Canada's Educational Credential Assessment (ECA), explained

If you studied outside Canada and you are looking at Canadian immigration, you will run into three letters early on: ECA. An Educational Credential Assessment is a report from a designated organisation that does two things at once, and it is worth understanding both. First, it independently verifies that your foreign credential is genuine. Second, it issues a Canadian-equivalency statement, something like "equivalent to a completed Canadian bachelor's degree." Many applicants assume an ECA does only one or the other. It does both, and IRCC wants to see both.

When an ECA is required

• Federal Skilled Worker (FSW). Required if your education was completed outside Canada.
• Any Express Entry programme. Required whenever you want CRS points for foreign education, under FSW, CEC, or FST.
• Canadian Experience Class (CEC). Not required if you are only claiming points for Canadian education.
• Federal Skilled Trades (FST). Not required for programme eligibility, because FST does not award education points at the eligibility stage.
• Education completed in Canada. Never needs an ECA if it came from a recognised Canadian institution.

The designated organisations

IRCC designates a short list of organisations that can issue an ECA for immigration. Five of them cover general education, and you can pick whichever one suits you:

Organisation	Official site
World Education Services (WES)	wes.org/ca
International Credential Assessment Service of Canada (ICAS)	icascanada.ca
International Qualifications Assessment Service (IQAS), Alberta	alberta.ca/international-qualifications-assessment
Comparative Education Service (CES), University of Toronto	learn.utoronto.ca
International Credential Evaluation Service (ICES), BC	bcit.ca/ices

There are also two profession-specific bodies. Physicians go through the Medical Council of Canada, which issues the ECA as part of its medical credentialling process. Pharmacists use Pharmacists' Gateway Canada, operated by NAPRA. If you work in either profession and plan to be licensed in Canada, use the profession-specific route rather than a general one.

How the process runs

1. Pick a designated organisation.
2. Submit your transcripts, any required translations, and the fee.
3. Receive your ECA report, which carries a reference number and a report number.
4. Enter those numbers on your Express Entry profile.

Turnaround varies by organisation and by how quickly your school sends documents. Expect weeks to several months, not days.

Validity

For Express Entry purposes, an ECA report is valid for five years from its date of issue. It must still be valid both when you submit your Express Entry profile and when you receive an Invitation to Apply. If yours is approaching the five-year mark, plan a reassessment before it lapses.

A note on provincial programmes

Some streams of the Provincial Nominee Program also require an ECA, and some do not. Check the specific stream before you apply.

Next steps

The ECA feeds directly into Canada's main federal routes, so it is worth cross-reading alongside our Express Entry and CRS score guides. See IRCC's official ECA page for programme rules, then check where your score lands with the CRS calculator or try the Express Entry eligibility checker.