Educational Credential Assessment (ECA) Guide

An Educational Credential Assessment (ECA) is used to check the Canadian equivalency of a foreign degree, diploma or certificate for immigration purposes. For example, an ECA will determine if an applicant’s foreign Master’s degree is of the same standard when compared to a Canadian Master’s degree.

Do you Need an Educational Credential Assessment (ECA)?

An Educational Credential Assessment (ECA) is a crucial step in the Canadian immigration process, particularly for candidates applying through the Express Entry system, other federal programs such as the Atlantic Immigration Program (AIP), or specific Provincial Nominee Programs (PNP). It ensures that foreign educational qualifications are accurately assessed, contributing to a fair and transparent immigration system in Canada.

An ECA is required when individuals with foreign educational credentials would like to apply for certain federal or provincial immigration programs that require a minimum Canadian educational level.

An ECA is not required but highly recommended in cases where the immigration program does not have a minimum required Canadian education level but it gives a “bonus” to individuals having a secondary or post-secondary education.
Examples would be the Federal Skilled Trades (FST) program and the Canadian Experience Class (CEC) of Express Entry that do not require a minimum education level to qualify, but having an ECA for at least secondary education would help improve your CRS points and increase your chances of being invited to apply for permanent residence.

For Quebec immigration programs, the province does not accept Educational Credential Assessment (ECA).

ECA Designated Organizations List

There are seven designated organizations for Educational Credential Assessments (ECA) by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada​ (IRCC). Provinces and territories in Canada also accept ECAs from the same designated organisations for their provincial nominee programs.

• Comparative Education Service – University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies (CES, Date designated: April 17, 2013).
• International Credential Assessment Service of Canada (ICASC, Date designated: April 17, 2013).
• World Education Services (WES, Date designated: April 17, 2013).
• International Qualifications Assessment Service (IQAS, Date designated: August 6, 2015).
• International Credential Evaluation Service (ICES, Date designated: August 6, 2015).
• Medical Council of Canada (professional body for Doctors) (MCC, Date designated: April 17, 2013).
• Pharmacy Examining Board of Canada (professional body for Pharmacists) (PEBC, Date designated: January 6, 2014).

If you are a Specialists in clinical and laboratory medicine (NOC 31100), Specialists in surgery (NOC 31101), or General practitioner/family physician (NOC 31102), the Medical Council of Canada (MCC) must do the ECA for your primary medical diploma.

If you are a pharmacist (NOC 31120) and need a license to practice (for example, providing patient care in a community pharmacy, hospital pharmacy, etc.), the Pharmacy Examining Board of Canada (PEBC) must do your ECA.

ECA Validity Period

An Educational Credential Assessments (ECA) is valid for a period of 5 years from the date it is issued. To be accepted by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) for federal immigration programs or any provincial/territorial body for Provincial Nominee Programs (PNP), the ECA must not be more than five years old on the date they receive your application for permanent residence or for nomination.

ECA Designated Organizations Comparative Table

The table below presents a comparison between 5 designated organisations that issue an Educational Credential Assessments (ECA) for most certificates/degrees/diplomas.
MCC and PEBC have not been included since there is no other option than to use them when you are a specialist physician/general practitioner/family physician/pharmacist.

The price includes all the credentials you want to add (except for CES and IQAS, which is the price for the first credential – Additional fees apply for additional credentials). Include all your credentials, so as not to pay an additional fee and waste time if you want to assess another credential later.

Last updated: August 17, 2024

​The obvious choice here is WES being the quickest of them all, and not that more expensive than the other providers.

The processing time is approximative and begin once a complete application is received. Processing times can also depend on the volume of application received (for IQAS, the processing time is for one credential only, it will take at least another 4 weeks for requests with more than 1 credential).

​We recommend using WES, below is a guide for getting your ECA from them, and some few tips.

Applying for an ECA through WES

Be always careful that you are in the Canadian WES website when applying for an Educational Credential Assessments (ECA), as there’s a U.S. one as well. You can check that on the top right corner of the WES page.

With WES, you have an option to use the Free WES Degree Equivalency Tool before you create an account. This will give you an idea of what your ECA results “may be”, this is in no way a replacement for an ECA.

The tool is simple to use and requires only the following information: name, country of residence, e-mail, country of education, name of Degree/Diploma, numbers of years of study. Then you can search for your institution. If you don’t find your institution, research again but without typing anything the box, you will get the list of all institutions and look again (sometimes, there can be spelling problems with some languages such as Arabic).

If you still don’t find your school, you can still apply through WES.

You have to go to this page. Choose your country and type of education (secondary education is high school and higher education is post high school). You then have to choose which type of high school diploma you got (French, Spanish, British, … ).

Depending on your answers, you will get the documents you will have to provide. If you have a higher education diploma, the documents you will be asked to provide are:

• A copy (does not need to be certified) of your diploma/degree/certificate (final or provisional).
• An envelope with your academic transcripts for all the years you attended the institution. It does not have to be an official envelope with the name of your institution in front, but has to be either stamped or signed across the back flap by an appropriate official at your institution. You can then either ask your institution to send your sealed or signed envelope directly to WES, or send it yourself (you can send it with your other documents in one delivery).
• If you diploma/degree/certificate and/or your academic transcripts are not in French or English, you will need to provide in addition (do not just send the translation, send the foreign language documents too) a copy of a word-for-word French or English translation, either done by your academic institution or by a certified translation service. Translations do not need to be in the sealed envelope.
• If you are from a set of countries (Morocco, Pakistan, etc.), you will need to add your high school diploma, and high school transcripts in a sealed envelope by the relevant body. You will need to check in the WES required documents page.
• If WES has a partnership with your educational institution, it can provide WES with the academic transcripts electronically. This will speed up the processing of your application. When checking for the required documents using the link provided above, the page will mention the option to request the transcripts electronically if available for your institution.

Although it is NOT required, you can add this form. It has to be signed by you and your institution and can help you request your documents. It has to be included in the sealed envelope and must also include the WES number that you get when you register and pay your fees (see step 3).

Go here to create your account. After entering your personal information, add your credential data. You can add as many credentials as you want, it will be the same price (however, if you add a credential later on, you will have to pay an additional fee). You will then have to pay the fees, either by credit card, cheque/money order, or Western Union.

Once, you are done you will be getting your WES Reference Number.

As discussed in step 2, the documents required depend on the country of education. After gathering them and/or have them prepared by your institution, make sure that the address in the mail contains your WES Reference Number (as to avoid any delays).

When sending your documents to WES, use of express courier service is recommended. The last thing you would want is to go through all the process again, if lost in transit. However, if you are not in a hurry, want to save some money and take the risk, you can send it by regular mail (you should check if your postal system is trustworthy).

WES will review the submitted documents and communicate with you via e-mail when needed. There will be delays if the documents submitted are incorrect or WES needs additional verification.

You can monitor the status of your application in your online WES account. You do not need to worry if your courier says the documents have been delivered, but your WES status does not change as it can take up to 3 weeks from delivery to update your status. Below are the WES evaluation statuses:

• Waiting for required documents.
• Documents received – Review in Progress.
• Waiting for verification from institution : WES may find it necessary to verify the documents you submitted with the issuing institutions. In such cases, WES will send a copy of your submitted documents to your educational institution and ask them to authenticate the same.
• Completed: you will be able to see your electronic report in your account. You will also be able to track the transit of your ECA report (hard copy) using the tracking IDs provided.​

How to interpret your ECA results

ECA sample report from WES

For Express Entry, you can use the table below to figure out which level of education to choose when submitting your Express Entry profile.
To know how many points your ECA results will give you (i) under the FSW eligibility 100-point grid, use this link, and (ii) for CRS points, you can use this link. You can also calculate your overall score using our CRS tool.

* For a “Professional degree,” the degree program must have been in: medicine, veterinary medicine, dentistry, optometry, law, chiropractic medicine, or pharmacy.