Freefly qualifications around the world

Freefly rules change at the border. In one country, a qualification decides how many people you can jump with. In the next, there is no qualification, and whoever runs the drop zone that day decides.

The paperwork changes from country to country. The idea stays the same: at some point someone qualified decides you are ready for a bigger group, and they decide on how well you recover, whatever your jump numbers say.

The short version

Country	Freefly qualification?	What it controls	Who signs it off
Australia	Yes, the Freefly Crest, in Head-Up and Head-Down streams	Group size, by regulation	A Freefly Coach, the drop zone safety officer and the chief instructor
United Kingdom	Yes, the FF1 and FF2 grades	Progression, and group size without a coach	A freefly coach, through the national body
Canada	A required briefing, with no grade	Coached 2-ways until cork-proof	A Coach 2, or a Coach 3 with the freefly endorsement
United States	No	Nothing formally, recommendations only	The drop zone
New Zealand	Nothing published that we could find	Not publicly stated	The drop zone, on current evidence

Australia: the Freefly Crest

Australia has the strictest and most explicit system of these. The regulations tie freefly group size to a Freefly Crest. It has two streams, one for head-up and one for head-down, so the approval matches the orientation you fly.

The regulations set the group-size ceilings, which step up as you hold the crest and other qualifications. They also require an audible altimeter on every freefly jump.

The sign-off runs through your logbook. A current Freefly Coach signs the stages, the drop zone safety officer approves the training jumps, and the chief instructor endorses the application. The Australian freefly crest system, explained has the detail.

Australia also has a Freefly Coach approval of its own. Most national bodies have general instructional ratings and leave freefly to experience.

The documents, all current at the time of writing:

• Operational Regulations V01-2026, for the group-size and equipment rules.
• Regulatory Schedules V01-2026, for the crest and coach requirements.
• Training Operations Manual V01-2025, which has the freefly training table.
• Freefly and Angles Guide, August 2023, the educational companion.

United Kingdom: FF1 and FF2

British Skydiving uses graded qualifications. FF1 is the head-up grade and FF2 follows it. You need FS1, the belly formation skydiving grade, before you start freefly training, so belly skills come first by rule.

Without a coach, groups are limited to three people. The freefly coach qualification has its own application form.

If you read the manual yourself, check the wording. The clause with that group-size limit refers to a formation skydiving coach and to formation skydives, which looks carried over from the formation skydiving text around it. Check the current edition and ask locally which reading applies.

• Operations Manual, November 2025, Section 2, paragraph 6.6.
• Freefly Coach application, Form 134D.

Canada: a briefing, and a coach until you are cork-proof

Canada uses a required Freefly Ground Briefing, which is part of the application for the B Certificate of Proficiency. A Coach 2 delivers it, or a Coach 3 with the freefly endorsement.

Until you are cork-proof, the briefing keeps you to jumps on your own or 2-ways with a coach, and it puts freefly groups last in the exit order. The approval point is your recovery skill. It is the same judgement an Australian coach makes on the way to a crest.

• Freefly Ground Briefing 2022
• Coach 3, Freefly

United States: recommendations only

The United States has no freefly rating or freefly credential. The Skydiver’s Information Manual covers freefly as recommendations: hold a licence, get instruction from a rating holder with solid freefly experience, be proficient on your back before you go head-up or head-down, and use freefly-friendly gear.

None of that is regulation, so group sizes and progression are drop zone policy. Programmes vary widely. One drop zone runs a freefly programme stricter than its rulebook asks, and the next has none. When you travel, ask how the drop zone handles freefly before you get on a load.

• Skydiver’s Information Manual, section 5-2. The chapter has been renumbered over the years, so older articles may cite it as 6-2.

New Zealand: nothing we could find published

New Zealand is the hardest of these to pin down.

Skydiving there comes under civil aviation rules, through organisations certificated under Civil Aviation Rule Part 149. That is a different arrangement from a federation publishing its own operations manual. The sport body’s public pages list freestyle, freefly and vertical formation skydiving as disciplines, with no grade, group-size figure or coach rating attached.

The sport body’s standards and procedures manual would settle it, and it sits behind a members-only login with no archived public copy. We read the published requirements for the parachutist certificate with B endorsement. They list jump counts, formation-jump counts and an exam, and nothing specific to freefly.

So nothing freefly-specific appears in New Zealand’s public documents. Something may still exist in the members-only manual. If you jump there, ask the drop zone and ask to see the current section of the manual.

A claim circulates online that a freefly safety course is a prerequisite for the New Zealand B endorsement. The published requirements do not support it, so treat it as unreliable until a primary source says otherwise.

• Certificate with B endorsement requirements
• Document library, where the standards manual is members-only.

France, for contrast

France draws the line most firmly. Freefly access is tied to holding a specific brevet, and without it you do not freefly. That is a simpler yes-or-no than any of the English-speaking systems. See the French federation’s freefly instructor documentation.

We did not check South Africa or Germany, so they are left out.

What they all agree on

Every system that says anything about freefly agrees on four things.

• Belly skills come first. Australia requires a certificate class and a course of instruction, the United Kingdom requires FS1, Canada ties the briefing to a certificate application, and the American recommendations say the same more softly.
• Back-fly comes before vertical. Every system screens for your ability to recover to back-fly when you become unstable.
• Groups start small. Two or three people is the usual ceiling until someone qualified says otherwise.
• Someone qualified decides. They may sign a crest, a grade, a briefing record or nothing at all, but a person is judging whether you are ready, and the paperwork records that judgement.

That is why The Freefly Project publishes the checklists a coach judges against. They work in any country, whatever the local paperwork.

Keeping it current

Regulations change, and every figure here is tied to the document edition named with it. At the time of writing, the Australian regulations were the 2026 editions and the training manual the 2025 edition. The British manual was the November 2025 edition, and the Canadian briefing the 2022 version.

Check the current edition before you rely on any of it. Where a rule affects a jump you are about to make, ask the drop zone.

---

Advisory, educational content. It summarises other organisations’ published requirements and may be out of date or wrong for your situation. Follow your national federation’s current rules and your drop zone’s policies.