U.S. Agent Information for FAA Aircraft Dispatcher Certificate seekers and Certificate holders

By Eric Morris | Published: March 23, 2025

Updated July 1, 2025

The FAA recently made a change to regulation requiring all certificated airmen without a permanent mailing address in the United States to designate an “agent for service.”  The agent for service is a person or company that can receive official, urgent notifications from the FAA and then relay that information to you.

If you have a family member or good friend who lives within the United States who agrees to take on this responsibility for you, then you may list that person as your agent. If there’s nobody in the United States that you know who can do this for you, there are companies available that will provide that service for a fee. The links for two such companies are below:

We do not endorse any particular company; we just know that they have already reached out to some of our graduates outside the USA to offer their services.

Also, please note that Sheffield School will not be able to act as an agent for service.

Once you have determined who you’d like to designate as your agent for service, then you will need to designate that person with the FAA on your behalf. The FAA has created a web portal for that purpose.  The deadline for a current certificate holder to register your agent for service to the FAA in the portal is July 7. Here’s that link:

https://usas.faa.gov

Also, please note the following with minor paraphrasing:

“not being able to exercise privileges” until you designate an agent is not “your certificate will be revoked if you don’t designate, and recertification is required.” If I’m wrong, then they need better authors. Below is their wording; however, I recommend following their directions.
“No individual shall exercise the privileges of any certificate, rating, or authorization issued under part 47, 61, 63, 65, 67, or 107 of this chapter unless the individual has designated a U.S. agent as required under this subpart…
 

To summarize:
This exercise is mostly for notices of suspension or revocation, which is essentially unheard of for airmen outside the USA. By default, nobody is exercising the privileges of their certificate outside the USA. I question this requirement along with all these companies charging $50-100 annually to likely do nothing for you. In my 46 years of multiple FAA certifications, I’ve never heard from the FAA, except for being mailed a certificate. Make sure these “Agents” send you your FAA certificates if you’ve designated them to do so. If it takes over 2 months, something is not right.

Best Regards,

Eric Morris
President
Sheffield School of Aeronautics (est. 1948) – www.sheffield.com

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