PilotBound

Aircraft rental cost · 2026 edition

Cessna 172 rental
cost per hour

Flight schools print the tail numbers of the aircraft they rent. 687 Cessna 172s, on the published rate cards of 245 US schools, rent for a median of $180 an hour with fuel. The ones built since 1998 rent for $198, the older ones for $175.

CHECKED OCTOBER 12, 2026

$180

MEDIAN /HR

1978

MEDIAN BUILD

245

SCHOOLS

Find a school that rents oneor estimate your whole licence
Samip Shah
Written by · founder of PilotBoundUpdated October 12, 2026

Every figure here is two facts put together. A school prints a tail number beside a Cessna 172 on its own rate card with an hourly price, and the FAA's registry says which 172 it is and what year it was built. Nothing is surveyed or modelled.

Section 1

What a Cessna 172 costs per hour

Most Skyhawks rent within a narrow band. The ones outside it are older or newer than the rest, and the next two sections show which.

Figure 1Wet hourly rate, 687 Cessna 172sOne column per $20. The band shows the middle half, the tick marks the median.

Published hourly rate with fuel, in dollars

$165 to $196
Middle half (25th to 75th percentile)
$180
Median wet rate
245
Schools with a priced Skyhawk
$87 to $300
Lowest and highest rate on any card

Wet rates only. 50 Skyhawks at schools that bill fuel on top are listed in section 5 and left out of every median here rather than adjusted. 19 Cutlass RG and Hawk XP airframes are held out too: retractable gear and a bigger engine are a different rental.

Half of these aircraft rent for between $165 and $196 an hour. The lowest rate on any card is $87 and the highest is $300. Most of that gap is the aircraft itself. A 172S built since 1998 costs more than a 172N from the 1970s, and the registry says which one each tail is.

Section 2

The variant is the price: 172N, 172S and the G1000

Cessna built the 172 in many versions. The FAA registry records which one each tail number is, and the version changes the rate more than the state does.

VariantBuiltOn rate cardsMedian wet rate
172S1998 to 2026141$200
172R1997 to 201239$188
172P1980 to 198657$171
172N1976 to 1980179$175
172M1972 to 1976134$180
172L1970 to 197244$180
172K1968 to 197023$175
11 earlier variants1956 to 198370$173

Variants with at least 20 priced aircraft get a row. Built years are the earliest and latest on these rate cards, per the registry, not Cessna's production dates.

Built before 1998 · 516 aircraft
$175/hr
Built 1998 or later · 171 aircraft
$198/hr

Cessna stopped building piston singles in 1986 and did not start again until 1996. Every 172 built since then is a 172R or a 172S, and those rent for $23 an hour more than the 172M, 172N and 172P built before the line closed. Where the school says the aircraft has a G1000 glass cockpit, the median is $215 across 26 aircraft.

Section 3

Cessna 172 rental rates by state

Every state with at least 5 priced Skyhawks gets a row. 13 states have fewer, and their aircraft are in the national figures but not shown alone.

StateAircraftSchoolsMedian wet rateAgainst $180
California11634$180
Texas5421$180
Virginia357$185
Washington3412$184
Colorado3111$180
Florida2610$199
Nevada266$180
North Carolina258$160
Pennsylvania258$225
Georgia198$215
Michigan179$160
South Carolina174$195
Wyoming176$167
Idaho167$165
Wisconsin167$155
Maryland155$175
Ohio146$174
Tennessee136$185
Illinois124$185
Indiana126$185
Montana113$184
New York113$188
Louisiana104$170
Kansas95$169.95
Missouri93$184
Utah94$225
Massachusetts83$185
New Jersey84$150
Arkansas73$170
Kentucky73$185
Nebraska73$185
Vermont71$205
Minnesota52$175
New Mexico51$171

Sorted by how many priced Skyhawks the state has. The marker shows where the state's median sits against the national one; the middle of the bar is $180.

Section 4

How old the Skyhawks are

The decade shape from the fleet age report, narrowed to this one type, with what each decade rents for beside it.

Built in the 1950s7 aircraft
$144/hr
Built in the 1960s77 aircraft
$173/hr
Built in the 1970s358 aircraft
$175/hr
Built in the 1980s65 aircraft
$174/hr
Built in the 1990s46 aircraft
$188/hr
Built in the 2000s110 aircraft
$199/hr
Built in the 2010s9 aircraft
$195/hr
Built in the 2020s15 aircraft
$261/hr

52 percent of every priced Skyhawk on a rate card was built in the 1970s, and the median is 1978. A 1970s airframe is not a worse one. Training aircraft are inspected every hundred hours and their engines are overhauled on a schedule. What the year tells you is the avionics and the price. The fleet age report covers why American production stopped for a decade and what that did to every type.

Section 5

Every school renting a Cessna 172

264 schools in 47 states, each with its own published figure and the years of the airframes it names. The figure is the school's, read on the date its page shows.

Alabama

2 schools · 3 aircraft

Alaska

2 schools · 4 aircraft

Arizona

4 schools · 14 aircraft

Arkansas

4 schools · 10 aircraft

California

36 schools · 125 aircraft

Colorado

11 schools · 35 aircraft

Connecticut

1 school · 4 aircraft
  • Arrow Aviation · Danbury4 aircraft · 172M, 172P, 172R · built 1975 to 1999$196 to $220/hr

Florida

12 schools · 28 aircraft

Georgia

8 schools · 19 aircraft

Hawaii

1 school · 2 aircraft

Idaho

8 schools · 17 aircraft

Illinois

4 schools · 12 aircraft

Indiana

7 schools · 13 aircraft

Iowa

2 schools · 3 aircraft

Kansas

5 schools · 9 aircraft

Kentucky

3 schools · 7 aircraft

Louisiana

4 schools · 10 aircraft

Maine

1 school · 3 aircraft

Maryland

6 schools · 17 aircraft

Massachusetts

3 schools · 8 aircraft
  • Colonial Air · New Bedford2 aircraft · 172N, 172S · built 1978 to 2001$160/hr
  • Eagle East Aviation · North Andover3 aircraft · 172M, 172R · built 1973 to 2000$205/hr
  • FCA Flight Center · Fitchburg3 aircraft · 172M, 172N, 172P · built 1975 to 1984$185/hr

Michigan

9 schools · 18 aircraft

Minnesota

3 schools · 11 aircraft

Mississippi

1 school · 2 aircraft

Missouri

3 schools · 9 aircraft

Montana

3 schools · 11 aircraft

Nebraska

3 schools · 7 aircraft

Nevada

7 schools · 29 aircraft

New Hampshire

2 schools · 4 aircraft
  • CHI Aerospace · Portsmouth2 aircraft · 172M, 172N · built 1974 to 1979$220/hr
  • Emerson Aviation · Gilford2 aircraft · 172R, 172S · built 1998 to 2016$180 to $245/hr

New Jersey

5 schools · 11 aircraft

New Mexico

1 school · 5 aircraft

New York

3 schools · 11 aircraft

North Carolina

8 schools · 26 aircraft

Ohio

6 schools · 15 aircraft

Oklahoma

3 schools · 6 aircraft

Oregon

1 school · 1 aircraft

Pennsylvania

8 schools · 26 aircraft

South Carolina

4 schools · 19 aircraft
  • ACES Flight School · Rock Hill & Pelion (plus Monroe, NC)3 aircraft · 172F, 172H, 172RG · built 1964 to 1982$169 to $199/hr
  • Charleston Flight School · North Charleston13 aircraft · 172K, 172M, 172N, 172P, 172R, R172K · built 1969 to 1998$170 to $200/hr
  • Greenville Aviation · Greenville1 aircraft · 172N · built 1977$173/hr
  • S & S Aviation · Winnsboro2 aircraft · 172M, 172P · built 1974 to 1981$147 to $158/hr

South Dakota

1 school · 2 aircraft
  • ATY Aviation · Watertown2 aircraft · 172N · built 1978 to 1980$150/hr

Tennessee

6 schools · 13 aircraft

Texas

22 schools · 62 aircraft

Utah

4 schools · 9 aircraft

Vermont

1 school · 7 aircraft

Virginia

7 schools · 35 aircraft
  • Aero Elite Flight Training · Leesburg, Winchester, Manassas & Norfolk15 aircraft · 172H, 172N, 172P, 172R, 172S · built 1967 to 2012$180 to $220/hr
  • Commonwealth Aviation · Manassas & Norfolk1 aircraft · 172H · built 1967$155/hr
  • Curtis Eads Flight School · Suffolk & Newport News2 aircraft · 172P, 172R · built 1982 to 1998$185 to $195/hr
  • Epix Aviation · Chesapeake6 aircraft · 172I, 172M, 172N · built 1968 to 1978$166 to $170/hr
  • Heritage Air · Midland2 aircraft · 172, 172B · built 1959 to 1961$190/hr
  • Piston2Jet · Manassas3 aircraft · 172L, 172M, 172N · built 1970 to 1978$185 to $195/hr
  • Williamsburg Flight Center · Williamsburg6 aircraft · 172H, 172K, 172L, 172M, 172P · built 1967 to 1981$165/hr

Washington

14 schools · 38 aircraft

West Virginia

1 school · 1 aircraft

Wisconsin

8 schools · 18 aircraft

Wyoming

6 schools · 17 aircraft

A school that lists a 172 without a tail number is not here, because the registry cannot say which 172 it is. Schools marked dry bill fuel on top of the figure shown.

Section 6

Method and sources

The population. Every aircraft on a published rate card in the PilotBound directory, rated schools and partial listings alike, whose tail number the FAA Releasable Aircraft Database records as a Cessna 172 of any variant with a year of manufacture. The same aircraft the fleet age report counts.

The rate. The school's own published hourly figure for that aircraft, with fuel. Schools that bill fuel separately are listed in section 5 with the word dry and left out of every median. An hour that bundles the instructor is never a rental rate and is never recorded as one.

The dates. Each school's figure carries the day its page was read, shown on that school's page. The FAA record was read October 12, 2026. This page's date is the later of the two.

Cite or share this stat

PilotBound, "Cessna 172 Rental Cost per Hour," 2026 edition. The 687 Cessna 172s on the published rate cards of 245 US flight schools rent for a median of $180 per hour with fuel; those built 1998 or later for $198 and earlier ones for $175. Matched to the FAA Releasable Aircraft Database, read October 12, 2026. https://pilotbound.app/aircraft/cessna-172

Free to reuse with credit. A link back to this page is appreciated.

Released under CC BY 4.0: free to reuse with credit and a link to this page.

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