EASA pilot logbook requirements (Part-FCL FCL.050)

EASA’s logbook guidance changed in February 2025. Cruise relief now has its own entry, and a passed skill test or proficiency check can be logged as PIC once the examiner signs. Much of what’s written about the EASA logbook predates that, and some of it cites text that has since been replaced. This article works from the rules in force today, and from what the authorities in Switzerland, Ireland and Germany say they will accept.

One of those changes is personal. For a year I flew as a combination first officer and relief pilot on a Canadian-registered 787, for a Canadian airline, and nobody told me how to log the relief time. EASA’s rules answer that question for its pilots, and the 2025 change gave the answer its own entry.

What does Part-FCL actually require?

Less than most people expect. The whole rule is one sentence: “The pilot shall keep a reliable record of the details of all flights flown in a form and manner established by the competent authority” (FCL.050). The competent authority is the national authority that issued your licence, not EASA.

Part-FCL applies across EASA’s 31 member states: the 27 EU countries plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland (EASA Member States). The UK isn’t one of them any more. A UK licence holder should start from the CAA’s own guidance on logbook evidence (CAA documentation guidance), and from where the UK’s rules now differ; see UK CAA pilot logbook requirements.

Everything else people call “the EASA logbook” is AMC1 FCL.050, EASA’s acceptable means of compliance (AMC1 FCL.050). It’s written in “should”, not “shall”: it describes the way the rule is normally met. In practice, authorities adopt it. Germany’s transport ministry says the AMC describes accepted methods that are followed as a rule, while noting that the regulation still expressly requires the authority to set the form itself (NfL 2212-21 (Germany)).

So there are two questions for any logbook: does it meet AMC1 FCL.050, and does it meet what your own authority asks for? The first is the same across Europe. The second is not.

What must each entry contain?

For each flight, AMC1 FCL.050 asks for (AMC1 FCL.050):

• the name(s) of the PIC, or SELF;
• the date, in dd/mm/yy, of the day the flight began;
• the place and time of departure and arrival, in UTC;
• the aircraft’s make, model, variant and registration;
• whether it was single-pilot or multi-pilot and, if single-pilot, single- or multi-engine;
• the total time of the flight, and the running total;
• landings as pilot flying, by day and by night;
• night time and IFR time;
• your pilot function: PIC, co-pilot, dual or instructor.

Simulator sessions go in their own column, with the device type and its qualification number, and the kind of exercise in Remarks. The session time includes the pre- and after-flight checks. The log also carries your name and address.

Flight time in an aeroplane runs “from the moment an aircraft first moves for the purpose of taking off until the moment it finally comes to rest at the end of the flight” (FCL.010). In a helicopter, it runs from when the rotor blades start turning until they stop. Canada’s definition is nearly word for word the same, but adds that the aircraft must move under its own power; see what counts as flight time in Canada.

A few conventions trip people up:

• One line per flight. The exception is a series of flights on the same day, back to the same place, with no more than 30 minutes between them. That series may go on one line.
• Hours and minutes or decimals, whichever you prefer.
• Entries as soon as practicable after the flight, in ink on paper.
• Page totals certified by you in Remarks, each time you finish a page. The sample page ends with “I certify that the entries in this log are true” and a line for your signature.

Some Remarks are not optional. You should always record (AMC1 FCL.050):

• instrument time flown as training for a licence or rating;
• details of every skill test and proficiency check;
• the name and signature of the PIC, whenever you log SPIC or PICUS time;
• the instructor’s name and signature on the training flight for an SEP or TMG class rating revalidation, and on LAPL recency flights;
• CRCP when you flew as cruise relief co-pilot.

When can you log PIC time?

AMC1 FCL.050 lists the cases (AMC1 FCL.050):

• You were the PIC.
• Solo flight time.
• SPIC and flight time under supervision, countersigned by the instructor.
• Passed skill tests, proficiency checks and assessments of competence, countersigned by the examiner. This one arrived with ED Decision 2025/002/R, so pages written before 2025 won’t mention it (ED Decision 2025/002/R).
• Instructing: all the time you act as an instructor in an aircraft.
• Examining: all the time you sit in a pilot’s seat and act as examiner.
• PICUS: a co-pilot on an aircraft that requires more than one pilot, when the time is countersigned by the PIC.
• Supervised command: when the air operations regulation requires a pilot to act as PIC under another pilot’s supervision, both of them may log the time as PIC.

Two definitions matter here (FCL.010). Solo flight time is time when a student is the aircraft’s sole occupant. SPIC, student pilot-in-command, is a student acting as PIC with an instructor on board who “will only observe the student pilot and shall not influence or control the flight of the aircraft.”

How do you log PICUS and SPIC time?

In the PIC column. There is no PICUS column on the AMC’s page, whatever some logbook layouts suggest. The instructions say a pilot flying as PICUS or SPIC “enters flying time as ‘PIC’ but all such entries are to be certified by the PIC or FI in the ‘Remarks’ column” (AMC1 FCL.050). The AMC’s own example shows the remark as “PIC(US): signature of NAME(S) PIC.”

For PICUS, the method of supervision has to be acceptable to your authority, and you must have carried out all the duties and functions of PIC without the PIC needing to step in for safety (AMC1 FCL.050).

Take the signature seriously. Ireland’s authority states that “Hours claimed as PICUS Hours not certified by the PIC cannot be included in the total flying time and used for the issue of a licence.” Asked whether every PICUS hour needs signing, or only enough to meet a requirement, it answers yes, every hour you want to count (IAA logbook FAQ (Ireland)).

This is where the EASA, FAA and Canadian rules part company. Under EASA, PICUS goes in the PIC column, signed. Under the FAA, the same time outside an approved program is logged as SIC; see PIC under supervision in the US. In Canada it only exists inside an operator’s program, and counts at half value towards an ATPL; see PIC under supervision in Canada. If your log may ever be read under more than one of them, keep PICUS identifiable on every line where you log it.

How do you log cruise relief time?

A cruise relief co-pilot relieves the co-pilot at the controls during the cruise, in multi-pilot operations above FL 200 (FCL.010). The AMC lets a cruise relief co-pilot log all flight time as co-pilot “when occupying a pilot’s seat” (AMC1 FCL.050). That part isn’t new: it was in the rules EASA published in 2020 (Part-FCL Easy Access Rules (2020)). What 2025 added is the name. Cruise relief co-pilot is now one of the pilot functions a log records, and CRCP goes in Remarks, “to ensure that cruise-relief co-pilot flight time is recorded appropriately” (ED Decision 2025/002/R).

That 787 was Canadian-registered and flown for a Canadian airline, so the rule never applied to me, but my year would read differently under it. I logged relief time in its own column, bunk time included, because my operator gave no guidance and a separate column could be counted or left out later. Under Part-FCL, only the hours in a pilot’s seat go in the co-pilot column. The bunk has no column at all. The AMC also speaks only of a cruise relief co-pilot; it says nothing about a relief captain.

If you log relief time the way I did, keep the seat time separable from the rest. That’s the number an EASA page needs. For the FAA’s side of the same question, see how to log relief pilot time.

Who has to sign what?

• You: every page total, and, for an electronic log, the records themselves (AMC1 FCL.050).
• Your instructor: the instruction you received, your SPIC and supervised time, and the training flight for an SEP or TMG revalidation.
• Your examiner: a skill test, proficiency check or assessment of competence you want to log as PIC.
• The PIC: your PICUS time.

A stamp from your employer doesn’t replace those signatures. Ireland’s authority says each training flight must be certified by the instructor who gave it, and that a letter from an employer or training organisation “may supplement a submission but is not acceptable as the primary evidence of meeting an experience requirement” (IAA logbook FAQ (Ireland)).

On paper, Germany asks that a wrong entry be struck through so it stays readable, followed by a correct entry showing the date of the change (NfL 2212-21 (Germany)).

Can an EASA logbook be electronic?

Yes. The AMC’s 12-column page “may be kept in electronic format.” Electronic records should be kept “readily available at the request of a competent authority,” contain everything a paper entry would, and be “certified by the pilot, and in a format acceptable by the competent authority” (AMC1 FCL.050). That isn’t new in 2025, whatever you may have read: the same wording was in the rules EASA published in 2020 (Part-FCL Easy Access Rules (2020)).

There is no EASA approval for a logbook app. The rule leaves the form to the national authority, and EASA runs no scheme to approve software. You’ll see apps and printed books sold with EASA’s name on them. That tells you which layout they follow. It isn’t an approval, because nothing in Part-FCL could grant one. Transport Canada and the FAA have no approval process for logbooks either; see Canada and the US.

What varies is what your authority wants to receive. Two examples:

• Switzerland. The Federal Office of Civil Aviation “encourages the use of electronic or digital logbooks.” Any electronic logbook can be used if it meets AMC1 FCL.050. For a licence application, you send a PDF extract in the AMC’s format, signed page by page, by hand or digitally, and have the hours confirmed by an approved body such as a training organisation or an examiner. FOCA also keeps a short list of digital logbooks it has formally accepted, whose hours need no such confirmation for an SEP revalidation (FOCA logbook formats (Switzerland)).
• Ireland. For a licence or an upgrade, you send all of your logbooks, or scans of every page certified by a notary. An electronic logbook doesn’t excuse the earlier ones: “You must send all your logbooks for inspection” (IAA logbook FAQ (Ireland)). For a computerised logbook, the ATPL guidance asks for a full printout, with each page certified by you as a true record (IAA licensing FAQ (Ireland)).

So the question isn’t whether EASA allows an electronic logbook. It does. The question is whether yours can produce what your authority will ask for. Before you commit years of flying to one, check that it prints the AMC1 FCL.050 columns, that the printout leaves room for your signature and the countersignatures, and that you can get all of your data out in a format another program can read.

Do your airline’s records count as your logbook?

For some flights, they can. Flights under commercial air transport “may be recorded in an electronic format maintained by the operator,” and the operator should give you the records of all your flights, including differences and familiarisation training, when you ask (AMC1 FCL.050).

That covers the operator’s flights and nothing else. Germany’s ministry spells it out (our translation from the German): the provision “does not relieve” the pilot of recording flights flown outside commercial air transport, and for those “a separate logbook” must be kept (NfL 2212-21 (Germany)).

My airline’s records have never been my logbook. I keep my own alongside them. The operator’s record is theirs, and it covers only their flying. Mine comes with me to the next licence application and the next job. I’ve seen what happens to pilots who rely on the company’s history instead; see your employer’s records are not your logbook.

Who can ask to see your logbook?

An inspector from the authority. A pilot or student pilot “shall without undue delay present his/her flight time record for inspection upon request by an authorised representative of a competent authority” (FCL.045). You don’t have to carry it: the documents you must carry when you fly are your licence, your medical certificate and a photo ID.

Part-FCL sets no retention period for your own log; the AMC calls it “a permanent record” of your flying (AMC1 FCL.050). Germany sets a floor of five years after the last entry, and recommends keeping it longer for any renewal that needs it (NfL 2212-21 (Germany)). Keep it for your career.

How does logged time count towards a licence?

Logging and crediting are separate steps. Your log records the time you flew. Credit is worked out when you apply, under FCL.035 (FCL.035):

• Time must normally be in the same category of aircraft as the licence or rating you’re applying for.
• Solo, dual and PIC time counts in full.
• Co-pilot and PICUS time counts in full towards the total flight time for a higher grade of licence.
• A graduate of an integrated ATP or CPL/IR course may count up to 50 hours of SPIC instrument time towards the PIC time for the licence.

The requirements for each licence set their own minimums on top of that. The log’s job is to make each kind of time easy to find when the application asks for it, which is the best reason to log it carefully from the first flight.