As far as I know, you can fly an N reg aircraft with an EASA licence but cannot cross a national border unless you have an FAA airman certificate. Hopefully someone will give us the proper legal position as this is a question I'd like to be clear on too. Thanks for posting Karel.

Already pubished somewhere? A link perhaps? Thanks for posting.

The agreement itself has been published at
https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-11004-2019-INIT/en/pdf

However the technical implementation procedures that will explain the detail of what has to be done to convert from FAA to EASA or EASA to FAA, will take a little longer to publish.

As regards flying N-registered aircraft, there has so far been a possibility for Member States to allow non-commercial flying with a third country (e.g. FAA) license and medical even if based in the EU (Article 12(4) of Regulation 1178/2011). The deadline for ending that possibility has been repeatedly extended as we have been waiting for this licensing extension to the EU-US BASA to first enter into force. One, very last extension, was agreed only two weeks ago and it will push the deadline to 20 June 2022 (not published yet.)

However this also means that now that the BASA has been agreed, EU-based pilots flying with FAA licenses should prepare to convert to EU licenses before the deadline of 20 June 2022. It has been estimated that there are some 8000-9000 FAA licensed pilots in the EU so the authorities will have loads of work to do with the conversions and it would be good for pilots to apply well in advance, so as not to risk being grounded after that date.

Any estimations of when the technical implementation will be released? Would it be a good idea to already go ahead and apply for e.g. the Class 2 EASA medical?

It may well be that the various derogations (extended every year for almost 10 years) will stop. We will have to see. It would be a pity. Running an EASA IR (as well as an EASA medical) is a significant overhead which contributes nothing to safety, compared to the FAA 6/6/ IR rolling currency system. Politically provocative, of course, to some Europeans... (let me add I hold an EASA PPL/IR as well as an FAA CPL/IR, and both medicals)

Please note that " you can fly an N reg aircraft with an EASA licence but cannot cross a national border unless you have an FAA airman certificate" is not quite correct. FAR 61.3 states that you can fly an N-reg outside the US on a license *ISSUED BY* another country but only in that country's airspace. The JAA/EASA mutual validation scheme is not relevant to this and there have been multiple FAA Chief Counsel rulings reaffirming this. See some links here
https://www.peter2000.co.uk/aviation/misc-privileges/index.html

Just to be perfectly clear: does the agreement say that you are not allowed to fly a N registered aircraft owned by an EU citizen in the EU holding a FAA licence after june 2022? Does this mean that all N registrations have to change to EU registrations or can you fly these aircraft with (converted) an EU licence? Second issue: can a US pasportholder living in the EU holding a FAA licence fly a N registerd aircraft in the EU?

There is no proposed EU action against aircraft. Some countries prohibit long term N-reg parking (Norway and Denmark).
This matter is related to pilot licensing.
On the last point, the EASA FCL wording refers to the Operator based in the Community, not the country of passport issue. This has never been defined - no doubt deliberately.

EU expands Bilateral Aviation Safety Agreement with the United States to cover pilot licences and flight simulators
19/11/2020

https://ec.europa.eu/transport/modes/air/news/2020-11-19-eu-expands-bil…

I do not see any problem with the EU/FAA BASA licensing annex as such, and it has been expected for quite a while. It is however unfortunate that AOPA France have muddied the waters by issuing a couple of documents where they indirectly claim that EASA license holders will no longer be eligible for issuance of a certificate according to 14CFR61.75, and that the provisions of 14CFR61.3 (a)(1)(vii) "When operating an aircraft within a foreign country, a pilot license issued by that country may be used.", will not apply in Europe.

A clarification with references to the relevant parts of the agreement would be helpful.

The AOPA France interpretation also incorrectly states that the FAA Class 3 medical is not valid outside the US. This is a common false position which has appeared many times over the years.
https://www.euroga.org/forums/hangar-talk/3439-easa-faa-bilateral-pilot…

1.6 says "This Annex does not limit the right of a holder of an FAA pilot certificate or an EU Part-FCL license issued by an Aviation Authority, to have the pilot certificate or license rendered valid by the other Party in accordance with applicable laws and regulations." Thus the 14CFR61.75 is still available.
14CFR61.3 is not modified in any way and still applies, and is effectively interpreted as Steve Devereux suggests. If you have only an EASA licence and not an FAA one, 14CFR61 permits you to fly an N-reg only in the airspace of the member state that issued the EASA licence. You may not fly in other EASA member states without an FAA licence (certificate).

@Karel Abbenes
This is not derived from the BASA. The default legal position is that if you're based in the EU and flying a third counrty registered aircraft, you must carry an EASA licence.

However Art 12(4) of Reg 1178/2011 allows the Member States to make an exemption and fly with a third country license. That exemption will now (or rather 20 June 2022) disappear as the EU-US BASA also covers licensing. The relevant legal references are below:

Reg 1178/2011 (i.e. Aircrew Regulation), Art 12(4)

4. By way of derogation from paragraph 1, Member States may decide not to apply the provisions of this Regulation until 20 June 2021, to pilots holding a licence and associated medical certificate issued by a third country involved in the non-commercial operation of aircraft as specified in Article 2(1)(b), points (i) or (ii), of Regulation (EU) 2018/1139. Member States shall make those decisions publicly available.

(N.B. the "2021" has already been agreed to be changed to "2022", but will only be published in a couple of weeks)

Reg 2018/1139 (ie. EASA Basic Regulation) Art 2(1)(b), point (ii)

(ii) registered in a third country and operated by an aircraft operator established, residing or with a principal place of business in the territory to which the Treaties apply;

So - regardless of your passport - if you fulfill the description of being "established, residing or with a principal place of business" in the EU, you will need an EASA license to fly here at latest as of 21 June 2022. Your own State may however require it already now if they do not make use of that exemption in Art 12(4) above.

One problem, which the N-reg community has been facing since c. 2011, is that "established, residing or with a principal place of business" has never been defined.
One could argue that this ambiguity is intentional :) Pilots are highly law-abiding and will enthusiastically abide by laws which don't even exist but look like they do :)
There will be a grey area between a "genuine foreign pilot who is just passing through EASA-land" and a pilot who owns the plane and lives in say Germany and has lived there for 50 years.
In that grey area, various indicators may or may not indicate "residence", and a passport is likely to be one of these.
Actually the regulation uses the word "operator", not "pilot", and that is another fertile area for ambiguity...

First of all I would like to point out, that a EU citizen can not own a N reg plane.

@ Jyrki Paajanen " The default legal position is that if you're based in the EU and flying a third country registered aircraft, you must carry an EASA licence."
What about airlines flying into , and within the EU with 3 rd party states having offices within the EU. That, and what else should qualify as " being based "

That is true as far as I know, but someone that operates an aircraft, does not need to own it. The owner can be the trust that is often used in these cases.

And airlines are a totally different case and in many respects clearer. They will have Air Operator Certificates from their home countries and if they are third country airlines they will need a TCO approval from EASA. If they are EU airlines, they are also strictly limited in how much they can use leased third-country aircraft.

Private operators have much more flexibility. Of course the concept of being "established, residing or with a principal place of business" is subject to interpretation, but there is a fair bit of case law on that in other areas and in fact I believe this formulation has some advantages compared to the other option, where the law puts e.g. a limit of a certain number of days that one can spend in the EU without being "based" here.

Jyrki, thaks for your comment. l Reg 2018/1139 (ie. EASA Basic Regulation) Art 2(1)(b), point (ii)

(ii) registered in a third country and operated by an aircraft operator established, residing or with a principal place of business in the territory to which the Treaties apply;

But the above regulation is not limited to" non airlines". And since these companies mostly reside within the EU it should apply to them as well.

Hi Thomas,

You are right that the EASA Basic Regulation (2018/1139) applies also to airline-type flying. However there are also other rules that further restrict what airlines can and can't do - perhaps first and foremost Regulation 1008/2008. Also the OPS rules (965/2012) have more detail on e.g. leasing foreign registered aircraft. I can't claim to be an expert on these subjects, but if you are interested, you will find more information for example on these web pages:

https://ec.europa.eu/transport/modes/air/internal-market_en

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2008/1008/2020-05-28

https://www.easa.europa.eu/faq/19137

EASA has now also published the technical implementation procedures for the licensing annex of US-EU BASA. They can be found on the following page (scroll down to Downloads list and the TIP-L document):

https://www.easa.europa.eu/document-library/bilateral-agreements/eu-usa

Question: will the changes in the EU legislation needed to incorporate the BASA in the current regulations be ready by May 2021 for pilots and schools to use?

Karel,

I am not sure we need any changes. Insofar as I can see the BASA does not require changes in legislation, because it functions as an international agreement and international law overrides existing national or EU law.

Part-FCL currently requires 100 hrs experience to convert a third-country ICAO PPL to EASA, and 50 hrs IFR experience to convert a third country IR to EASA. So I believe Karel has a point.