Sky DutyCessna 172: US Fleet Statistics
Cessna 172 — commonly known as the Skyhawk
As of the FAA registry snapshot on July 11, 2026, there are 21,185 Cessna 172 aircraft with a valid US registration — ranking it #1 among all US civil aircraft model families by registration count. Every figure on this page is computed directly from the public FAA aircraft registry.
How many Cessna 172s are registered in the United States?
The FAA aircraft registry lists 21,185 Cessna 172 aircraft with a valid registration as of July 11, 2026. The Cessna 172 is a single-engine airplane, and this family groups every registered variant of the Cessna 172 together. It ranks #1 by registration count among the model families tracked in this dataset.
These counts come from the FAA MASTER file and reflect aircraft with an active “valid” registration status. To pull up the current owner, based state, and registration dates for a specific airframe, use the free FAA tail number lookup. To browse every model in this dataset, see the US aircraft fleet statistics index.
Cessna 172 registrations by state
Florida has the most registered Cessna 172 aircraft, with 1,834. The table below shows the ten states with the most Cessna 172 registrations by the owner address on file with the FAA. Delaware frequently over-indexes because many aircraft are registered to Delaware LLCs and owner trusts rather than flown there.
| Rank | State | Registered | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Florida (FL) | 1,834 | 8.7% |
| 2 | Texas (TX) | 1,778 | 8.4% |
| 3 | California (CA) | 1,774 | 8.4% |
| 4 | Delaware (DE) | 1,021 | 4.8% |
| 5 | Washington (WA) | 806 | 3.8% |
| 6 | Ohio (OH) | 575 | 2.7% |
| 7 | North Carolina (NC) | 549 | 2.6% |
| 8 | Georgia (GA) | 528 | 2.5% |
| 9 | Illinois (IL) | 523 | 2.5% |
| 10 | Arizona (AZ) | 520 | 2.5% |
Share is of all 21,185 registered Cessna 172 aircraft. Based on FAA registered-owner state; not all aircraft are based where they are registered.
How old are registered Cessna 172s?
The median registered Cessna 172 was manufactured in 1975. Most were built between 1960 and 2006, and manufacture years across the registered fleet span roughly 1956 to 2025. A manufacture year is on file for 18,404 of the 21,185 registered aircraft.
Model year is one of the fields Sky Duty tracks on every tail alongside Hobbs and tach times. See how the app handles aircraft and fleet records.
Cessna 172 engine, seats, and aircraft class
The typical registered Cessna 172 is a single-engine airplane with a single piston engine, configured with 4 seats. The values below are the most common across all registered Cessna 172 aircraft in the FAA data; individual airframes vary by variant and configuration.
- Aircraft class
- Fixed Wing Single-Engine
- Engines
- 1 × Piston
- Typical seats
- 4
- Manufacturer
- Cessna
Data: FAA Releasable Aircraft Database (registry.faa.gov), snapshot 2026-07-11. Counts reflect US civil aircraft with a valid FAA registration (status codes V, M, and T). Variants of the Cessna 172 are grouped into a single model family. Manufacture-year bounds use the 1st and 99th percentiles to exclude data-entry outliers in the FAA year field. Figures update when the registry is re-imported.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many Cessna 172s are registered in the US?
Which states have the most registered Cessna 172s?
How old is the average Cessna 172?
What engine and how many seats does the Cessna 172 have?
Manage your aircraft, not just look them up
Sky Duty keeps FAA registry data, Hobbs and tach times, maintenance, and scheduling together for every tail in your fleet.
