We are announcing an important update to our user policy as part of our ongoing work to maintain a safe and welcoming environment for all members. Effective January 1, 2026, the minimum age for users on the VATSIM network will be raised to 16 years old.
Key Points to Note:
Grandfather Clause: Current users aged 13 to 15 years old will not be impacted by this change. These members will be allowed to continue using the network and will be grandfathered in, enabling them to enjoy the VATSIM experience as they always have.
Future Members: All new users who wish to join the VATSIM network from January 1, 2026, onwards will need to be at least 16 years old at the time of registration.
We believe this change will enhance the overall experience for our community while maintaining a focus on safety and maturity throughout our network.
Thank you for being a valued member of VATSIM. Should you have any questions or need further clarification, please feel free to reach out to our support team.
Initially how I understood the reason for the change was “30% of
suspensions are attributed to the 13-15 year old age slice, many of which are due to immature actions”, which could be rectified by training requirements? We all know great controllers and pilots in this age group. This current announcement only references “maintain a safe and welcoming environment for all members”. Is this a legal/safety protection of minors issue?
I think that we should just have a requirement for walloping or doing something with the trollers instead of banning an age group where the passion grows the most. I am myself a person under 16 and my passion started growing at 12 basically and if not vatsim it wouldn’t have gone that far. It’s kind of dumb that a person that’s 14 years old can already fly a glider solo and contact atc but can’t fly virtual planes with virtual atc. It’s just my opinion it probably won’t change anything but yeah
I 100% agree! I was opposed to reason previously stated which seemed punish young aviation enthusiast the majority of whom are probably appropriate on the network. The current announcement uses the word “safe” which I suspect this is more of a protection of minors issue, which in turn becomes a protection of VATSIM issue if appropriate safe guards are not in place. I’m 60 years old so I won’t be starting an aviation career, but I have been an enthusiast since I was a young kid. I would have loved to have had the opportunity to fly on VATSIM as a young teenager.
I agree with this move. While we have all heard some youngsters who sound very proficient, those young pilots are outweighed by those who seem to have no interest in adhering to our rules nor a commitment to learning how to improve.
I would be interested in learning how this entry restriction may be policed/enforced?
Totally bad decision! There is already the rule that pilots can be obligated to do a training. Why this? Why exclude young people who are enthusiastic and interested in aviation just because you don’t like young people in our hobby?
A 14 year old is allowed to fly a sailplane in real life - do you even know this? But he cannot enjoy flight simulation on Vatsim. This is poor.
You say 30% of the suspensions are below 16 - what about the other 70%? When will you ban these?
I am deeply disappointed with this kind of leadership. I engage in pilot training in Vatsim Germany, and we train quite a few pilots 13-15 who are proficient and willing to learn. I’m not sure right now if I can do this in the future with the same motivation as before.
I completely agree with you, as someone who is also under 16 and uses the network, im able to speak to real ATC in real life, and fly a real plane with an instructor, but not talk online does not make sense.
“A 14 year old is allowed to fly a sailplane in real life - do you even know this? But he cannot enjoy flight simulation on Vatsim. This is poor.”
You are not being fair. You are not comparing like with like. A young pilot flying solo RW below the age of 16 (which is of course an arbitrary age) will have had many hours dual with a qualified instructor and will have been granted permissions to fly only as a result of extensive assesment of their capacity to do so. That granting takes into account not only the flying skills and knowledge of the student, but also their maturity to handle the flying environment.
This simply does not, and cannot, happen in Vatsim. So another mechanism must be put in place, and it is based, in Vatsim’s case, on an arbitrary assessment of the student’s maturity. This is probably appropriate because older, and hopefully therefore more mature, individuals may focus more on self-directing their learning progress and less on simply having a blast with disregard for other users.
Sadly, this is one of the reasons for the change. Our world is changing. As a global organization, we are beholden to laws all across the globe. Various countries have enacted laws that affect our ability to welcome those younger than 16. The Board of Directors determined this was necessary to comply with legal obligations and mitigate risk for the organization as a whole.
While I have personally been witness to many, many youth under the age of 16 that have been truly wonderful participants of the community, and am proud of the positive impact that VATSIM has had on so many younger people, the world, sadly, has changed around us.
As I stated above, there is far more that went into this decision than immature actions. That was not originally made fully clear to the Board of Governors. Sadly, this move is necessary to comply with a variety of protection laws around the globe, protect younger people, and protect the organization, in addition to the discipline issues that are being discussed here. Please do not be disappointed with leadership; this decision, sadly, was necessary to ensure VATSIM’s viability long into the future.
Thank you for the reply. I believe the Board of Governors owes the community a more transparent explanation. This decision appears to be now less driven by user immaturity, but by legal liabilities regarding the protection of youth online. If safety compliance is indeed the driver, we need to examine what protective measures are actually in place right now—particularly because we intend to grandfather in current members in the 13–15 age group, which I support.
Given that Australias social media laws, inroduced 10/12/1015 (AKA yesterday), which bans under 16’s from holding social media accounts, does not include online gaming networks.
Has this controbuted to the decission by VATSIM, and if yes, why given that online gaming networks are excluded?
As an Australian, my understanding of the new laws is to protect people from harmfull content, not limit their ability to interact, this is evident by the fact that communication services like facebook messenger and discord are not included in the ban.
I can ask the Board of Directors if this was part of the decision-making, though personally I suspect that either it was not, or it was simply one of many considered.
Thanks Don for taking the time to explain this in more depth. Aware everyone is a volunteer and writing takes time but trying to get a culture where leadership communicate the “why” behind decisions more proactively would be a real win imo. Recent CoC/CoR changes around use of English for training and mandating voice, this, the decision to remove voice channels from Discord all fall into the “probably being done for good reasons but please, please tell us” category
It’s also the first time I can remember seeing the minutes say that Founders/BoD ordered BoG to do something which was a bit eyebrow raising!
And on this one, yes I am interested in which countries/ laws but mostly because of involvement with other orgs that aren’t doing this but maybe should!
Don, I appreciate you responding here. I really do. And I understand that you have to speak in the interests of your colleagues. But I’m not buying it. For me, this is a pretended argument for what I said before. I may arrange with it, eventually, but I will never agree.
Does the BOD really compare Vatsim with social media? We have registration by name. We have restricted access. We have an organisational structure. We have monitoring all over the place. There a few online communities which are that safe.
Why can IVAO accept 13-15 year olds, with the consent of their legal guardians? Same situation.
I even kind of agree to the new Australian law - in social media, practically everyone can act as they want, and nobody cares. But does Australia also prohibit access to Steam and the like for people under 16? I bet they don’t.
And there is more to it: This rule will not hold back people who just want to “play pilot” or troll. They will simply give a false age and won’t bother about being suspended; they will simply create a new account. This rule will, as it always is the case, affect only the honest ones, those young people who are really interested and want to engage in aviation. Well done.
This could have been handled differently. Provided one would have wanted that.
Online gaming, and chat services are not restricted, as per my pervious post, the ban is about the content on social media, not the ability to interact.
@1035677 The section of the BOG minutes states that, the age group of 13 - 15 account for almost 30% of netwrok suspesions, I have seen comments around the traps that say that means 70% is from the +16’s.
What do we know about this percentage and why is the 30% value signifigant?
Are we able to see the stats for the other 70% of suspensions?
What other options did the BOD explore befrore comming to this rule change?
You are correct to query the 30% figure. If 30% (or more) of the total membership is made up of those under 16, then the statistic is totally unremarkable.
I think it’s not because of the 30 or whatever percent. I think it’s because the BOD does not want to take the (minimal) risk to be held responsible for the abuse of a minor - Roblox was in the media recently - so they ban them altogether.
But it’s their network, they can do with it what they want. They just should not be talking about “family” any more.
