Changing Your School Or Program
Changing your school or program
Before you change your school or program, you must meet all the conditions of your study permit. This means you must be:
- enrolled at a designated learning institution (DLI) and
- actively studying while you are in Canada
You need to contact us if you:
- finished primary school and want to move to a high school
- are a high school student moving on to post-secondary school
- are a post-secondary student changing schools, or
- need to change any conditions written on your study permit.
You don’t need to contact us if you:
- applied for a study permit before June 1, 2014 and are still studying under the same permit
- are changing schools at the same level (example: primary to primary)
- are changing your study program at the same school, or
- are a temporary visitor in a course or program of six months or less.
Moving to the next education level
If you are moving from primary to high school, or from high school to a post-secondary school you must apply to change your study permit.
Post-secondary students changing schools
If you change post-secondary schools, the school you plan to change to must also be a DLI. Please see the DLI list to confirm before you commit to changing schools.
You must tell us each time you change post-secondary schools. Changing the post-secondary school on your account is a free service.
You don’t need to apply to change your study permit if you are changing schools.
Post-secondary studies include:
- university
- community college, CEGEP, institute
- private university, career college, academy, school or training institution, and
- ESL/FSL and other language training.
Studying in Quebec
If you are moving to a school in Quebec, you must get a Certificat d’Acceptation du Québec (CAQ). You don’t need to apply to change your study permit if your schools are at the same level.
If you are already studying in Quebec and want to change the conditions on your CAQ (institution, etc.), you should contact the Ministère de l’Immigration, de la Diversité et de l’Inclusion (MIDI).