There are two separate 90-day clocks, not one. To carry anyone in daylight you need three takeoffs and three landings in the preceding 90 days, flown as sole manipulator of the controls in the same category and class, and touch-and-goes count. To carry anyone at night you need three more takeoffs and three landings to a full stop, all flown between one hour after sunset and one hour before sunrise, also inside the preceding 90 days. Night landings satisfy both clocks at once. Daylight landings never satisfy the night one.
Search Pilots of America for night currency and you’ll scroll past a stack of threads asking variations of the same three questions. Pilots describe the rule as confusing and mostly blame the same thing, that it hung on the word passenger and Part 61 never defined it. That complaint is out of date. The FAA fixed it on December 2, 2024.
What 61.57 actually says
Two paragraphs do the work, both on 90 rolling days, not calendar months.
61.57(a)(1), day. Three takeoffs and three landings in the preceding 90 days, with you as sole manipulator of the flight controls, in an aircraft of the same category, class, and type if a class or type rating is required. Tailwheel airplanes: those landings had to be full stops in a tailwheel airplane.
61.57(b)(1), night. Three takeoffs and three landings to a full stop, every one of them inside the period beginning one hour after sunset and ending one hour before sunrise, in the preceding 90 days, sole manipulator, same category, class, and type.
That’s it. No traffic pattern requirement, no minimum time, no rule against all three in one go.
Rolling means the math moves every morning: three landings on March 1 keep you legal through May 30 and are worthless on May 31. I write that expiration date in the logbook next to the entry, because ramp arithmetic with passengers loading is how people talk themselves into a wrong answer. Then 61.57(a)(2) is the paragraph that saves you, allowing PIC under day VFR or day IFR with nothing aboard beyond what the flight requires, so you can go get those landings back. Non-current has never meant grounded.
Full stop means full stop
The night rule says “to a full stop” and stops there. The accepted reading is that the airplane comes to a complete stop, so a stop-and-go counts, a taxi-back counts, and a touch-and-go does not. The FARs don’t spell that out, so confirm it with your CFI before you build a night around it.
I taxi back. A stop-and-go turns whatever runway you’re on into a much shorter one, and doing that in the dark to save six minutes is a trade I don’t like. Separately: the 10 full-stop night landings from your training came out of 61.109(a)(2), which you satisfy once. Currency rolls.
Night counts for day, day never counts for night
Three full-stop landings in the night window are also three takeoffs and landings within the preceding 90 days in the same category and class, so they tick 61.57(a)(1) on the way past, and in a tailwheel airplane the full stops cover that provision too. The reverse never works. A hundred daylight landings leave 61.57(b) untouched.
Three different definitions of night
Here’s the trap that produces the “hypothetical scenarios” threads. Three regulations use three different nights.
- Position lights. 91.209 requires lighted position lights from sunset to sunrise.
- Loggable night flight time. The definition in 14 CFR 1.1: the time between the end of evening civil twilight and the beginning of morning civil twilight, as published in the Air Almanac. In the lower 48 that’s roughly half an hour after sunset, later the farther north you are.
- Currency. 61.57(b), one hour after sunset to one hour before sunrise.
So there is a band of about thirty minutes where you log night flight time that does nothing for your currency. Take off at sunset plus 35, three full stops done by sunset plus 55, log 0.4 night, and you’re as non-current as you were at breakfast. That mismatch is behind half those threads.
It cuts both ways. 61.57(b) only bites inside its own window, so leaving with a passenger at sunset plus 30 and tying down by sunset plus 55 needs no night currency at all. Legal, and still a night landing by a pilot who hasn’t made one in four months, which is what personal minimums are for.
The rule stopped saying “passenger”
The word sat in 61.57 from the 1997 rewrite of Part 61 until December 2, 2024, when the FAA’s final rule on public aircraft logging, training in aircraft holding special airworthiness certificates, and flight instructor privileges (89 FR 80310) took effect. Two things changed.
61.57(a)(1) and (b)(1) now read “carrying persons.” And Part 61 finally defines the term at 61.1(b): “Passenger means any person on board an aircraft other than a crewmember, FAA personnel, manufacturer personnel required for type certification, or a person receiving or providing flight training, checking, or testing as authorized by this part.”
Then 61.57(e)(5) codifies what everyone assumed. Paragraphs (a) and (b) don’t apply to a person receiving flight training from an authorized instructor, provided the training is limited to meeting those recency requirements, the pilot meets every other requirement to act as PIC, and the instructor and that pilot are the sole occupants. The FAA’s preamble is blunt about why: its earlier legal interpretations reaching the same conclusion were “unsupported by FAA regulations.” Read (e)(5) literally, though. Two people, one an authorized instructor, flying to regain recency. Your spouse cannot ride in back to watch. 61.57(e)(6) handles the other obvious case, exempting the examiner and applicant during a practical test.
One gray area survives, and 61.57(a)(2) is not the way out of it. That paragraph is expressly day only, covering PIC under day VFR or day IFR, so it offers no relief from the night requirement in (b). The live question is narrower: a safety pilot required by 91.109 is a person on board, so night hood work needs night currency unless that safety pilot is not a passenger, and 61.1(b) excludes crewmembers from the definition. Neither exception in 61.57(e) settles it either, since (e)(5) covers an authorized instructor giving recency training and (e)(6) covers an examiner on a practical test. Get that one from your CFI rather than a forum.
Flight review vs currency
These get mixed up constantly. 61.56 asks for a flight review every 24 calendar months: one hour of ground, one hour of flight, an authorized instructor, a logbook endorsement, with a pilot proficiency check or a phase of WINGS able to stand in. Without a valid review you cannot act as PIC at all, solo included. 61.57 only governs carrying people.
The clocks differ too. A review completed June 12, 2026 runs through June 30, 2028, because calendar months expire at month end. Currency counts backward 90 days from today, every day. Instrument flying adds a third clock at 61.57(c). Your medical or BasicMed is a fourth.
The currency card
Four blocks, one page, where you’ll see it before the airplane moves.
- Two dates, written out. “Day current through ___” and “Night current through ___,” figured in the logbook the day you fly, not at the ramp.
- Log the detail you’ll need later. Every landing gets “full stop” or “T&G.” Every night landing gets the local time, checked against the field’s actual sunset.
- Before carrying anyone, five questions. Day date good? Any part of this flight inside the night window, and is the night date good? Flight review current? Medical or BasicMed current? Do those landings match this airplane’s category and class, and if it’s a tailwheel, were they full stops in one?
- A trigger, not a reminder. Thirty days out from the night date, book the flight. December is easy at KOAK, where sunset plus an hour lands before dinner. June is a 10 p.m. departure, and June is when currency quietly lapses.
Put those blocks on the front of the checklist you already carry, or first in your checkride binder. Adding a Currency block to the top of a 172 checklist in the editor takes five minutes, and the usual rules apply: short, fixed position, legible at arm’s length, which how to build a checklist covers in depth. Whether it lives on paper or in your EFB matters less than whether you look at it. The student pilot hub has the handbooks and the current FAR/AIM, and any regulation you’d bet a certificate on deserves a read of the current text plus a word with your CFI.
Common questions
Do touch-and-goes count for night currency?
No. 61.57(b)(1) requires three takeoffs and three landings to a full stop inside the window that begins one hour after sunset and ends one hour before sunrise. Touch-and-goes are fine for the day requirement in 61.57(a)(1) unless you're flying a tailwheel airplane, but they do nothing for night. A stop-and-go or a taxi-back both work, since the airplane comes to a complete stop either way.
Does night currency count for day currency?
Yes. Three full-stop landings flown in the night window are still three takeoffs and three landings within the preceding 90 days in the same category and class, so they satisfy 61.57(a)(1) at the same time. It does not work in reverse. No number of daylight landings will ever make you night current.
Is a flight instructor a passenger under 61.57?
No. Since December 2, 2024, Part 61 defines passenger at 61.1(b) to exclude anyone receiving or providing flight training, checking, or testing, and 61.57(e)(5) says the recency requirements don't apply to a person receiving flight training from an authorized instructor when the training is limited to regaining that recency, the pilot meets every other requirement to act as PIC, and the two of them are the only people on board.
What is the difference between a flight review and currency?
A flight review under 61.56 is one hour of ground and one hour of flight with an authorized instructor every 24 calendar months, and without it you can't act as pilot in command at all, even alone. Currency under 61.57 is three takeoffs and landings in the preceding 90 days, and it only limits whether you can carry people. Two different clocks: calendar months for the review, rolling days for currency.
Do I need to be current to fly by myself?
No. 61.57(a)(2) specifically lets you act as pilot in command under day VFR or day IFR with nobody and nothing aboard beyond what the flight requires, which is how you go get your three takeoffs and landings back. You still need a valid flight review, medical or BasicMed, and any endorsements the airplane requires.