A NetJets Praetor 500 at Marana Regional Airport, Arizona, in March 2026. · Photo: DUNCAN KIRK, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Embraer · Midsize Jet
Praetor 500
Second version of Embraer's EMB-545 midsize jet, between the Legacy 450 and the coming Praetor 500E.
The Praetor 500 flies farther and faster than its midsize rivals, with a wide, quiet, stand-up cabin and fly-by-wire controls. It needs more runway than a Citation Latitude, its fleet is smaller, and more than half of it flies with fractional operators.
Buy it if
You fly four to seven people on trips of up to about 3,000 nm, want coast-to-coast and Hawaii nonstop in any season, value a wide stand-up cabin with fast Wi-Fi, and use runways of 5,000 ft or longer.
Skip it if
You often use short, hot or high runways with full fuel, need to seat more than nine passengers, want the biggest service network in the class, or need dependable nonstop Atlantic crossings.
Biggest compromise
Runway length. At maximum weight the Praetor 500 needs 4,222 ft at sea level and about 5,700 ft from a 5,000 ft airport on a warm day, roughly 600 ft more than a Citation Latitude.
The numbers that matter
Purchase price
$17.5M–$20M
guide value (Aircraft Bluebook)
What it costs per year
$2.09M
at 300 hrs · two professional pilots
How far it flies
3,340 nm
3,150–3,340 nm with passengers
How fast
466 kt
high-speed cruise
Seats
7
7 typical, up to 9
Pilots needed
2
Two pilots are required on every flight.
Price
What one costs to buy
Guide value
$17.5M–$20M
Other sites
2.1% of the fleet
Priced vs call
with a price / call for price
None of the listed aircraft shows a price. Aircraft Bluebook values 2020 to 2024 models at $17.5–20.0M; a new one costs about $21.6M equipped.
Price vs its family and alternatives
Scroll to explore · select a jet for details
Praetor 500 · This aircraft
$17.5M–$20M guide
Guide value, not a listed asking price.
Sits between the Legacy 450 (EMB-545) and the Citation Latitude (680A).
For sale now
None listed right now
Cost to own
What it costs per year to run
300hours / year
Per year
Per flight hour
Estimate — your operator will quote actual numbers.
Fuel, airframe maintenance, engine program, both engines and trip expenses rise as you fly more. Two professional pilots, recurrent training, hangar, insurance, management and charts, software and connectivity stay the same however much you fly.
Where the money goes
- Two professional pilots$411,88120%
- Recurrent training$33,0002%
- Hangar$63,1353%
- Insurance$53,4633%
- Management$60,0003%
- Charts, software and connectivity$50,0002%
- Fuel$655,85431%
- Airframe maintenance$315,00015%
- Engine program, both engines$247,80012%
- Trip expenses$202,50010%
Fuel is the biggest single cost at 31% of the total.
The JetGrade
80 out of 100 — Clearly above its class
Peer group: Cessna Citation Latitude, Embraer Legacy 450, Cessna Citation Sovereign+, Hawker 900XP
Seven categories at a glance
- - - 70 = typical— This aircraft
Strongest on range & payload, weakest on reliability & support.
Grades are editorial opinions about the model, not any specific aircraft. Sponsors and affiliates have no input. Reviewed 2026-10-29.
Where it flies
Sample trips and reach
Typical trips on a map
Nonstop
8 of 8 sample trips are comfortable nonstops.
Sample flight times
- 0.9 hr
Carlsbad → Las Vegas
205 nm · Short hop with ample margin at any load
- 1.8 hr
Carlsbad → Aspen
625 nm · Routine Aspen trip; summer heat can limit weight
- 2.1 hr
Santa Ana → San José del Cabo
765 nm · Easy nonstop with a full cabin
- 2.4 hr
Teterboro → West Palm Beach
900 nm · Comfortable nonstop with a full cabin
- 3.1 hr
Dallas → Teterboro
1,190 nm · Nonstop with seats full and margin
- 3.6 hr
Teterboro → San Juan
1,410 nm · Nonstop over water with seats full
- 5.2 hr
Carlsbad → Teterboro
2,100 nm · Coast-to-coast nonstop, even with most seats filled
- 5.4 hr
Los Angeles → Honolulu
2,215 nm · Nonstop with four passengers; needs overwater equipment
Lineage
What came before and after
2019–present
Embraer Praetor 500
Winglets, more fuel and higher weights add hundreds of miles of range.
Deliveries from 2029
Embraer Praetor 500E
Same airframe with a new, larger interior and updated cabin systems.
What changed from the Embraer Legacy 450
- Large swept winglets stretch the wingspan from about 63 ft to 70 ft 6 in.
- Range grows to 3,340 nm with four passengers, enough for coast-to-coast nonstop.
- Maximum takeoff weight rises about 1,800 lb, to 37,567 lb.
- Fuel capacity rises about 925 lb, with reinforced wing ribs and new fuel gauging.
- Updated Collins Pro Line Fusion software with an optional head-up display.
- Existing Legacy 450s can be upgraded to the same standard for about $500,000.
Size and cabin
How big it is, inside and out
Outside
Silhouette · scaled to length
Length
Wingspan
Height
Inside the cabin
Cabin length
Width
Height
Compare
How it stacks up
This aircraft
Praetor 500
- JetGrade
- 80
- Price
- $17.5M–$20M guide
- Cost per year
- $2.09M
- Range
- 3,340 nm
- Speed
- 466 kt
- Seats
- 7
- Cabin length
- 24′ 1″
- Pilots
- 2
- Years built
- 2019–now
← Before
- JetGrade
- 75
- Price
- $11.5M–$15.5M guide
- Cost per year
- $1.93M
- Range
- 2,904 nm
- Speed
- 462 kt
- Seats
- 7
- Cabin length
- 24′ 0″
- Pilots
- 2
- Years built
- 2015–2019
After →
Embraer Praetor 500E
Not yet graded
Alternative
- JetGrade
- 75
- Price
- $18.75M
- Cost per year
- $2.15M
- Range
- 2,700 nm
- Speed
- 446 kt
- Seats
- 8
- Cabin length
- 21′ 9″
- Pilots
- 2
- Years built
- 2015–now
Alternative
- JetGrade
- 78
- Price
- $20.5M–$23.29M guide
- Cost per year
- $2.37M
- Range
- 4,018 nm
- Speed
- 466 kt
- Seats
- 8
- Cabin length
- 27′ 7″
- Pilots
- 2
- Years built
- 2019–now
Alternative
- JetGrade
- 72
- Price
- $23.3M–$28M guide
- Cost per year
- $2.11M
- Range
- 3,400 nm
- Speed
- 470 kt
- Seats
- 8
- Cabin length
- 25′ 2″
- Pilots
- 2
- Years built
- 2022–now
- Cessna Citation Latitude instead: Shorter runway needs and a much larger support fleet for a similar price, but about 640 nm less range and 20 kt slower.
- Embraer Praetor 600 instead: Same cabin cross-section about 3.5 ft longer, with 4,018 nm range for nonstop Atlantic trips, for about $4 million more new.
- Bombardier Challenger 3500 instead: A wider super-midsize cabin and a bigger service network with about 3,400 nm range, for roughly $8 million more new.
Gold marks the best figure in each row.
Owning one
What to know before you buy
Engines & inspections
2 × Honeywell HTF7500E · 6,540 lbf each
Engine hours until overhaul
- Routine airframe check · 750 hr
- Engine bearing replacement · 4,000 hr
- Engine fuel control overhaul · 7,000 hr
- Engine compressor borescope · 8,000 hr
- Annual inspection every 12 months
- 120-month structural check every 120 months
No fixed overhaul date; engines stay on wing until inspections call for work. Hourly plan coverage strongly affects resale value.
Known issues
Engine program status
Engines or APU off an hourly plan bring buy-in costs and maintenance exposure that can move the price by millions.
Cockpit side-window cracking
Two directives require repeat inspections of flight deck side windows for cracks and delamination.
Pitch trim actuator
A 2026 directive addresses in-service failures of one load path in the pitch trim actuator.
Pre-buy checklist
0 of 10 checked
Embraer lists more than 70 owned and authorized service centers worldwide, mobile field-service teams and a 24-hour support line; large Flexjet and NetJets fleets keep parts flowing.
Review
The full review
Strengths
- Flies 3,340 nm with four passengers, so Los Angeles to New York or Hawaii is a routine nonstop.
- Six-foot, 82-inch-wide flat-floor cabin with a 5,800 ft cabin altitude at 45,000 ft.
- Cruises at up to 466 kt, with fly-by-wire controls, autothrottle and synthetic vision built in.
Limitations
- Needs 4,222 ft of runway at maximum weight, about 640 ft more than a Citation Latitude.
- About 190 in service, far fewer than the roughly 470 Latitudes, so specialist shops are thinner.
- Nine airworthiness directives (mandatory safety fixes) apply, four with repeat checks, including cockpit side windows.
The Praetor 500 is Embraer's midsize business jet, and it is really the second version of an airplane that first flew as the Legacy 450. In 2019 Embraer added large swept winglets, more fuel, higher weights and updated avionics software, renamed it, and gave it the range to cross North America with room to spare. Many earlier Legacy 450s have since been converted to the same standard. About 190 Praetor 500s are flying today, and more than half are with fractional operators Flexjet and NetJets. A Praetor 500E with a new interior has been certified, but deliveries do not begin until 2029.
Pilot's take
From the flight deck the Praetor 500 feels more like a modern airliner than a typical midsize jet. Fly-by-wire with sidesticks and envelope protection takes much of the workload out of hand-flying and smooths turbulence, and the Collins Pro Line Fusion displays, autothrottle and synthetic vision keep long legs easy to manage. It climbs to the high 30s in about 14 minutes and settles near 466 kt. The trade is runway: at heavy weights, crews plan short or hot-and-high departures carefully.
Who this is for
Companies, families and frequent flyers who log 300 to 500 hours a year, often coast to coast or out to Hawaii and the Caribbean with four to seven passengers, and want near super-midsize range at a midsize price.
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