Five years from the date of issue: what each designated body does when your ECA runs out

The five-year rule is the one part of this system nobody disputes. What almost nobody writes down is that IRCC applies it twice, that no two designated bodies handle the expiry the same way — one will not even start until after the report has died — and that at least two of them warn in writing that a renewed report may not say what the old one said.

Everything below is quoted from official pages read on 3 September 2026. This page summarises published rules; it is not an assessment and it is not immigration advice.

The rule, and the two moments it is tested

IRCC’s Express Entry ECA page: “Your ECA must be less than 5 years old when you: complete your Express Entry profile, and submit your application.”

It then splits the guidance by where you are in the process. If you have been invited to apply: “Make sure your ECA will still be valid when you plan to apply.” If you have not: “Make sure your ECA is valid for the rest of the time you’ll be in the pool.”

And the consequence, in one line: “If you apply with an expired ECA, we’ll refuse your application.”

IRCC’s Help Centre puts the same rule the other way round: “Yes, provided that it is still valid and that it’s an ECA for immigration purposes. Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) will accept ECA reports for five years from the date they are issued.”

The CACB — the newest designated body — repeats both limbs: an ECA “is valid for five years from the date it was issued and must be less than five years old both when you complete your Express Entry profile and when you submit your application for permanent residence.”

Other programmes measure from their own moment. The Atlantic Immigration Program requires the report to be “less than 5 years old on the date you apply”. The Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program’s Ontario Workforce Priority stream requires it to be “less than five years old on the date your application is made”, and repeats it: “the report cannot be more than 5 years old at the time you submit your application.”

The second clock nobody mentions

Your report is not the only thing that expires. WES’s Canadian ECA page sets the two side by side:

“Your WES ECA is valid for five years from the date of issue, and you can continue using your ECA when you submit a new Express Entry profile.

Your Express Entry profile is valid for one year from the date you submit a profile to IRCC. If you have not received an Invitation to Apply (ITA) for permanent residence after one year and still want to continue with Express Entry, you will need to complete and submit a new profile.”

IRCC’s Help Centre adds the sting for anyone who assumed the system remembers: “No, the system will not keep your information… If your profile is about to expire, you must complete and submit a new one if you want to stay in the Express Entry pool.”

So a five-year report can survive several one-year profiles, and the interaction — not the five-year rule itself — is what catches people in year four.

What each body does when it expires

IRCC’s own answer is deliberately non-committal: “If your assessment will expire before you can apply, contact the organization that issued it. They may re-issue it, depending on the type of ECA and/or the organization.” Here is what those organisations publish.

ICES sells a renewal, but only after the fact. Its FAQ: “The ECA is valid for five years from the date the assessment was completed. It may be renewed once that 5 years has lapsed… The option to renew will appear on your dashboard only once the report has expired.” Its fee page lists ECA renewal at $50 CAD, including two hard copies and IRCC electronic access; its processing page gives “The estimated processing time for a renewal is currently 4 weeks.”

That timing is a trap in itself. You cannot renew in advance, and the four-week clock starts only after expiry.

CES sells a renewal and attaches an explicit warning to it. Its fee table: “Renew Expired ECA for Canadian Immigration Purposes… $189.00”, described as “If you have obtained an ECA assessment report from CES that has since expired or is about to expire, you may apply to CES to get it re-issued for immigration purposes.” Then the note, in CES’s own capitals: “NOTE: Your assessment outcome may change to reflect current CES policy. If it does, the new (renewed) report will supersede the previous report.”

That is the single most important sentence on this page. A renewal is not a photocopy with a new date.

ICAS says the same thing in gentler words and prices the moving parts separately. Its renewal page: “The Canadian Immigration Assessment Package will be accepted by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada for five (5) years from the date of issue. If your immigration assessment has expired, or will be expiring soon, you may request a renewal.” The review: “Your file will be reviewed to confirm that the documents previously received and the assessment are consistent with current policies. You will be notified by email if additional documents are necessary or if there may be changes to the report.” Fees read on 3 September 2026: renewal $121 tax included, plus a file reactivation fee of $35 “If your file is more than two years old” — which will be true of essentially every renewal — plus delivery, plus $33 for each extra original.

ICAS also publishes a detail that sits oddly beside the five-year rule: “IRCC requires the ability to verify the authenticity of the original Assessment Report you submit to IRCC… To facilitate this, IRCC will have secure access, for a period of ten years, to an electronic copy of your report.” Access for ten years; validity for five. The two are different things, and only the second one governs your application.

IQAS publishes no renewal product at all. Its immigration page states that an IQAS ECA “is valid for Express Entry for 5 years. When your ECA expires, you must re-apply.” On its published fees that means the full application fee again — $260 for one credential, plus the $25 administration fee, plus courier — under a regime it describes as absolute: “All IQAS fees are non-refundable… The fees cover the cost of processing your application and are required whether an assessment certificate is issued or not.”

WES — we could not find a renewal or re-issue product on the Canadian ECA pages we were able to read on 3 September 2026. Its ECA fee tables cover adding a credential (C$115), converting the ECA to a Document-by-Document (C$58) or Course-by-Course (C$115) report, and duplicates, but list nothing described as a renewal. We are not going to infer one. If you hold a WES ECA approaching five years, ask WES directly rather than trusting any third-party figure, including ours.

The Medical Council of Canada allows a pre-emptive replacement, and is the only body we read that does: “Your ECA report will be valid for immigration purposes for 5 years from the time it is issued… You can request a new ECA report, if needed, 4 years following your original report date.”

PEBC treats it as a fresh purchase: “Your ECA Report will expire 5 years from the date of issue on your report. Once your ECA Report expires you can apply for a new one using the same process and paying the applicable fee.”

Only the immigration report expires

This surprises people who hold two reports from the same agency. ICES: “No, general evaluation do not expire. As the credential evaluation report is a direct representation of an individuals’ study and academic award, unless the academic credential has somehow changed, the report remains valid.” It adds the necessary caveat: “some organizations may have specific policies regarding validity, from our standpoint the report remains valid.”

So the five-year clock is a rule about the immigration product, not a statement that your education stops being comparable. IRCC and the provinces impose it; the underlying assessment does not carry it.

Duplicates are not renewals, and they are cheaper

If your report is still valid and you simply need another copy — for a province, a regulator, an employer — you want a duplicate, not a renewal. Published prices, read the same day:

• ICES — “$20 CAD per extra evaluation report”; “$50 for a PDF via QR code”; duplicates estimated “within 2 weeks”.
• IQAS — duplicate certificates “only issued for a previously completed assessment. Each copy costs $30, plus a $5 courier fee per mailing address.”
• CES — “Duplicate/Additional Copies of ECA report and/or Send to Third-Party… $30 per set (plus delivery fee)”, processed in five business days, with a separate $63-per-set product for duplicate official transcripts sent to an institutional third party. CES also notes: “CES will not send your assessment report to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) on your behalf, because IRCC only accepts original reports submitted directly by applicants.”
• ICAS — extra original reports at $33 each, tax included.
• WES — duplicates ordered after completion: first report C$58 (Basic) or C$35 (ICAP), each additional C$35.

Sharing with a province is sometimes free but must be requested: CES lists “Sharing ECA report with the Provincial Nominee Program(s) (e.g. OINP)” at no charge, processed in three business days.

What to do with this

1. Write the issue date on your calendar, not the date you applied. Every body measures from issue, and IRCC tests the date twice.
2. Work backwards from the slowest published step. ICES cannot start a renewal until after expiry and estimates four weeks; IQAS has no renewal at all and requires a fresh application.
3. Assume the outcome can change on renewal. CES says so explicitly and ICAS warns of “changes to the report”. If your file depends on the exact wording of the old result, know that before you order a new one.
4. Check whether you need a renewal or a duplicate. If the report is still inside five years, a duplicate is the cheaper product at every agency we read.
5. If you hold a WES ECA, ask WES directly about expiry. We could not read a published renewal route, and we are not repeating a number we did not see on their page.

Related on this site: which report type each receiving body needs, who IRCC designates and for what, why a re-issued report can read differently, and what the result on the report does and does not unlock.

We do not predict outcomes and we do not advise on immigration — paid immigration advice in Canada is a licensed activity. Every fee, timeline and quotation above was read on 3 September 2026 from the pages listed in the sources, and all of them can change without notice.