The route to practising as an optician in Canada: an accredited opticianry program, the NACOR National Optical Sciences Examinations for eyeglass and contact lens dispensing, and registration with the provincial optician regulator. Opticianry is a separate profession from optometry.
Applies in: across Canada
This guide covers one route only: a student in Canada who completes an accredited opticianry program, passes the national examinations, and registers with the optician regulator in the province where they will work. It is not the route to becoming an optometrist or an ophthalmologist. Those are separate professions with separate education, separate examinations, and separate regulators, as the first frequently asked question explains. An optician credential does not license you as an optometrist, and an optometry degree does not register you as an optician. Do not mix the steps.
Two bodies divide the work. The National Alliance of Canadian Optician Regulators (NACOR) administers the national examinations on behalf of the provincial regulatory authorities. The provincial regulator — the College of Opticians in your province — licenses you. NACOR states that its examinations are the final step in becoming an optician in Canada, and that they are used in every province except Quebec. The regulator decides the registration classes, the practicum evidence, the police check, and the insurance. This guide follows that order: program, examinations, then the provincial regulator.
To become a licensed optician in Canada, you must complete an accredited opticianry program at a recognized educational institution. Opticianry programs are offered full-time, part-time, or online and take between one and three years to complete, depending on the institution. Graduates from accredited opticianry programs learn the skills in the National Competencies for Canadian Opticians as part of their curriculum, and become eligible to write the national examinations on completion of their programs.
Accreditation is the test that matters, and it is set province by province. Ontario's labour-mobility policy refers to an opticianry program accredited by the College of Opticians of Ontario or an accrediting body approved by the College, as set out in its Accredited Education Policy, and points applicants to the College's list of accredited opticianry programs. Saskatchewan requires completion of an accredited education program or the process the Registration Committee deems appropriate before a candidate may take the NACOR examination. Before you enrol, confirm the program's current accredited status with the regulator in the province where you intend to practise, and confirm that the program covers both eyeglass and contact lens dispensing if you intend to seek both authorizations. A program that covers eyeglasses only does not, by itself, qualify you for contact lens registration, and in Ontario and British Columbia the licence covers both.
No list of accredited programs, program count, or tuition figure is stated in this guide, because no current accredited-program list could be verified on an official page and program lists change. The regulator's accredited-program list is the only list that governs your application. Admission requirements, prerequisite courses, and application deadlines sit with each college or institution and are not stated here. Confirm them on the institution's own admissions pages.
If you completed opticianry education and training outside Canada, or graduated from an unaccredited Canadian program, do not enrol in a full accredited program until you have read the PLAR route in Step 4. You may not need to.
In most provinces you must hold a pre-registration status with the regulator before you may sit the national examinations or provide opticianry services.
In Ontario, you must register as an intern optician to be eligible to sit the national examinations. The College of Opticians of Ontario page for registering as an optician addresses applicants currently registered as intern opticians applying to become Registered Opticians, and states that applicants who completed both examinations but no longer hold intern registration must meet a currency test: successful completion of the program or the national examinations within 18 months before the application, practice of opticianry within the three years before the application, or successful completion of a refresher program or professional competency assessment within one year before the application. The College no longer accepts paper applications except where accommodation is required or for French-language applicants, effective December 1, 2024.
In Alberta, individuals must register as provisional opticians to be eligible to write the NACOR examination and to provide opticianry services, and provisional opticians must be supervised by a licensed optician or optometrist. Once provisional registration is approved, the applicant is eligible to register for the NACOR examinations. Alberta states the timeline to complete a full application and achieve registration as a Registered Optician or Registered Contact Lens Practitioner is approximately three months, including completion of the NACOR examinations, which are held twice a year in Alberta. Treat that as the Alberta College's estimate for its own process, not as a promise for every applicant or every province.
In Saskatchewan, the student licence ends on graduation, and the graduate must apply for a restricted optician licence or restricted contact lens practitioner licence to continue to practise under supervision or to sit the NACOR examination. A Saskatchewan student is permitted three attempts to pass the NACOR licensing examination in opticianry or contact lens technique. Attempt limits in other provinces sit in each regulator's own rules: confirm the attempt rule for your province before you book, because this guide states no national attempt limit.
NACOR administers the National Examinations for Canadian Opticians on behalf of the provincial regulatory authorities. There are two national competency examinations: Optical Sciences 1, the Eyeglass Examination, and Optical Sciences 2, the Advanced Practice Contact Lens Examination. The examinations are based on the National Competencies for Canadian Opticians. Part of each examination is theoretical and the rest requires the candidate to demonstrate the required level of skill. Effective March 1, 2025, both examinations were updated: the national competencies assessed remain unchanged, with adjustments to some sections, designed to enhance the examination experience and keep the evaluation system meeting the standards provincial regulators require.
You do not have to wait to receive confirmation from your school that you have graduated to apply for the national examinations, and you do not have to wait for confirmation from your provincial regulatory authority to apply. NACOR states that the only way to be sure you are registered for the national examinations is to submit your application before the application deadline. The national examinations are held in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia at various times through the year, and the examination schedule is posted on the NACOR website and updated annually. Confirm the current sitting dates, venues, and application deadlines on the NACOR site for the sitting you intend to write: this guide states no examination date, because dates change by sitting and by province.
Which examinations you write follows the authorizations you seek, as the second frequently asked question explains. Ontario requires both. British Columbia requires a single licence covering both. Alberta registers the two authorizations separately. Confirm the combination on your regulator's page before you pay for a sitting you may not need, and confirm whether the examinations may be written in separate sittings or must be taken together in your province.
No examination fee is stated in this guide. Fee figures for the NACOR examinations appear on regulator pages and change: confirm the current fee on the NACOR or regulator page for the sitting you intend to write, on the day you apply.
If you have completed education and training related to opticianry outside Canada, or graduated from an unaccredited program, you may be eligible through Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition. PLAR is administered by NACOR. The College of Opticians of Ontario explains the logic: graduates of accredited programs learn the National Competencies as part of their curriculum, while internationally educated applicants or graduates of unaccredited programs may already possess some of the required skills, and PLAR assesses those skills so applicants can focus on the knowledge areas where they have gaps, rather than completing a full education program.
The process, as NACOR sets it out, runs in steps. First, pick a province: each province has a regulatory board responsible for licensing opticians, and you must register with your province's board. In Ontario and British Columbia, opticians register for a single licence covering both eyeglasses and contact lenses; in other provinces the eyeglass and contact lens licences are separate. Second, apply for PLAR through the regulatory body in your province of choice, with an application and document review. Third, complete the Professional Practice bridging modules, covering legislation, communication, professionalism, and infection control, each with a short post-test that must be successfully completed and may be retaken more than once. Fourth, complete the Competency Gap Analysis, a supervised online multiple-choice assessment that can be completed from your home country, based on the National Competencies for Canadian Opticians, in sections covering eyeglasses and low vision, contact lenses, and a third section. The gap analysis produces a computer-generated score card; NACOR reviews it and prepares a Reasons and Decisions letter with the results and next steps, which may include additional bridging modules where gaps are identified. On successful completion of PLAR, you become eligible to challenge the National Eyeglass and National Contact Lens Examinations, following the requirements of the province where you intend to work. In Ontario, PLAR applicants must register as intern opticians to sit the national examinations, and must provide proof of PLAR completion, a World Education Services course-by-course evaluation, proof of language proficiency if the program was not conducted in English or French, and notarized employment-eligibility documents. No PLAR fee is stated in this guide: fee figures on regulator pages change during the current PLAR revision, and NACOR itself notes that documents and web pages are being revised to reflect updated processes.
Passing the national examinations does not license you. Registration is with the regulator in the province where you will practise, and the document file differs by province. Ontario's file, for a former intern optician applying as a Registered Optician, includes a passport photo taken within six months, a Vulnerable Sector Check conducted in Canada within six months (with a Level 2 Criminal Records and Judicial Matters check instead in Ottawa, London, and Halton, where police services do not issue a Level 3 check for registration purposes), evidence of successful completion of a practicum or equivalent practical experience — graduates of approved programs submit a letter from the program verifying practicum completion, while unaccredited-education applicants submit a Verification of Dispensing Experience Form confirming practical fitting and dispensing experience under the Practicum Policy — a professional liability insurance certificate if employed or intending to be employed where the controlled act of dispensing will be performed, and certificates of standing from any governing body with which the applicant is registered, where applicable. Documents previously provided as part of the intern application need not be resubmitted. Processing time sits in the College's Registration Timelines Policy.
Currency is an ongoing Ontario requirement, not a one-time check. Under the registration regulation changes effective July 1, 2024, all Registered Opticians must demonstrate on an ongoing and regular basis that their knowledge and skills are current: currency is defined in the College's Currency Policy as 500 practice hours over any three-year period. Registered Opticians who do not demonstrate at least 500 practice hours over three years may transfer to the newly created Inactive class, complete a refresher program, or resign their registration. Inactive registrants pay a reduced annual fee, are shown as Inactive on the public register, and may not engage in dispensing or identify themselves as registered opticians. Opticians out of practice for three or more years face the consequences in the regulation, including automatic revocation after three years of administrative suspension without reinstatement, after which return to practice requires re-applying as a new optician, including rewriting the licensing examinations.
For the other provinces, this guide states no document file, because the document file for those provinces could not be verified on a regulator page beyond the NACOR and Alberta pages cited. Read the regulator's registration page for the province where you will work, and do not carry the Ontario document list into another province on assumption. The national examinations are shared; the registration files are not.
Quebec is the exception to the national route. The NACOR national examinations are used in every province except Quebec, and NACOR administers PLAR for all provincial regulatory boards except Quebec. No Quebec education, examination, or registration step is stated in this guide, because those steps couldn't be verified on a Quebec regulator page. If you intend to practise in Quebec, start with the Quebec regulator's own pages and confirm the program, examination, and language requirements that apply there. Do not assume an accredited program place or a NACOR sitting leads to Quebec registration.
Labour mobility between regulated provinces is governed by the Mutual Recognition Agreement among Canadian opticianry regulators, which seeks to ensure that opticians licensed in one province or territory have their qualifications recognized in another, under the labour-mobility chapter of the Canadian Free Trade Agreement framework the Ontario policy cites as the Agreement on Internal Trade. In practice, the destination regulator still runs its own application: Ontario's labour-mobility policy requires a valid licence or certificate of registration equivalent to an eligible Ontario class, and sets additional steps for eyeglass-only applicants, as the sixth frequently asked question explains. Read the destination regulator's labour-mobility policy and confirm which documents, jurisprudence steps, or additional examinations it requires before you resign a registration or move a practice. A licence in one province is not, by itself, a licence in another.
This guide states no NACOR, PLAR, or regulator fee, no salary or income figure, no program count, seat count, or admission statistic, and no examination date, deadline, or pass rate. Fee figures for the NACOR examinations and for PLAR appear on regulator pages and change; the Alberta examination fees and the Ontario CGA fee could not be verified on a NACOR or regulator fee page, and no fee figure from either is stated in this guide. It states no registration steps for British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, Yukon, the Northwest Territories, or Nunavut beyond the national-examination facts and the province-specific facts cited above, and no Quebec steps at all. Confirm every fee, deadline, and document requirement on the NACOR or regulator page that owns it, on the day you apply or pay.
The Canadian Association of Optometrists states the distinction in terms of role and training, and this guide states only what that page states. The optometrist is the primary care provider for the eye, having completed a Bachelor of Science degree or higher followed by a four-year Doctor of Optometry degree, and is educated, clinically trained, and licensed to deliver comprehensive primary eye care. Ophthalmologists are surgeons and specialists in eye disease, and are secondary- and tertiary-level health care providers; patients normally require a referral from an optometrist to be seen by one. Opticians are trained through a college program to fabricate and fit vision aids, such as glasses, based on the prescription from an optometrist or an ophthalmologist; they are licensed to dispense spectacles, contact lenses, and other optical aids, and they do not assess, diagnose, or treat eye conditions, nor can they check or write prescriptions for eyeglasses or contact lenses. If your goal is the optometrist's work, follow the optometrist guide linked below: opticianry is a college program and a separate registration, not a shorter version of the Doctor of Optometry.
It depends on the province and on the work you want to do. NACOR administers two national competency examinations: one for eyeglass dispensing and one for contact lens dispensing. In Ontario, licensed opticians are dual-licensed: after completing training in both eyeglasses and contact lenses, you must pass both the Eyeglasses and Contact Lenses examinations to be eligible for licensure. In British Columbia, opticians must register for a single licence covering both eyeglasses and contact lenses. In other provinces you register for eyeglass and contact lens licences separately, and Contact Lens Practitioner is an additional designation beyond the eyeglass licence. In Alberta, passing Optical Sciences 1 leads to registration as a Registered Optician and passing Optical Sciences 2 leads to registration as a Registered Contact Lens Practitioner. Decide which authorizations you need before you book, and confirm the rule on your province's regulator page.
Yes, through Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition, known as PLAR. NACOR administers PLAR for all provincial regulatory boards except Quebec. The process begins by picking a province and applying through that province's regulatory body, followed by a document review, Professional Practice bridging modules in legislation, communication, professionalism, and infection control, and a Competency Gap Analysis: an online multiple-choice assessment based on the National Competencies for Canadian Opticians, in eyeglasses and low vision, contact lenses, and a third section. The gap analysis is not a pass-or-fail test; NACOR reviews the score card and issues a Reasons and Decisions letter setting out the next steps, which may include additional bridging modules. On successful completion of PLAR you become eligible to challenge the National Eyeglass and National Contact Lens Examinations, following the requirements of the province where you intend to work. In Ontario, PLAR applicants must register as intern opticians to be eligible to sit the national examinations.
Quebec does not use the NACOR national examinations. NACOR states that its national examinations are used in every province except Quebec, and that it administers PLAR for all provincial regulatory boards except Quebec. This guide states no Quebec education, examination, or registration steps, because those steps couldn't be verified on a Quebec regulator page. If you intend to practise in Quebec, start with the Quebec regulator's own pages, confirm the program, examination, and French-language requirements that apply there, and do not book a NACOR examination or an accredited-program place on the assumption that it leads to Quebec registration.
Only within the registration the regulator grants you. In Ontario, the intern optician registration is the working status before full registration, and the College's registering page addresses applicants currently registered as intern opticians applying to become Registered Opticians. In Alberta, individuals must register as provisional opticians to be eligible to write the NACOR examination and to provide opticianry services, and provisional opticians must be supervised by a licensed optician or optometrist. In Saskatchewan, a student licence ceases to be valid on graduation from an accredited program, and the member must apply for a restricted optician licence or restricted contact lens practitioner licence to continue to practise under supervision or to be eligible to sit the NACOR examination. Do not dispense, fit, or present yourself as a registered optician on the strength of graduation alone: the registration class, not the diploma, is what authorizes the work.
Generally no, but confirm the labour-mobility route on the destination regulator's page before you move. The College of Opticians of Ontario is party to a Mutual Recognition Agreement among Canadian opticianry regulators that seeks to ensure opticians licensed in one Canadian province or territory have their qualifications recognized in another. Labour-mobility applicants must hold a valid licence or certificate of registration issued by a Canadian opticianry regulator equivalent to an eligible Ontario class. Eyeglass-only applicants from another province must complete the contact lens section of a COO-accredited program, register as an intern optician, and pass the national contact lens examination to become registered in Ontario. The destination regulator may still require its own jurisprudence, document, or registration steps, so read its labour-mobility policy rather than assuming a transfer is automatic.
Figures that could not be verified on an official page are not stated in this guide: all NACOR, PLAR, and regulator fees; all salary and income figures; any list or count of accredited opticianry programs, seat counts, or admission statistics; examination dates, deadlines, and pass rates; and any registration document file for British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, Yukon, the Northwest Territories, or Nunavut beyond the facts cited above, and any Quebec steps at all. Check the NACOR and provincial regulator pages linked above for current figures and steps before you apply or pay.