You can move to Canada as a teacher, but your teaching certificate will come from a province or territory, not from the country as a whole. Job Bank, the federal jobs site, says a provincial teaching certificate is required for elementary school and kindergarten teachers, and its table of certifying bodies shows how varied they are: a college of teachers in Ontario, a regulatory board in Saskatchewan, and a government education department in the other provinces and territories. The certificate is separate from permission to immigrate, which comes from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), the federal immigration department, for example as a permanent resident (PR, someone allowed to live in Canada permanently). One rule stands out in Ontario: since 1 February 2025, most applicants for a teaching certificate there must also pass a mathematics proficiency test.

Getting licensed as a teacher in Canada

Job Bank gives the usual base: elementary teachers need a bachelor's degree in education, and secondary teachers of academic subjects need one too, often after a bachelor's degree in arts or sciences.

In Ontario, you must be certified by the Ontario College of Teachers (OCT) to teach in publicly funded schools. OCT requires at least a three-year postsecondary degree and a four-semester teacher education program, and it accepts applications from outside Canada. An application stays open for one year, and if your documents are not in by then, you re-apply under the rules then in force. Most applicants must also pass the free Mathematics Proficiency Test, set by Ontario's Education Quality and Accountability Office on the Grades 3 to 9 math curriculum and how to teach it. Teachers certified by an authority outside Canada must pass it within two years of their first Ontario certificate, or that certificate expires.

British Columbia's certificate requirements include four years (120 credits) of post-secondary study and a degree. A teacher education program completed outside the province must come from an accredited institution, include at least 18 credits of professional education coursework and a 10-week practicum in a kindergarten to grade 12 school (teaching experience in such a school may count towards it), and qualify you to teach in schools where you studied. If you trained outside Canada, the province may ask for a credential assessment by Pathways to Teach Canada, which works with World Education Services.

For language, OCT accepts English-language teacher education from listed countries, among them the UK, the US, Nigeria and Jamaica, as well as other evidence such as a letter confirming English instruction; its accepted tests include IELTS General Training, CELPIP General and PTE Core, valid for two years. BC's listed English tests are IELTS Academic taken at a test centre, TOEFL iBT and a teaching test called LCATP, and none of them is on IRCC's Express Entry list.

Immigration routes for teachers

Express Entry is how IRCC manages applications for the Canadian Experience Class, the Federal Skilled Worker Program and the Federal Skilled Trades Program. Each candidate gets a Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS) score, and IRCC invites the top-ranking candidates in rounds; our Express Entry guide covers the basics and our CRS calculator estimates your score.

IRCC can also hold rounds for jobs grouped into a category, and its education list includes secondary school teachers and elementary school and kindergarten teachers, along with early childhood educators and teacher assistants. In those rounds, only candidates who fit the category are invited. To fit, you need at least 12 months of full-time work (or an equal amount part-time) in one listed job within the past three years, in Canada or abroad, and you must be eligible for an Express Entry program too. Our guide to category rounds has more.

Provinces can also nominate people for PR under their own requirements, which our provincial nominee guide explains. In British Columbia, the BC Provincial Nominee Program counts French-speaking elementary and secondary school teachers among its priorities for the care economy, a group of sectors that includes education, and its targeted invitations for education are for French-speaking teachers only: they must work in the province's public kindergarten to grade 12 system and have "a CLB 5 or higher in French" (level 5 or above on Canada's scale of language benchmarks).

Where does French help a teacher?

In more than one place. IRCC's Express Entry has a French-language proficiency category, which looks at your French test results (at least 7 in all 4 abilities on Canada's French benchmark scale, the NCLC) rather than your job. On the licensing side, OCT sets minimum French levels for applicants who prove their language through a French test, such as C1 on the DALF, TCF or TEF, or B1 on the DELF. British Columbia accepts French evidence such as a letter from School District No. 93, the Francophone Education Authority, confirming your fluency, or a C1 on the DALF. Our guide to French-language routes explains the immigration side.

Can you get a teaching certificate before you meet every requirement?

In British Columbia, sometimes. The province may issue a Conditional Certificate of Qualification, a temporary certificate valid for up to 60 months, to applicants whose teacher education program is acceptable and who have at least 24 credits of professional education coursework, but who have not finished every academic and teacher education requirement; the rest must be completed within those 60 months. If your teacher education was outside Canada and you receive one, you must also complete a familiarization course while it is valid. In Ontario, if OCT finds you ineligible, you have two years to meet the missing requirements. Its transitional certificates work differently: they are only for teacher candidates enrolled in an accredited Ontario teacher education program.

A common mistake teachers make

Treating a certificate in teaching English as teacher training. British Columbia lists programs that may not qualify a person to teach in its schools, including Cambridge CELTA and DELTA, TESOL language programs, very short programs, on-the-job programs and some alternative certification programs. What it looks for instead includes a teacher education program with at least 18 credits of professional education coursework and a supervised 10-week practicum in a kindergarten to grade 12 school. If your main teaching qualification is one of those listed, have it evaluated before you plan a move around teaching.

First steps

1. Find the certifying body for your province in Job Bank's list.
2. Compare your degree and teacher education with its rules, for example OCT's requirements or BC's certificate requirements.
3. Check how you can prove your English or French, such as through OCT's accepted tests.
4. Apply for certification before you move; BC advises applying before you leave home so your documents have time to arrive.
5. Count your teaching months in the past three years against IRCC's 12-month rule.