by 1 October 2026. Up to now, the LAPL(A) worked on a simpler model: keep flying roughly 12 hours in 24 months and you stayed current, with no fixed expiry date on the licence itself. From October, that goes away. The rating moves to a fixed validity period, formally endorsed on the licence, the same way PPL and NPPL class ratings already work.
What you need to do
There are two routes to bring your rating into compliance:
Flight experience. Broadly: 12 hours of flight time in the class, including 6 hours in the preceding 12 months, 6 hours as pilot in command, 12 take-offs and 12 landings, and an hour of refresher training with an instructor. Proficiency check. If you don’t meet the experience route, a proficiency check with an authorised examiner does the same job.
You don’t need to wait until the deadline to do this. It can be done any time before 1 October 2026, and if your logbook already shows the hours, it may just be a case of getting the endorsement done rather than flying anything extra.
What happens if you miss it
This is the part worth taking seriously. Miss the 1 October deadline, and you fall out of the lighter FCL.740.A revalidation route and into the FCL.740 renewal rules instead, the same harder path that applies to any lapsed rating. That typically means more than a straightforward proficiency check, so it’s a genuinely worse position to be in than just booking a check flight now.
Who this actually catches out
Active pilots flying regularly probably won’t notice much difference beyond a date on their licence. The people this is actually aimed at, and most likely to be caught out by, are seasonal pilots, anyone who’s had a gap between aircraft, LAPL(A) holders who treat it as a secondary or backup licence, and anyone whose LAPL(A) has gone quietly dormant. If that’s you, or you’re not sure, checking your logbook against the requirements above and booking time with an instructor or examiner now is worth doing before the deadline creeps up.
What doesn’t change
Licence privileges, the underlying recency thresholds, the aircraft limits (2,000 kg maximum take-off mass, up to 3 passengers), and VFR-only operation all stay the same. NPPL(A) holders aren’t affected by any of this; it’s specifically an LAPL(A) change. If you’re on an NPPL(A) and want the fuller picture of how that licence works, we covered CAP 3181 in detail here.
Where to check for yourself
This is a summary, and the exact figures matter if you’re relying on them to stay legal. Check the CAA’s own guidance before acting on this, particularly if your situation isn’t straightforward: caa.co.uk’s LAPL page and the licensing and training simplification page both cover this directly, and your flying school or an examiner can tell you exactly where your logbook stands against the requirements.