Not the whole licence, just the part you can act on this month: the subjects you need, what to do if you do not have them, the first three steps in order, and what it costs to start rather than to finish.
If you have just finished school, the question is not what the whole licence costs but what the first three steps are and whether you are eligible for them at all.
The Indian commercial licence route asks for Physics and Mathematics at 10+2, plus English. That is the requirement that decides whether you can start, and it is the one thing about this page worth checking against DGCA directly, because eligibility rules are exactly the sort of thing that moves and is then copied wrong across the internet for years.
This is not the end of it, and it is a common enough position that there is a well-worn route back: candidates add the two subjects through an open-schooling board and then apply. It costs time rather than a fortune, and it is the reason a commerce or arts stream at school is a delay and not a disqualification.
A fee for the open-schooling route is Not publishedanywhere in our cost reference, checked 15 June 2026, because our cost reference does not cover it. Take the fee from the board's own site rather than from any comparison page.
The commercial licence is not issued to anybody under eighteen, and that is the only hard age gate on the route. Everything before it, the medicals, the Computer Number and the theory papers, can be underway before you get there, which is exactly why the year after school is worth so much. Cadet programmes set their own age bands per intake and change them, so read the advertisement for the intake you want.
One, the Class 2 medical. It is the cheapest step in the whole route, it is quick, and it tells you whether the rest of the plan is real. Do it before you visit a school or pay a deposit, not after.
Two, your Computer Number. It is free, it lasts for life, and you cannot book a single DGCA paper without one. Our DGCA Pariksha portal guide walks the whole registration.
Three, your first DGCA papers. Five papers stand between you and a commercial licence, and each pass is valid for five years, so starting early is free money as long as you finish inside that window. The papers are the cheapest part of the route by an enormous margin, and the part that stops the most people.
| Step | Cost | Label |
|---|---|---|
| Class 2 medical | ₹3,000 to ₹8,000Reported | A consensus of reported centre fees, government and private. |
| Class 1 medical, when you are ready to commit | ₹5,000 to ₹12,000Reported | The licence-grade medical. |
| DGCA Computer Number | FreePublished | No fee on the exam portal. |
| One DGCA theory paper, regular session | ₹2,500Published | A government fee. |
| Ground school coaching, if you want it | ₹1.5 lakh to ₹3.5 lakhReported | Optional. One published anchor near the bottom of this band. |
The flying is where the money goes: ₹45 lakh to ₹55 lakhReported for the licence at an Indian flying school, and then ₹10 lakh to ₹35 lakhReported for the type rating that makes you employable on a jet. A cadet programme bundles all of it into one contract from ₹89.5 lakhPublished upward.
None of that is a decision for this month. What is a decision for this month is the medical, the Computer Number and the first paper, and none of those commits you to anything.
Not directly on the Indian licence route. Candidates who did not take them at school commonly add them through an open-schooling board and then apply. Confirm the current requirement with DGCA rather than with any comparison page.
The Class 2 medical. It is the cheapest step in the entire route and the one that most often ends the plan, so doing it before you pay a school anything large is the single best decision available to you.
The commercial licence is not issued below eighteen, and you can start the medicals, the Computer Number and the theory papers before then. Cadet programmes set their own age bands per intake, so read the advertisement for the intake you are applying to.
Under a lakh to get all the way through your medicals, your Computer Number and your first DGCA papers, which is a very different number from the cost of the whole licence. The flying is what costs lakhs, and it comes after.
If you use it to clear medicals and theory papers, it is not a gap year at all: it is the cheap half of the route done early, and it means your flying is never held up waiting on an exam.