Ask three pilots when "night" begins and you may get three answers, and under the FAA all three can be right at once, because it defines night differently for different jobs. Layered on top of that is a deeper question a student rarely thinks to ask until the days shorten: is VFR flight at night even allowed, and what does it take to be legal for it? The answers split cleanly between the European and American systems, and the split is worth learning properly before your first dusk lesson.
This is general educational information, not operational, legal, or regulatory advice. Rules differ by authority and change over time. Always verify against current official sources and follow your operator's approved procedures.
What counts as night
The intuitive idea, that night is when the sun has set, is not the regulatory one anywhere. Both systems anchor night to civil twilight, the fading light after sunset, and civil twilight ends when the geometric centre of the sun's disc reaches 6 degrees below the horizon, roughly half an hour after sunset at temperate latitudes, longer nearer the poles. So there is always a gap between sunset and the legal start of night.
Where the systems part is how many definitions they keep. EASA holds to one; the UK keeps two, because the Air Navigation Order adds its own half-hour definition alongside retained SERA; the FAA keeps three, each for a different purpose. Conflating them is the classic error.
The FAA's three nights
The FAA's general definition sits in 14 CFR 1.1: night is "the time between the end of evening civil twilight and the beginning of morning civil twilight, as published in the Air Almanac, converted to local time". This is the night you use when you log night flight time, as our guide to logging night flying time sets out in detail.
But the FAA does not use that period for everything. For showing lights, 14 CFR 91.209 requires position lights to be lit during the period from sunset to sunrise (with an Alaska variation), a wider window than the civil-twilight one, which is why lights go on before logging-night begins; see aircraft lights and when to show them. And for carrying persons, 14 CFR 61.57(b) sets night recency in a third period, from 1 hour after sunset to 1 hour before sunrise, narrower than both the others: the take-offs and landings that keep you current to fly with anyone aboard at night must fall in that hour-tightened window. This is commonly called passenger currency, but the rule's current text says carrying persons, so any person aboard triggers it.
So a single evening can be "night" for lights before it is "night" for logging, and "night" for logging before it is "night" for passenger currency. Three clocks, three sections, one sky. The lesson is not to memorise all three as one blur but to ask which purpose you are dealing with, then apply the right period.
EASA's one definition, and the UK's second one
Europe is simpler on the definition and stricter on the qualification. Under the Standardised European Rules of the Air (SERA), night is defined once, as "the hours between the end of evening civil twilight and the beginning of morning civil twilight", with civil twilight ending in the evening, and beginning in the morning, when the centre of the sun's disc is 6 degrees below the horizon. In EASA-land that one definition serves logging, ratings and the rules of the air alike. The UK, having retained SERA after leaving the EU, uses the identical definition for the rules of the air, but here is the trap: UK law keeps a second definition too. The Air Navigation Order 2016 defines night as the time from half an hour after sunset until half an hour before sunrise, with sunset and sunrise determined at surface level, and the CAA's Skyway Code applies exactly that half-hour definition in the night rating context. On a long UK summer twilight the ANO's night can begin before civil-twilight night does, so a UK pilot should know both definitions and apply the one the rule at hand uses.
Is VFR at night even allowed?
This is where students are sometimes surprised. Under SERA, VFR at night is not automatically permitted. SERA.5005(c) opens with a conditional: "When so prescribed by the competent authority, VFR flights at night may be permitted under the following conditions". In other words, night VFR exists only where the national authority has switched it on, and then only subject to a set of conditions. The UK has switched it on: the CAA permits VFR at night by general permission, including outside controlled airspace, so a UK pilot can fly night VFR in Class G and does not have to fly it as IFR. That is worth stating plainly, because a common piece of folklore holds that night flight outside controlled airspace must be IFR; under the current UK rules that is not so for a suitably qualified VFR pilot.
The FAA needs no such enabling act. In the US, VFR at night is simply permitted for an appropriately certificated pilot, with no "when so prescribed" precondition. So the structural difference is real: Europe permits night VFR conditionally and by prescription; the US permits it as a matter of course. Same activity, different legal architecture.
The night rating, and the FAA's lack of one
The sharpest divergence is the qualification. Under EASA and the UK, a private or light-aircraft pilot needs a night rating to fly VFR at night. FCL.810 sets the training: a course at an approved or declared training organisation comprising theoretical knowledge and at least 5 hours of flight time at night, including at least 3 hours of dual instruction, of which at least 1 hour is cross-country navigation with at least one dual cross-country flight of at least 50 km (27 NM), and 5 solo take-offs and 5 solo full-stop landings, completed within a period of up to 6 months. The UK retains the same rating with the same figures, and the CAA notes it is non-expiring once held. (Holding an instrument rating does not shorten the aeroplane night-rating course; the only instrument-rating credit in FCL.810 is helicopter-specific, and an IR does not remove the need for the rating either, so do not assume an IR by itself lets a private pilot fly night VFR; confirm your own case against the CAA's night rating guidance.)
Under the FAA there is no night rating at all. Night is built into the private pilot certificate: for the single-engine airplane rating, 14 CFR 61.109(a)(2) requires, as part of training for the certificate, 3 hours of night flight training including one cross-country flight of over 100 nautical miles total distance and 10 take-offs and 10 landings to a full stop (other categories set their own numbers). The "Night flying prohibited" limitation of 14 CFR 61.110 is a narrow exception, not a general opt-out: it lets a person who receives flight training in and resides in the State of Alaska be issued the certificate without the night training, provided the training is then completed within 12 calendar months or the certificate becomes invalid for use, and it offers the limitation route otherwise only to gyroplane, powered parachute and weight-shift-control applicants. An airplane applicant outside Alaska cannot skip the night training. Notice even the training cross-country differs: the FAA's embedded night cross-country is over 100 nautical miles, while the EASA night-rating cross-country need only be 50 km (27 NM). One system issues a rating; the other writes the privilege into the licence.
The conditions EASA attaches to night VFR
Where night VFR is prescribed, SERA.5005(c) attaches conditions worth knowing before you plan one. If the flight leaves the vicinity of an aerodrome, a flight plan is required. The flight must establish and maintain two-way radio communication on the appropriate ATS channel when available. The cloud ceiling must be at least 450 m (1,500 ft). And in airspace classes B to G, at and below 900 m (3,000 ft) above mean sea level or 300 m (1,000 ft) above terrain, whichever is higher, the pilot must maintain continuous sight of the surface. At night the reduced flight-visibility provisions of the day VFR table do not apply, which leaves an effective flight-visibility floor of 5 km below 10,000 ft. And except for take-off, landing or with specific authorisation, the flight must respect the minimum heights set by the competent authority or, where none are set, SERA's own defaults. Read those two defaults carefully, because the datum is the part pilots drop: over high terrain or mountainous areas, at least 600 m (2,000 ft) above the highest obstacle within 8 km of the aircraft's estimated position, and elsewhere, at least 300 m (1,000 ft) above the highest obstacle within 8 km of the aircraft's estimated position. The 1,000 ft figure is not 1,000 ft above the ground beneath you. It is 1,000 ft above the tallest thing within 8 km of you, which on undulating ground with a mast on a ridge is a very different and much higher number. These sit alongside the ordinary VFR weather minima and cruising levels, tightening them for the dark. The FAA sets its own night VFR weather minima, which differ in the detail, so a pilot moving between systems should read the minima for the country of flight rather than carrying one set across.
A worked example
Two pilots, same evening, different systems.
A UK PPL(A) holder wants to fly a short cross-country returning after dark. First, qualification: she holds a night rating (FCL.810), so she is permitted; without it, night VFR would be off the table regardless of her day experience. Night VFR is prescribed in the UK, including in the Class G she will cross, so she does not need to file IFR. She checks the SERA.5005(c) conditions: she files a flight plan as she is leaving the vicinity of the aerodrome, confirms two-way radio, checks the forecast ceiling is at least 1,500 ft and the visibility at least 5 km, plans to stay where she can keep the surface in sight below 3,000 ft AMSL, and keeps the night minimum heights in her route plan. Legal, qualified, and within the conditions.
An FAA private pilot planning the equivalent flight at home has a different checklist. There is no night rating to hold and no "when so prescribed" gate; he is permitted to fly VFR at night by virtue of his certificate, having completed the 61.109(a)(2) night training as every lower-48 airplane applicant must (the 61.110 "Night flying prohibited" limitation exists only for Alaska-based applicants and a few light-aircraft categories). He does not file a flight plan merely because it is night. But if he plans to carry anyone with him, he checks 61.57(b): three take-offs and landings to a full stop in the 1-hour-after-sunset-to-1-hour-before-sunrise window within the preceding 90 days. Same flight, same darkness, and almost none of the legal furniture is shared between the two.
Common pitfalls
- Treating "night" as one thing under the FAA. It uses three periods, for logging (civil twilight), lights (sunset to sunrise) and currency to carry persons (the hour-tightened window).
- Assuming the UK has only one night definition. The ANO's half-hour definition sits alongside retained SERA's civil-twilight one, and the CAA applies the half-hour version in the night rating context.
- Assuming night VFR is automatically allowed in Europe. SERA permits it only "when so prescribed"; check that your state has prescribed it and on what conditions.
- Believing UK night flight in Class G must be IFR. The current UK rules permit night VFR outside controlled airspace for a suitably qualified pilot.
- Thinking the FAA has a night rating. It does not; night training is built into the certificate, and outside the narrow 61.110 exceptions (Alaska-based applicants and a few light-aircraft categories) it cannot be skipped.
- Reading SERA's night minimum height as 1,000 ft AGL. It is not. SERA.5005(c) measures both defaults, the 2,000 ft over high terrain and the 1,000 ft elsewhere, above the highest obstacle within 8 km of your estimated position, which will often put you far higher than 1,000 ft above the ground directly below.
- Carrying one system's night minima across. EASA/UK and FAA night VFR minima differ; read the rules for the country of flight.
- Confusing the training cross-country distances. The FAA's embedded night cross-country is over 100 NM; the EASA night-rating cross-country is 50 km (27 NM).
In Pilot EFB
Pilot EFB is a study and planning companion for night flying: keep the definitions and the EASA-versus-FAA split straight here in Learn, and your decoded weather and VFR minima in one offline-first briefing. It does not decide whether you are qualified or legal to fly at night, track your night currency as a legal fact, or grant any privilege; those rest with your licence, your ratings and the current rule for your country of flight. Pilot EFB is not a certified Electronic Flight Bag, so treat it as a study and planning aid and confirm your night qualification and the conditions from your official source of record before you fly after dark.