How to Start a Healthcare Career or Care Business in Canada

Ontario PSWs need no licence, but a free registry exists

Personal support workers are not regulated under Ontario's Regulated Health Professions Act, so there is no licensing exam and no protected title. What employers actually check is a completed PSW certificate, and the standard is the 700-hour NACC curriculum. Ontario does run a voluntary registry through the Health and Supportive Care Providers Oversight Authority, which began registering PSWs on December 1, 2024. Registration is currently free, with the first annual renewal due March 31, 2026, and employers may require it as a job qualification for PSWs hired after January 1, 2026. Training gets you hired; the registry makes you checkable.

Source: Our PSW guide

A home care agency needs a labour licence, not a health licence

This is the mistake that sinks new agencies. There is no health-ministry licence for home care businesses in Ontario. The licence that matters comes from labour law. Since the licensing regime took effect in July 2024, agencies that employ caregivers and assign them to clients need a Temporary Help Agency licence under the Employment Standards Act: a $750 application fee, $750 a year to renew, and a $25,000 security deposit to protect workers' wages. Operating without a required licence carries fines of $15,000, $25,000, and $50,000 for the first, second, and third offences. Treat the THA licence as step zero, not a detail to sort out after your first client.

Source: Our home care business guide

LPN is the opposite: regulated, with no shortcuts

A licensed practical nurse is a regulated health professional: you cannot use the title or do the work without a practice permit from the College of Licensed Practical Nurses of Alberta. The path is a two-year practical nursing diploma from a CLPNA-approved program, the online jurisprudence module, and the CPNRE registration exam. New graduates can work under supervision on a provisional permit while they wait to write it, but the permit lasts at most one year and registration is cancelled if you do not pass within three attempts. Budget roughly $1,000 for the exam and licensing steps on top of tuition.

Source: Our LPN guide

The ladder is real: from PSW to nursing

Healthcare has one of the clearest career ladders in Canada. A working PSW can bridge into semester two of a Practical Nursing diploma (for example through the PSW-to-PN pathway, which needs a 65 percent average from a standard PSW program, recent Ontario PSW work experience, and at least 60 percent in each bridge course). PN graduates can write the College of Nurses of Ontario registration exam to practise as Registered Practical Nurses. Alberta LPNs have their own bridging pathways into Bachelor of Science in Nursing programs. Each rung needs more training, and each rung pays more.

Source: Our PSW guide