Charter runs about $2,300 an hour for a turboprop to $17,000 for an ultra-long-range jet — but the hourly rate is only ever 65–75% of your invoice. Positioning, landing fees, crew overnights, fuel and tax add 25–35% on a US domestic trip, and more than that internationally once European passenger taxes are counted. Build your route's honest estimate below before any broker builds you a pretty one.
Estimate your charter — the all-in number, not the hourly tease
Three questions. We apply 2026 market rates plus the add-ons quotes conveniently omit.
Why the advertised rate is never your bill
The hourly rates below are real. What turns them into a surprise is everything billed around them, and this is the part the August version of this page got loosest with — so here it is with the sourcing it should always have had.
Positioning. If the aircraft is not already where you are, it flies to you empty and you pay for that at the full hourly rate. How much depends entirely on how far it has to come: on a dense route it can be under $2,000, and on a genuinely thin one it can exceed the cost of your own sector. This page previously gave "$10,000–$34,000 on thin routes" as though it were a market figure. It is not one, and it is gone. Ask where the aircraft is based before you ask anything else about price.
Landing and handling. Landing fees alone are modest — tens of dollars at a regional field, a few hundred at a busy metropolitan one. It is FBO handling that moves the number: roughly $150 to $3,000 a sector domestically, and $2,500 to $5,000 at premium international FBOs.
Crew. $200–$600 per crew member per night when the trip needs an overnight, which most multi-day itineraries do.
Fuel. Beware the figure that circulates. Jet-A wholesale on the US Gulf Coast was around $4.34 a gallon in early September 2026, and that is the number quoted in most cost guides — but no charter buys fuel at wholesale. The US average FBO retail price on 14 September 2026 was roughly $7.20 to $8.00 a gallon depending on region. An earlier version of this page carried the $4 figure. It was wrong by about half.
Sustainable fuel, in Europe. This page previously described "a 2–6% sustainable-fuel surcharge". Those percentages are not a surcharge: they are the ReFuelEU Aviation blending mandate, which requires 2% SAF in 2026, rising to 6% in 2030, 20% in 2035 and 70% by 2050. SAF costs several times conventional jet fuel, so operators do pass part of the premium through, but there is no published standard rate — brokers fold it into the quote under various names. Ask for it as a line.
Tax. US domestic flights carry 7.5% federal excise tax on the full amount paid — hourly rate, fuel surcharge, trip-related repositioning and mandatory charges included, not just the base — plus a segment fee of $5.30 per passenger per segment in 2026. International legs are exempt from the 7.5%. Europe is where the 2026 step-up actually is, and it is far larger than the SAF pass-through: France's solidarity tax now runs €210 to €2,100 per passenger on private flights, and UK Air Passenger Duty rose on 1 April 2026 to as much as £1,141 per passenger on long-haul private aviation, a rise of about half.
The working rule: add 25–35% to the base calculation for a US domestic trip, which is well supported — a real itemised Teterboro–Opa-locka quote lands at +33%. For international trips we use 40% as a planning uplift; be aware that is our figure rather than a published one, because the European tax regime now varies too much by departure country to generalise honestly. The estimator above applies these.
These are the bands the charter market actually quotes in 2026, taken across four independent published rate sheets rather than a single broker's. Two notes on reading them. The spread inside each class is real — a nine-year-old Citation and a two-year-old Praetor are both "midsize" and do not price alike — so the low end is a well-utilised aircraft on a busy route and the high end is a new one on a thin one. And an earlier version of this table ran materially higher, at or above the top of every published band; it has been rebased, which means some numbers here are lower than the ones the page carried in August.
| Class | Hourly rate | Passengers | Range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Turboprop | $2,300–$3,500 | 4–8 | to ~1,800 nm |
| Very Light Jet | $2,800–$4,000 | 4–6 | to 1,200 nm |
| Light Jet | $3,500–$5,200 | 6–8 | 1,500–2,000 nm |
| Midsize | $4,700–$8,000 | 7–9 | 2,000–3,000 nm |
| Super-Midsize | $6,000–$10,500 | 8–10 | 2,700–3,600 nm |
| Heavy Jet | $8,000–$14,000 | 10–16 | 4,000–6,000 nm |
| Ultra-Long-Range | $11,000–$17,000 | 10–19 | 6,000–8,000+ nm |
Four of these six were overpriced in the August version of this page, two of them badly. London to Dubai was quoted at $72,000–$95,000 on a Challenger 350 — that is ultra-long-range money for a super-midsize aircraft, and published super-midsize pricing on the route runs roughly $48,000 to $70,000. New York to Miami on a Citation XLS+ was quoted 30–50% above published midsize pricing for the route. Both are corrected below. The times are corrected too: LA to Aspen is not ninety minutes, and the 7½-hour New York to London figure was the westbound return, not the eastbound leg priced here.
| Route | Time | Aircraft | All-in 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Geneva → Samedan (St Moritz) | ~45 min | Pilatus PC-12 | $7,000–$11,000 |
| LA → Aspen | 2 h–2 h 30 | Citation CJ4 | $10,000–$13,500 |
| London → Nice | 1 h 45–2 h 10 | Phenom 300E | $7,000–$13,000 |
| New York → Miami | 2 h 30–2 h 50 | Citation XLS+ | $20,000–$28,000 |
| London → Dubai | 6 h 30–7 h | Challenger 350 | $48,000–$70,000 |
| New York → London | 6 h 30–7 h eastbound | G650 | $85,000–$150,000 |
One note on the first line. St Moritz has no jet airport: the field is Samedan/Engadin (LSZS), the highest airport in Europe at 5,600 ft with a 1,800 m runway, visual approaches only, daylight operations only, and a mandatory theoretical briefing plus a familiarisation flight with an instructor before a crew may operate there. In peak weeks it is prior-permission-required. None of that shows up in an hourly rate, and all of it decides whether your operator can actually take the booking.
Fly the smallest aircraft your route allows. The class table is a ladder of range and cabin, not of safety or prestige. A Phenom 300 does London–Nice as well as a Global does, at a third of the price. Use secondary airports: handling at the big hubs can triple the sector fee. Be flexible and hunt empty legs: repositioning flights are published at 30–75% off, with the realistic clearing band 50–70% inside forty-eight hours, and the platforms are compared here. Never accept a one-line quote: an itemised quote is the only defence against the padding documented in our hidden-fees guide, and reading one properly is a skill worth twenty minutes. Comparing two itemised quotes from different brokers is how you find the fair one — and comparing a one-line quote against an itemised one tells you nothing at all.
Flying more than a handful of times a year? The per-trip arithmetic changes shape: see what 25/50/100/200 hours actually costs annually and whether a membership programme ever beats on-demand for your pattern.
How much does a private jet cost per hour in 2026?
From about $2,300–$3,500 per hour for a turboprop, $3,500–$5,200 for a light jet, $4,700–$8,000 for a midsize, $6,000–$10,500 for a super-midsize, $8,000–$14,000 for a heavy jet and $11,000–$17,000 for an ultra-long-range jet, taken across four published 2026 rate sheets. Add 25–35% for fees and tax on a US domestic trip and more internationally — the hourly rate is typically only 65–75% of the final invoice.
What is the cheapest private jet to charter?
Turboprops — the Pilatus PC-12 and King Air 350 — at $2,300–$3,500 per hour, and their range is better than most cost guides suggest: a PC-12 does 1,340 to 1,803 nautical miles depending on payload, not the 1,000 often quoted. They are also unbeatable into short mountain strips. Among true jets, very light jets run $2,800–$4,000 per hour for 4–6 passengers on short hops.
What does a Gulfstream G650 cost per hour?
Around $11,000–$17,000 per hour on the 2026 charter market, at the top of the ultra-long-range class, though published quotes disperse widely — some brokers show G650 hours from $11,000 and others from $16,000. A transatlantic New York–London one-way on a G650 prices at roughly $85,000–$150,000 all-in, on an eastbound block time of six and a half to seven hours.
What gets added on top of the hourly rate?
Positioning — ferrying the aircraft to you, charged at the full hourly rate, which can be under $2,000 on a dense route and more than your own sector on a thin one. Landing and handling, roughly $150–$3,000 per sector domestically and $2,500–$5,000 at premium international FBOs. Crew overnights at $200–$600 per crew member per night. Fuel, at FBO retail of roughly $7.20–$8.00 a gallon rather than the $4 wholesale figure most guides quote. A sustainable-fuel pass-through on European departures — note that the 2% and 6% figures often cited are the ReFuelEU blending mandate for 2026 and 2030, not a surcharge rate. And 7.5% US federal excise tax on the full amount paid for domestic flights, plus a $5.30 per-passenger segment fee.
Is a super-midsize worth the premium over a light jet?
Only when the mission needs it: transcontinental range without a fuel stop, a stand-up cabin for 8–10, or long overwater sectors. For flights under three hours, the light jet delivers the same doors-to-doors time for roughly half the hourly rate — pay for range and cabin, not for image.
Do charter prices rise during peak season and big events?
Sharply. School holidays, Monaco GP week, Art Basel and the Christmas ski migration can add 20–50% and exhaust availability days out. Book event-driven flights weeks ahead, or invert the trade and hunt the empty legs those events create in the opposite direction.
Read next
The fees quotes hide · Empty-leg platforms compared · Annual cost by hours flown · Membership programmes compared · The jet card index
By Richard J. · Updated 14 September 2026
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