To oper­ate an ama­teur radio sta­tion one first must obtain a license from the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions reg­u­la­tor of the coun­try where the sta­tion is locat­ed. The ITU Radio Reg­u­la­tions pro­vide a gen­er­al frame­work but every coun­try has its own reg­u­la­tions and requirements.

Rec­om­men­da­tion ITU‑R M.1544 sets out the min­i­mum qual­i­fi­ca­tions of radio amateurs:

1. that admin­is­tra­tions take such mea­sures as they judge nec­es­sary to ver­i­fy the oper­a­tional and tech­ni­cal qual­i­fi­ca­tions of any per­son wish­ing to oper­ate an ama­teur station; 
   
2. that any per­son seek­ing a license to oper­ate an ama­teur sta­tion should demon­strate the­o­ret­i­cal knowl­edge of: 

• Radio regulations 
  • international 
  • domestic 

• Meth­ods of radiocommunication 
  • radiotelephony 
  • radiotelegraphy 
  • data and image 

• Radio sys­tem theory 
  • trans­mit­ters
  • receivers
  • anten­nas and propagation 
  • measurements 

• Radio emis­sion safety 

• Oper­at­ing procedures 

• Elec­tro­mag­net­ic compatibility 

• Avoid­ance and res­o­lu­tion of radio fre­quen­cy interference 

The abil­i­ty to send and receive texts in Morse code is no longer an inter­na­tion­al requirement.

The best source of spe­cif­ic infor­ma­tion about licens­ing require­ments is the IARU mem­ber-soci­ety in the coun­try concerned.