Canada expands licensing requirements for internationally trained lawyers

Foreign-trained lawyers must now meet additional requirements to become accredited in common-law jurisdictions* in Canada.

As of March 1, 2026, Canada’s National Committee on Accreditation (NCA)** has added two additional requirements for foreign-trained lawyers to become accredited in Canadian common-law jurisdictions—these are:

• Mandatory language screening; and
• A stand-alone Indigenous Law and Peoples knowledge requirement.

Foreign-trained lawyers will still be required to meet all other accreditation requirements outlined by the NCA to be certified to practice in Canada.

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This article will cover the ways in which international lawyers can meet these two new requirements.

*Common law jurisdiction in Canada covers all provinces and territories in Canada (for most legal practice) except for Quebec.

**The NCA is the official Canadian body that assesses the legal education and professional experience of individuals who gained their credentials outside Canada, or in a Canadian civil law program.

Language screening requirements

All applicants to the NCA for credential assessment must complete an NCA language screening before the organization can issue an assessment decision, unless they qualify for an exemption by providing a valid accepted language test. Test results used for exemption must be less than two years old when submitted to the NCA.

Each applicant gets one attempt at the screening.

The new language screening is required not only for first-time applications but also for applicants whose credentials are not initially recognized and who ask the NCA to review their file after completing additional legal studies. This means even some people who applied before March 1 could still be affected.

For English, the screening is a proctored Versant English Placement Test, included in the assessment fee, with a minimum score of 61 overall needed.

For French, the NCA says it does not yet have a French screening tool, so applicants choosing French currently must complete one of the approved French tests at NCA expense. If an applicant does not meet the screening standard, they can still continue, but they must pass one of the accepted full language tests before receiving the Certificate of Qualification.

The accepted full language tests and minimums in the March 2026 interpretive statement are given below:

Under the pre-March 2026 policy, applicants were treated as meeting the language requirement if their qualifying law degree was taught in English or French and earned in a country where that language is official; only applicants who did not meet that rule had to later provide a recognized language test.

Indigenous Law and Peoples requirement

This new requirement now mandates that all applicants to the NCA who wish to have their credentials assessed complete a stand-alone course to “demonstrate competence in Indigenous Law and Peoples”.

The 2026 manual added a new section 10.5, requiring applicants to understand:

• The history and legacy of residential schools;
• UNDRIP;
• Aboriginal-Crown relations;
• Doctrines like Discovery and terra nullius; and
• Systemic discrimination against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people.

The NCA says this requirement can be met through a Canadian Centre for Professional Legal Education (CPLED) module or an NCA-approved course at a recognized Canadian law school.

The NCA describes the CPLED Indigenous Peoples and the Law option as a six-week, fully online, self-directed course developed for internationally trained lawyers

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