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Immigrating to Canada: Get your CPA Designation

Chartered Professional Accountants (CPA) play a crucial role in providing organizations with accounting and fiscal expertise. A CPA designation prepares you for a future where your skills are in high demand.

If you have an education or experience in business, finance or accounting, earning the CPA designation will make you stand out from other candidates in a competitive job market. Organizations, large and small, rely on CPAs and the CPA designation is highly valued by Canadian employers. As a CPA you will have the opportunity to progress your career to the highest levels.

If you already have an accounting designation in your home country, visit our Internationally Trained Accountants page.

Get started on advancing your career in Canada

Ready to find out what you need to do to get a CPA designation? Here are the steps we recommend you take to begin:

Attend a pre-arrival webinar and learn about the CPA program and how you can start preparing today. You will learn about:
- exciting career options available to you as a CPA
- the CPA certification program and practical experience requirements
- pre-arrival documents you can prepare now while overseas
Submit your academic transcript(s) for assessment to evaluate your next steps towards obtaining your CPA designation.

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Profile: Daria Tokareva

"When living in Russia, I was a young finance professional with lots of career aspirations and hopes for a better future. After attending the pre-arrival webinar, it was clear to me what path I should follow. I’m now a full-time teacher at Georgian College. The support from CPA Ontario gave me confidence not to give up and dare to try for what I aspire.”

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Transcript assessment

Once you’ve attended a pre-arrival webinar, your next step is to evaluate how your credentials and education are recognized in Canada. Transcripts are evaluated to determine if you meet the degree requirement and have completed the required subject area coverage (academic pre-requisites) for entry to the CPA Professional Education Program.

CPA Ontario will use the transcript assessment results to advise you on what path and courses you need to take to obtain a CPA designation.

If you have a qualification from a post-secondary institution outside of Canada, you need to request an International Credential Advantage Package (ICAP) Course-by-Course evaluation carried out by World Education Services (WES). A WES evaluation ensures the authenticity of international documents and provides a consistent Canadian equivalency determination for international credentials.

Your international transcripts must be evaluated by WES - you cannot send them to CPA Ontario directly. WES will send the evaluation results to CPA Ontario once they have been completed.

If you have previously obtained an ICAP course-by-course evaluation from WES for another purpose, you can contact WES to send a copy to CPA Ontario. If your assessment was not ICAP, you may be able to upgrade it for a fee. Please contact WES for details.

Get full details on the transcript assessment application, and what you need to know before you apply.

Visit our Transcript Assessment page