How to Get an FAA Part 145 Repair Station Certificate: The Ten-Step Roadmap from Station Definition to Air Agency Certificate

An FAA Part 145 certificate is the license that lets a shop repair aircraft articles and approve them for return to service under its own name — the credential airline, charter and corporate operators look for before they send a part out the door. It is also one of the more unforgiving certifications the FAA issues: the entire package is due before you are in line, the building and the people must be real at inspection, one regulatory gap fails a manual, and every correction letter runs on a 15-day clock. This roadmap lays out the ten steps from a blank page to an Air Agency Certificate — and the business planning that has to run alongside them.

Why the first attempt matters so much

A repair station is a business with a payroll before it has a customer. Once a three- or four-person accessory or component shop is leased, tooled and staffed for FAA inspection, rent, salaries, equipment leases, calibration, technical data subscriptions and insurance commonly run on the order of $35,000 to $60,000 a month before the first paying job. Every month spent waiting for the FAA — or repeating a step because a filing came back — is that cost with no revenue against it. One returned readiness filing costs roughly a month and a half; a withdrawal after the FAA project starts means a complete new application and a new place at the back of the line.

That arithmetic is why Delta Bravo Aviation approaches a repair station build as a partnership in the business rather than a document delivery. The manuals are necessary; the economics are what make the manuals worth writing.

The ten steps

The route divides into three legs: before the FAA (the applicant and Delta Bravo set the pace), with the FAA (their process, our deadlines), and after issuance.

Step	What happens	Clock	Finish line
Leg A — before the FAA
1. Scope the station	Entity, site, ratings, articles, customers, staffing, work away from the shop, electronic records, hazmat status, voluntary programs, growth plan — and the carrying-cost model	None	Signed Station Definition
2. Fix the foundations	Legal entity and address, named people with their certificates, facility, tooling and technical-data plan, background checks on owners and managers	None	The facts that go on the application forms are final
3. Build the document set	Repair Station Manual, Quality Control Manual, training program, forms, capability list, rosters, application forms, schedule of events, proposed OpSpecs	None	Every applicable register row has a document
4. DCT completion and self-audit	Every applicable Element-Design DCT question in the FAA's bank answered to a manual section (included in the Builder fee); inspector-style audit	DCT version current within 90 days	No open regulatory gap
Leg B — with the FAA
5. Readiness submission	Every item of the FAA's readiness checklist goes in at once	FAA decision expected in 30 calendar days; 15 days to answer a return	Accepted; Applicant List letter received
6. The queue	Wait for FAA resources; keep the package and the station ready	Status letter at least every 60 days; no limit on the wait	In Progress letter
7. Project start and formal application	Team assigned, managers interviewed, remaining items supplied, schedule of events agreed	FAA review 15 business days; letter 15 business days after the meeting (Order 8900.1 Vol 2 Ch 11 states these two in business days)	Formal application accepted
8. Design assessment	Manuals and training program reviewed against the DCTs; OpSpecs drafted	15 calendar days to answer each corrective-action letter	RSM and QCM accepted; training program and contract functions approved
9. Performance assessment	FAA inspects the building, tools, data, people and records and watches the system work	Everything in place when needed, or the project closes	Favorable performance determination
10. Certificate and OpSpecs	Certificate prepared; OpSpecs signed and issued	After every unsatisfactory item is corrected	Air Agency Certificate and OpSpecs in hand
Leg C — after issuance
+ First operations and growth	Run the manuals as written; add ratings, foreign approvals and voluntary programs as supplements	Closer oversight as a new entrant for about five years	A station that stays certificated

Step 1 — Scope the station (and model the business)

Nothing can be written until the owners decide what the station is. Which legal entity will hold the certificate, and has anyone connected with it had a certificate revoked (§ 145.51(e))? Where is the fixed location, and is it one building or several? What is the highest-level article the station will approve for return to service — because that decides the ratings (OpSpec A003), which Part 65 certificates the signature roles need, and the tooling, data and housing? Will the articles be listed on the OpSpecs or on a capability list with a self-evaluation record for each (§ 145.215)? Who are the customers — general aviation, or Part 121 and 135 carriers, which brings § 145.205 procedures, a Part 120 drug and alcohol program and OpSpec A449? Will technicians work away from the shop (§ 145.203, OpSpec D100)? Will records and signatures be electronic (OpSpec A025)? Is the station a hazmat employer (§ 145.165)?

Each declared option brings DCT questions and manual text the station must then follow under § 145.207(a), so the rule is to declare only what will actually be running — and to design the rest in as later supplements. This is also where Delta Bravo builds the carrying-cost model: floor area and rent, the accountable manager, quality manager and technicians with payroll load, equipment leases, calibration, technical data and insurance, month by month from lease signing to certificate. The owners leave Step 1 with a signed Station Definition and a number they can finance against.

Step 2 — Fix the foundations

Some things cannot be corrected cheaply once the application is in. The name and address on the certificate must match the application form, and a location change mid-project can move the file to a different FAA office. The accountable manager must be a repair station employee with authority over all Part 145 operations (§§ 145.3(a), 145.151). The supervisors, the persons approving return to service and the signers of final inspections must each hold an appropriate mechanic or repairman certificate (§§ 145.153, 145.157, 145.213(d)); instrument and propeller work needs repairmen identified now, because a mechanic certificate does not cover it. The tool and equipment list is mapped to the manufacturer's required tooling for each article (§ 145.109), and a technical-data index records each document held, its revision and its source. Owners and proposed managers are screened for revocation history. The equipment contract allowed by § 145.51(b) covers equipment only — people, housing, facilities and technical data cannot be promised; they must be there.

This is where the partnership's timing work earns its keep. The FAA requires the people and the place to be real at inspection, not at filing. Delta Bravo plans the lease and the key hires against the schedule of events so the shop is ready when the FAA team arrives rather than idle for months in line — while never promising the FAA something that will not exist when it looks.

Step 3 — Build the document set

The Repair Station Manual is drafted to the fifteen items of § 145.209 and the Quality Control Manual to the twelve items of § 145.211(c), with AC 145-9A as the FAA's accepted means of compliance. The training program meets § 145.163 and AC 145-10, including human-factors training. The forms section holds a sample of every work order, tag, label and release form named in the procedures, with completion instructions. Forms 8400-6 and 8310-3, the article list, the contract-function list the FAA must approve (§ 145.217), the housing and facilities description, the hazardous-materials statement and the proposed OpSpecs with their data complete the package. The schedule of events is written in calendar-day intervals from project start, with realistic FAA review time. A cross-reference table from each § 145.209 and § 145.211 item to its manual paragraph is built at the same time — it is also the skeleton of the DCT answer package.

Six drafting rules carry the manuals through design assessment: no silent sections (for each privilege not elected, state that the station does not exercise it and will revise the manual and obtain FAA approval before it does); titles, not names, identical in the chart and every procedure; describe only what will be kept true, because the inspector compares the chart, floor plan, forms and revision levels with the floor; give every procedure a responsible title, an authority, its controls, its interfaces and how it is measured — the closing questions of every DCT; know which documents are accepted (RSM, QCM, capability list: revise, then notify) and which are approved (training program, contract-function list: submit before use); and remember that every submission is a statement to the FAA under §§ 3.403 and 3.405.

Step 4 — DCT completion and the self-audit

The FAA assesses a repair station against a structured bank of more than 950 Element-Design questions, narrowed to the station's ratings, customers and elected options. Delta Bravo answers every applicable question before filing, pointing to the manual name, chapter and section, then audits the whole package the way an FAA inspector would — a blind panel of inspector-style reviewers plus a citation checker — and closes every gap found. Submitting self-audited DCTs is voluntary, but arriving with them means the FAA team can verify compliance directly instead of searching for it, and that the single lowest-severity discrepancy that would fail a manual has already been found by us.

The DCTs matter twice. For the applicant they are the exam the design is graded against, and the single place a missing requirement is found before or after the FAA finds it. For the certificated station they are the framework of surveillance: the FAA classes a new station as a new entrant and oversees it more closely for roughly five years, using the same element structure. DCT completion is included in the Builder fee — every applicable Element-Design question for peer group 145F answered to the manual section, counsel-reviewed, and re-checked against the FAA's current DCT revisions every 90 days while the station waits in line, with no per-question charge. The station leaves certification holding a completed, current, cited DCT package as its surveillance baseline.

Steps 5 and 6 — File, get in line, stay ready

Under N 8900.766, every item of the FAA's Part 145 readiness checklist (Table A-8) is filed at once. The receiving office is expected to decide within 30 calendar days; a return must be answered within 15 days or the application is withdrawn and the applicant loses its place. Acceptance brings the Applicant List letter, then status letters at least every 60 days while the station waits for a certification team — with no limit on the wait, and FAA offices instructed not to predict one. Delta Bravo keeps the package current through the queue: the FAA's question sets re-checked every 90 days, Advisory Circular and Notice changes tracked, and the station's own facts — staffing, tooling, articles — reconciled to the documents as they evolve.

Steps 7 to 10 — The FAA project

When a team is assigned, the managers are interviewed and the schedule of events is agreed; Delta Bravo prepares the accountable manager and quality manager for those interviews and assembles the formal application. In design assessment the FAA reviews the RSM, QCM and training program against the DCTs and drafts the OpSpecs; each corrective-action letter is answered within its 15-day window, at no charge for anything Delta Bravo prepared. Before performance assessment Delta Bravo runs a full mock inspection of the shop — housing, tools, calibration, data, rosters, records, and the system working end-to-end on a real article — and then attends the FAA's on-site inspection. The certificate and OpSpecs are reviewed before the owners sign, and the station receives a day-one compliance checklist.

Built for growth from the first draft

A station certificated for a narrow first-year scope does not have to be rewritten to grow. Delta Bravo designs in an independent internal audit function, human-factors training, a single parts-release procedure and a long-term records schedule, so that European (EASA) or UK CAA approvals can later be added as supplements, additional ratings can be filed as amendments, and airline and charter customers can be taken on by adding the carrier-interface procedures, the Part 120 program and OpSpec A449 rather than rebuilding the quality system. The FAA classes a newly certificated station as a new entrant — a risk factor that fades over roughly five years — so its early oversight is closer; the optional first-year compliance partner keeps the manuals, rosters and records in the state the FAA accepted while the business finds its footing.

Where the FAA's own instructions disagree

Order 8900.1 Volume 2, Chapter 11 still describes the older sequence — statement of intent first, manuals later, two meetings. Notice N 8900.766 requires the full package before the applicant is queued, and N 8900.775 governs withdrawals. Neither Notice says it cancels any paragraph of the Order, and both Notices expire in 2027, when their content is expected to be folded into the Order. Delta Bravo's roadmap follows the Notices and builds the package to satisfy both lists, so that nothing an inspector working from either document asks for is missing.

What the owners provide

The fee covers Delta Bravo's work; the station's own startup costs stay with the owners: forming the company with their own attorney for entity, lease and employment matters; leasing and fitting out the facility; hiring the accountable manager and the certificated supervisors, inspectors and technicians on the agreed schedule; buying or leasing tooling and test equipment and having it calibrated; subscribing to the manufacturers' technical data for each article on the capability list; insurance; drug and alcohol consortium fees if the airline and charter package applies; and decisions within five business days of a request.

The practical takeaway

The FAA charges nothing for a Part 145 certificate and the certificate never expires — but the path to it is front-loaded, clocked and unforgiving of a single missing requirement. A shop that files a complete, internally consistent package with the FAA's questions already answered, that times its lease and hires to the FAA's schedule, and that keeps the package current through the wait reaches its certificate with the fewest correction cycles and the least capital burned in line. That is the work a Builder does, and the reason it is priced as a partnership rather than by the hour.

Part 145 and the same 2026 readiness rules

N 8900.766 applies to air agency certificates as well as air operator certificates. A Part 145 applicant must demonstrate readiness before placement on the Applicant List, and N 8900.775’s withdrawal and 15-day response rules apply once the project starts. The ten-step roadmap on this page still describes the substance of a repair-station build; the front-end filing now runs through the same readiness discipline. For the operator-side twin of this process, see How Long Does Part 135 Certification Take?.

Sources

• 14 CFR Part 145, including §§ 145.3, 145.51, 145.53, 145.57, 145.61, 145.103–145.109, 145.151–145.165, 145.201–145.223; 14 CFR §§ 3.401–3.405; 14 CFR Part 65.
• FAA Notice N 8900.766, Determine Applicant Readiness for Certification (effective January 26, 2026), ¶6, ¶7 and Appendix A, Table A-8 (Part 145 readiness checklist).
• FAA Notice N 8900.775, Disposition of Incomplete or Insufficient Air Operator and Air Agency Certification Applications (effective May 26, 2026), ¶7 and Appendix B.
• FAA Order 8900.1, Volume 2, Chapter 11 (repair station certification); Volume 10, Chapter 6, Section 1, Table 10-6-1D (design assessment determinations); Volume 10, Chapter 12, Section 1 (Certification Services Oversight Process); Volume 3, Chapter 18 (OpSpecs A003, A025, A101, A449, D100, D107).
• FAA Advisory Circulars AC 145-9A (Repair Station and Quality Control Manuals) and AC 145-10 (Repair Station Training Program).
• R. Aggergaard, “Legal Matters: Managing the queue,” MRO Management, Aviation Business News, April 2023 (FAA resource waits).

Frequently asked questions

Can a company get a Part 145 repair station certificate for me?

A certification firm can build the entire application for you — the Repair Station Manual and Quality Control Manual, the training program, the ratings and capability list, the FAA's readiness package, every applicant Data Collection Tool, and the FAA meetings and pre-certification inspection — and Delta Bravo Aviation's Part 145 Repair Station Builder does that for a fixed fee of $75,000 to $120,000 — typically $89,500, or $62,500 for a single-limited-rating small shop — delivered remotely, with on-site visits as a priced option. The Air Agency Certificate is still issued to your company: 14 CFR Part 145 requires your own accountable manager, your housing and facilities, your tooling and technical data, and your qualified personnel to be in place and inspected before the certificate is issued.

How much does Part 145 repair station certification cost?

The FAA charges no fee for the certificate. The cost is the build: Delta Bravo Aviation's Part 145 Repair Station Builder is a fixed $75,000 to $120,000 depending on ratings, classes and training-program scope — typically $89,500 — or $62,500 for a single-limited-rating small shop, with all applicant DCTs included and payment by milestone. Separately, the shop itself must fund facilities that meet § 145.103, the tooling and current technical data for each rating sought, personnel who meet § 145.151 through § 145.163, and working capital for an Applicant List wait of no fixed length.

What does a Part 145 repair station applicant have to have in place before the FAA will inspect it?

Under 14 CFR § 145.51(b), the applicant must have its housing, facilities, technical data and personnel in place at certification. Only equipment may be covered by a contract that makes it available when needed. The building must be real, the manufacturers' technical data for every article on the capability list must be held at the current revision, and the accountable manager, supervisors, inspectors and persons authorized to approve articles for return to service must be named, qualified and on staff.

What documents does a new repair station submit, and when?

Since FAA Notice N 8900.766 (January 26, 2026), the complete package is due before the FAA places the applicant on its Applicant List: FAA Form 8400-6 (Preapplication Statement of Intent), FAA Form 8310-3 (Application for Repair Station Certificate and/or Rating), the Repair Station Manual, the Quality Control Manual, the training program, the capability list and self-evaluation records if used, the list of maintenance functions to be contracted out, the housing and facilities description, the hazardous-materials statement, the schedule of events and the proposed Operations Specifications with their data.

What causes an FAA inspector to reject a Repair Station Manual or Quality Control Manual?

Under FAA Order 8900.1 Volume 10, Chapter 6, Section 1, Table 10-6-1D, even the lowest-severity regulatory discrepancy in a manual rates the design 'Not Accepted/Approved.' In practice that means one missing item from the fifteen required by § 145.209 for the Repair Station Manual, or from the twelve required by § 145.211(c) for the Quality Control Manual, is enough to send the manual back. The FAA assesses the manuals against a structured bank of more than 950 Element-Design questions narrowed to the station's scope; answering those questions to the manual section before filing is how the gaps are found first.

How long does Part 145 certification take?

The applicant controls the first 12 to 16 weeks, from a signed Station Definition to a filed readiness package, provided decisions and information arrive within five business days of a request. The FAA then has 30 calendar days to decide whether to accept the filing; after acceptance there is no fixed limit on the wait for a certification team, and FAA offices are told not to predict a start date — industry reports have described waits of a year or longer. The FAA's review and on-site inspection have no set timeframe. Applicants should budget capital for at least 12 to 18 months from signing to certificate, with a reserve for a longer wait.

What ratings will a new repair station receive?

The FAA normally grants a new station limited ratings — by make and model or by capability list — rather than a full class rating at initial certification. A limited accessory rating, for example, is defined by the makes and models listed, not by the FAA's mechanical, electrical and electronic accessory classes. Ratings are based on the highest-level article the station will approve for return to service, and each rating brings its own tooling, technical data, personnel and Data Collection Tool questions.

Does the FAA charge for a Part 145 certificate, and does it expire?

The FAA charges no fee for a U.S. repair station certificate, and the certificate has no expiry date; it stays in force until surrendered, suspended or revoked. A certificate is not transferable: under § 145.57(b), on a sale or transfer of assets the new owner must apply for an amended or new certificate.

Related reading

• Can a Company Build Your Part 135 Certificate for You? What a Complete 2026 Application Contains
• How Long Does FAA Part 135 Certification Take? The Phases, the Clocks and What Changed in 2026
• What are SAS DCTs? Element-Design (DA) and Element-Performance (PA) Explained
• Preparing for an FAA SAS DCT Review
• Part 145 Repair Station Builder — the service
• Part 145 Repair Station Builder — core fee, options and payment schedule