Radio Navigator
Glossary

IMC Rating

By Rory Bennett (ATPL, FI: CPL, IR, ME, UPRT, FIC) · Published 20 September 2026 · Updated 1 October 2026

Direct answer

The IMC Rating is the UK national rating that allows a pilot to fly under the instrument flight rules in UK airspace. It used to be called the IR(R), the Instrument Rating (Restricted). Its privileges are narrower than those of the full Instrument Rating.

Also written as: IR(R), Instrument Rating (Restricted), IMCR.

The rating used to be called the IR(R), and Part-FCL licences showed it under that name. The CAA renamed it the IMC Rating. It did not replace it. A pilot who holds an IR(R) keeps its privileges, and the CAA reissues the licence with the new name at the next licensing action, such as a change of address. Clubs, instructors and forums still use both names for the same qualification.

The IMC Rating is not the full Instrument Rating. The IR is the instrument rating recognised internationally. The IMC Rating is a UK national rating, and its privileges are limited to UK airspace, or to the parts of it the rating allows; they may not be exercised in another country’s airspace unless that country’s authority has given permission. It also carries operating limitations that the full rating does not. Those limitations are published in the current CAA guidance for the rating, and that is the place to read them rather than a number remembered from a briefing.

What does not change between the two ratings is the flying. IMC Rating training and IR training cover the same radio navigation. You track a VOR radial. You intercept a bearing. You fly a hold and pick the correct entry. You fly a procedural approach along a published track. Those skills transfer straight from one rating to the other, which is why the articles here do not separate them.

The need for a rating at all is a separate question from the weather. The Standardised European Rules of the Air, retained in UK law, decide when the visual flight rules are no longer available to you. The requirement to hold an instrument rating before you then fly IFR comes from the UK Aircrew regulations.

Where this comes up

Sources

  1. UK Civil Aviation Authority, Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMC) rating guidance (caa.co.uk, general aviation, pilot licences, ratings). States that the IR(R) was renamed the IMC rating on 1 Oct 2025, that pilots who hold an IR(R) can continue to exercise its privileges, and that the licence is reissued with an IMC rating at the next licensing action. Also states that the rating may not be used in the airspace of another country unless that country has given permission.
  2. UK Regulation (EU) No 1178/2011 (Aircrew), as retained in UK law, point FCL.600 and Article 4(8), via the UK CAA Regulatory Library. FCL.600 restricts operations under the instrument flight rules to holders of a licence with an instrument rating. Article 4(8) is the authorisation under which the UK rating is issued, caps its privileges at those of the IMC rating in the Air Navigation Order, and limits them to the airspace of the United Kingdom or parts of it.
  3. UK Regulation (EU) No 923/2012, Standardised European Rules of the Air (SERA), SERA.5001 and SERA.5005, via the UK CAA Regulatory Library. SERA.5001 gives the visual meteorological conditions minima in Table S5-1, and SERA.5005(a) requires visual flight rules flights to be flown at or above them. Together they decide when the visual flight rules are no longer available.

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This article is for study. Follow the instructions from your qualified flight instructor. Use current charts, procedures, and the regulations from your aviation authority.

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