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Aircraft Title Search Cost: What You Actually Get at Each Price

TITLE & LIENS From free to $300-plus — the price ladder is really a depth ladder. Here is what each level buys, and when paying more actually protects you.

Search “aircraft title search” and you will find prices from $0 to several hundred dollars for what sounds like the same product. It is not the same product. Every tier answers a different question, and matching the tier to where you are in the deal is how you avoid paying for depth you do not need — or skipping depth you very much do.

Free: the FAA registry and free lookup tools

The FAA’s N-number inquiry costs nothing and shows current registration data plus an index of recorded documents. Free tools go a step further: our Aircraft 360 profile assembles registration, airworthiness, fleet context, and NTSB indicators on one page, and the free AD exposure check lists every Airworthiness Directive that applies to the airframe, engine, and propeller type. Free answers “is this aircraft worth a closer look?” It does not answer “is the title clean?” — nobody has read the file yet.

About $10: the raw FAA file, analysis not included

You can order a copy of the complete aircraft records file from the Civil Aviation Registry for a few dollars. Now you have what the professionals read — sometimes hundreds of pages of conveyances, lien filings, releases, and Form 337s — and the job of reconciling all of it yourself. For a two-owner aircraft this is a reasonable Saturday project. For a fifty-year-old airframe with a dozen owners, it is how things get missed.

$85–$150: a professional title search

This is the standard tier across the industry, and it buys the analysis: the full chain of title traced end to end, every recorded lien matched to its release, and unreleased encumbrances flagged. Our Aircraft Title Search is $89, delivered the same business day, with every finding cited to the exact page of the FAA file. When comparing providers at this tier, the questions that matter are turnaround time, whether findings are page-cited so you can verify them, and whether engines and propellers are checked along with the airframe.

$200–$300: full records due diligence

The top tier adds everything else the file and public records can tell you: damage findings, Form 337 major repairs and alterations, AD applicability cross-checked against what the records reference, and an NTSB accident-database check. Our $249 Title, Airworthiness & Damage Report also carries a VANT™ trust score — a 300–850 rating of the record’s overall cleanliness. This tier exists because title is only one of the three questions that decide an aircraft purchase; condition history and compliance exposure are the other two.

Which tier, when

Browsing listings: stay free — profile and AD check on anything interesting. Writing an offer: order the title search; an unreleased lien found now is negotiating leverage instead of a closing-day crisis. Financing, insuring, or buying anything complex or high-value: take the full report, because the expensive surprises live in the damage and compliance history, not just the liens.

See report options → Free AD check first

Related: How to do an aircraft lien search · What a clean title really means · Title vs. registration

This article is general information about FAA records, not legal advice. For closings, work with a qualified aviation title and escrow company.