A Part 107 remote pilot certificate is within reach of almost anyone: you must be at least 16 years old, able to read, speak, write, and understand English, and free of any physical or mental condition that would interfere with flying safely (§ 107.61). Two of those carry nuance. The English requirement has a medical exception — if you cannot meet it for medical reasons, the FAA may instead place operating limitations on your certificate as needed for safe operation. And the physical-or-mental-condition bar is a knowledge standard: you may not fly if you know or have reason to know you have a condition that would interfere with safe operation.

Meeting those thresholds makes you eligible; it does not yet make you a remote pilot. Section 107.63 recognizes two routes from eligible to certificated, and the whole chapter is organized around them. The first, which most people take, is to pass the aeronautical knowledge test — the exam covered in the next section. The second is for someone who already holds a Part 61 pilot certificate (a manned-aircraft license, other than a student one) and is current on their flight review: that pilot can complete a training course instead of sitting the test. Both routes end in exactly the same credential.

That credential is a remote pilot certificate with a small unmanned aircraft systems rating — the document that lets you act as remote pilot in command under Part 107. Everything else here hangs off it: the test that earns it, the Part 61 shortcut that can replace the test, the recurrency that keeps it current, and the mechanics of holding, updating, and potentially losing it. This section is just the threshold; the rest is how you cross it and stay across.