A certificate of waiver is the formal way to fly outside a standard Part 107 rule, and § 107.200 sets the terms. Under § 107.200(a), the FAA may issue a certificate of waiver authorizing a deviation from any regulation on the § 107.205 list — but only if it finds that the proposed operation can safely be conducted under the terms of that waiver. Chapter 2 introduced the system; the word that carries the weight is the condition. A waiver is not permission to break a rule and accept the risk. It is permission to meet the rule’s underlying safety goal a different way, granted only when the FAA is satisfied the operation is genuinely safe.

The burden of showing that sits with the applicant, not the agency. Section 107.200(b) requires the request to contain a complete description of the proposed operation and a justification that establishes the operation can safely be conducted under the terms of a waiver. You do not simply ask for relief; you have to make the case for it, which is the subject of the safety case later in this chapter. And the FAA keeps a lever even when it agrees: § 107.200(c) lets it prescribe any additional limitations it considers necessary, so a granted waiver frequently arrives with conditions attached to it.

What you receive, then, is bounded relief — never a blank check. Section 107.200(d) says the holder may deviate from the rules only to the extent specified in the certificate, and must comply with any conditions or limitations it contains. A waiver authorizes exactly the deviation it describes, under exactly the terms it sets, and nothing beyond that. Fly past those terms — a different location, a wider deviation, an ignored condition — and you are operating outside the waiver, which means back in violation of the very rule you thought you had cleared.