British Columbia registers psychologists at the doctoral level through the College of Health and Care Professionals of BC: doctoral degree, 600 hours of practica and a 1,600-hour pre-doctoral internship, the EPPP at a scaled score of 500, a written jurisprudence examination, and an oral examination.
Applies in: British Columbia
Written November 13, 2026
Earn a doctoral degree in psychology (a PhD or PsyD), complete the practica and pre-doctoral internship, and register with the College of Health and Care Professionals of British Columbia, passing the EPPP at a scaled score of 500, a written jurisprudence examination, and an oral examination along the way. The British Columbia Psychological Association states the degree plainly: to register as a psychologist, you need a doctoral degree, and it directs applicants to the College of Health and Care Professionals of BC for the detailed registration requirements.
This guide walks the British Columbia route only. It does not import Ontario's supervised practice certificate, Alberta's provisional register, or any other province's steps.
British Columbia folded its health profession colleges together, and psychology moved with them. The College of Health and Care Professionals of British Columbia (CHCPBC) is the regulator the BC Psychological Association now names for registration, and CHCPBC's own documents carry the psychology file: its verification of licensure form is headed College of Health and Care Professionals of BC — Psychology, gives the College's Vancouver address at 900-200 Granville, and directs forms to CHCPBC Psychology Licensure. The College's registrant newsletter describes CHCPBC as the college that regulates audiologists, dietitians, hearing instrument practitioners, occupational therapists, opticians, optometrists, physical therapists, psychologists, and speech-language pathologists in British Columbia.
You will still meet the old name, the College of Psychologists of British Columbia, in older registration flowcharts and in federal Job Bank listings. Those documents predate the amalgamation. For a new application, the college to deal with is CHCPBC.
To register as a psychologist in BC, you need a doctoral degree: a PhD in Psychology or a PsyD. The association lists BC graduate programs at the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, and the University of Victoria, among the routes into that degree, after an undergraduate degree with a focus on psychology such as an honours, specialization, or major program.
The master's degree has a different destination in BC. The association's page notes applying for registration as a psychological associate where applicable, and the Job Bank's employment requirements draw the same line: a doctoral degree in psychology is required to use the designation Psychologist in British Columbia, while a master's degree is the requirement for the designation Psychological Associate. Plan the degree around the title you actually want to hold.
The Canadian Psychological Association's provincial and territorial licensing table records the supervised experience for the BC doctoral route as 600 hours of practica and a 1,600-hour pre-doctoral internship. These hours sit inside and alongside the doctoral training itself, which is why the sequencing matters: the internship is pre-doctoral, completed before the degree is finished, not a post-degree year bolted on afterwards. That is a real difference from provinces whose supervised year follows the doctorate, and it is one reason a degree completed elsewhere can still leave a BC applicant short on a specific hour category.
The BC Psychological Association's summary of the College's steps also lists completing supervised experience as its own step, in its wording spanning a post-master's internship period, a supervised period, and the pre-doctoral year. Where your own training history does not map neatly onto those categories, the mapping decision belongs to the College's registration process, starting with its review of academic qualifications.
The association lists the College's registration steps in this order:
The examinations are three. The Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology (EPPP) must be passed with a scaled score of 500. A written jurisprudence examination follows, recorded in the CPA licensing table at a pass score of 40 of 50. An oral examination completes the set. The CPA table records the same three-part pattern for BC: EPPP, written jurisprudence, and oral examination, against the doctoral title with independent practice as the scope.
CHCPBC's own bylaws frame the same route in the College's terms. Bylaw 6.14 makes a full licence in psychology depend on a recognized education program in psychology, a program of practical training, and the licensure examinations, and Bylaw 6.3 requires successful completion of one or more jurisprudence examinations. Schedule 5 of the bylaws lists the recognized education programs as programs accredited by the Canadian Psychological Association or the American Psychological Association that confer a doctorate in psychology, and the recognized programs of practical training as pre-doctoral internship programs accredited by either body. The specific hour and pass-mark figures above are the ones the CPA licensing table and the BC Psychological Association record; the bylaws set the structure they sit inside.
One practical consequence of the amalgamation: forms and correspondence that used to go to a standalone psychology college now go to CHCPBC. The College's psychology verification form, for applicants who have been licensed in other jurisdictions, is returned directly to CHCPBC Psychology Licensure in Vancouver, and asks for licence history, the highest degree in psychology on which registration elsewhere was based, and whether registration has been continuous. If you are arriving from another province, expect that verification step to be part of your BC file.
The College's step list, as the association reproduces it, includes applying for registration as a psychological associate if applicable, between the review of academic qualifications and the supervised experience and examination steps. That ordering reflects how some BC applicants build toward the doctoral title: master's-level registration first, doctoral registration later. It is an optional step, marked if applicable, not a requirement imposed on a doctoral graduate who applies directly. The Job Bank statement of the same boundary is that the master's degree supports the Psychological Associate designation in British Columbia, while the Psychologist designation requires the doctorate.
The pages opened for this guide — the BC Psychological Association's route summary, the CPA licensing table, and CHCPBC's own bylaws, form, and newsletter material — state the degree, the practica and internship hours, the examination set, and the current regulator, but they do not state a current CHCPBC application fee, annual registration fee, or application processing time for psychologists, so this guide gives none of those figures. Check the College's fee schedule and registration pages when you apply, because the College's bylaws and schedules are the documents that carry the current amounts and requirements.
The College of Health and Care Professionals of British Columbia (CHCPBC). It is the amalgamated college whose registrant materials cover psychologists alongside audiologists, dietitians, occupational therapists, optometrists, physical therapists, and speech-language pathologists in BC. Older documents name the College of Psychologists of British Columbia, the college that previously regulated the profession on its own.
A doctoral degree: a PhD in Psychology or a PsyD, as the British Columbia Psychological Association states it. With a master's degree in psychology, the BC title the association describes is psychological associate, not psychologist.
The Canadian Psychological Association's provincial licensing table records, for the BC doctoral route, 600 hours of practica and a 1,600-hour pre-doctoral internship. The BC Psychological Association's registration steps also include a period of supervised experience in its summary of the College's process.
Three: the Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology (EPPP) with a scaled score of 500; a written jurisprudence examination, recorded in the CPA licensing table with a score of 40 of 50; and an oral examination.
A review of academic qualifications. The BC Psychological Association lists the College's steps as: review of academic qualifications; applying for registration as a psychological associate if applicable; completing supervised experience; and passing the examinations. Detailed requirements are on the College of Health and Care Professionals of BC site.
No. The College pages opened for this guide did not state a current application or registration fee for psychologists that could be carried safely, so no fee figure appears here. Check the CHCPBC fee schedule when you apply.