Teacher Cert Pathfinder

Transferring a Pennsylvania teaching licence to Florida

Corridor record≈390 teachers a year ±19%

Open question · confirm with the agencyread 10 Sep 2026

Does the Florida Bureau of Educator Certification treat Pennsylvania’s Grades PK-4 certificate as satisfying Elementary Education (K-6), given PK-4 stops two grades short?

Who can answer: FLDOE Bureau of Educator Certification, 800-445-6739, Monday–Friday 08:00–17:00 Eastern

Florida issues elementary as K-6. Pennsylvania issues PK-4 and separately Grades 4-8. Neither Pennsylvania certificate covers Florida’s K-6 band on its own, and Pennsylvania discontinued the Elementary Education K-6 certificate that would have matched it on 31.08.2013. If PK-4 is not accepted, the applicant needs the Elementary Education (K-6) subject area examination — and the fee is per subject and nonrefundable.

The published rules do not settle this. We have not yet put the question to the agency; when it answers, the answer and its date go here.

Every entry is cited and dated. Where it is not settled:To confirm with the agencyNot published by the agencyNot in our record yetChanged on a date

Which framework applies to you

Pennsylvania
Interstate Teacher Mobility Compact member (enacted 2023)
Florida
Interstate Teacher Mobility Compact member (enacted 2023)

Florida licence terms: Professional Certificate, 5 years · Temporary Certificate, 5 years.

Florida Department of EducationCertificate Types and Requirements

Route

Which regime applies

Florida is an ITMC member and Pennsylvania operates the compact as a live route, but the compact governs movement BETWEEN member states and Florida’s own reciprocity statute is what an incoming teacher is evaluated under. Pennsylvania’s compact membership is what a Pennsylvania teacher uses to leave, not what Florida uses to admit them.
Council of State Governments, National Center for Interstate CompactsInterstate Teacher Mobility Compact — member states

Which compact members actually operate the route →

Moving on military orders? Federal law gives a military spouse a separate route: a covered teaching certificate is valid in the new state on three documents. Florida’s education agency does not mention that route on the pages we read. What federal law and Florida publish →

United States Congress — 50 U.S.C. §4025a as amended by Pub. L. 118-159 §587 (text as published by the Mississippi Real Estate Commission)50 U.S.C. §4025a — Portability of professional licenses of servicemembers and their spousesFlorida Department of Education, Bureau of Educator CertificationMilitary (educator certification)

What Florida requires

Route

Route 1 — a valid standard certificate from another state

The certificate must be that state’s valid standard educator’s certificate, comparable to a Florida Professional Certificate, issued in a comparable subject, requiring the same or higher level of training, and currently valid — not expired or revoked.
Florida Department of EducationCertified Teacher Or Administrator — Reciprocity for Out-of-state Teachers and Administrators

Route

Route 2 — National Board certification

A currently valid NBPTS certificate. The Florida certificate reflects the Florida subject considered comparable to the NBPTS subject.
Florida Department of EducationCertified Teacher Or Administrator — Reciprocity for Out-of-state Teachers and Administrators

Who qualifies

The two Florida certificates

Professional Certificate — five school years, renewable, Florida’s highest educator certificate. Temporary Certificate — five school years, nonrenewable, and issued only after you are employed in a Florida school and fingerprints have cleared.
Florida Department of EducationCertificate Types and Requirements

How it goes wrong

Examination scores expire after ten years

Only passing examination scores earned no more than ten years before the date of application are acceptable.
Only passing exam scores earned no more than ten (10) years prior to the date of application are acceptable.

A mid-career teacher whose subject-area examination predates that window has no usable scores for the examination route.

Florida Department of EducationSubject Area Examinations

Fee

Initial Florida certificate

$75 per subject, nonrefundable.

Authorised by the State Board of Education under Certification Rule 6A-4.0012, F.A.C. Adding a subject is $75 per subject; removing one is $20 per subject; upgrading Temporary to Professional is $75; late renewal is $105.

Florida Department of EducationCertification Application Fee Schedule

Fee

Fingerprinting, and it may not be your cost at all

FLDOE sets no amount. The fee may be borne by the district school board, the charter school, the employee or the contractor, and public-school hires are usually printed through the district personnel office.
The fingerprint processing fees for the required background screening (state and federal) may be borne by the district school board, charter school, employee, or contractor.

Separately, FLDOE warns that prints taken BEFORE Florida employment may need reprocessing at a second fee. If you are printed early in order to hold a certificate for interviews, budget for paying twice.

Florida Department of EducationCertification Steps, and Step 4: Submitting Fingerprints for Certification

How it goes wrong

You may pay for fingerprinting twice

A US citizen who has fingerprints processed before Florida employment, in order to get the Professional Certificate in hand, may need them reprocessed and may have to pay a second processing fee as a condition of employment in a Florida public school.
If a U.S. citizen chooses to have his/her fingerprints processed prior to Florida employment for issuance of the Professional Certificate, it may be necessary to have the fingerprints reprocessed, and the individual may have to pay a second processing fee as a condition of employment in a Florida public school.
Florida Department of EducationCertificate Types and Requirements

How long

Statutory issuance deadline

The department shall issue a professional certificate to a qualifying applicant within 90 calendar days of receiving the completed application, pursuant to s. 120.60.
the department shall issue within 90 calendar days after receipt of the completed application a professional certificate to a qualifying applicant

s. 1012.56(1)(a), F.S. This is a statutory duty rather than a service target.

The Florida Senates. 1012.56, F.S. — Educator certification requirements (2026 edition)

Order of steps

The four steps, and why step 3 traps out-of-state applicants

Application package, then the Official Statement of Status of Eligibility, then employment in a Florida school, then fingerprints. Step 3 is getting a job, so the standard path cannot be completed from out of state without a Florida offer.
These four steps lead to your initial Florida certificate

This is the practical reason a Temporary certificate cannot issue before employment. A holder of a valid professional standard certificate from another state qualifies for the Professional certificate without step 3 gating them the same way, which is exactly what makes the tier question on this corridor worth so much.

Florida Department of EducationCertification Steps, and Step 4: Submitting Fingerprints for Certification

How long

Thirty days after the district asks, not after you apply

If fingerprint results are clear, the certificate issues within 30 days of the Bureau receiving the district request.
If the results of your fingerprints are clear, your certificate is issued within 30 days of our Bureau’s receipt of your district’s request.

Do not read this as an alternative to the 90-day statutory limit in s. 1012.56(1)(a), F.S. They are measured from different starting points, this one from the DISTRICT’S request and that one from your completed application, so they are not a range.

Florida Department of EducationCertification Steps, and Step 4: Submitting Fingerprints for Certification

Your Pennsylvania credential

What Pennsylvania calls the certificate you hold, and where it sits in Pennsylvania’s own tiers — the thing Florida will compare.

Credential tier

How Pennsylvania maps its certificates to the national stages

Pennsylvania publishes its own certificates against the NASDTEC stages of licensure: Stage 1 is Experience-Based, Residency or a Temporary Teaching Permit; Stage 2 is Instructional I or Educational Specialist I; Stage 3 is Instructional II or Educational Specialist II; there is no Stage 4.
Teacher or Support Personnel Certification or License Experience-Based, Residency, Temporary Teaching Permit (TTP) Instructional I, Educational Specialist I Instructional II, Educational Specialist II N/A

Useful when an application form or another state asks which “stage” or “tier” your Pennsylvania certificate is: PDE has published the mapping itself.

Pennsylvania Department of EducationCertificates in Pennsylvania — NASDTEC Stages of Licensure

The endorsement, side by side

The secondary mathematics endorsement in Pennsylvania and Florida
PennsylvaniaFlorida
Certificate or endorsementMathematics 7-12 (subject code 6800)Mathematics (6-12)
Grade band7–126–12
Named examinationNot in our record yetFlorida subject area test: Mathematics (6-12)
Pennsylvania Department of EducationCertificates in Pennsylvania — NASDTEC Stages of LicensureFlorida Department of EducationSubject Area Examinations

Note the grade-band mismatch. Pennsylvania issues 7–12; Florida issues 6–12. Whether that matters depends on whether the destination applies an identity test or a comparability test — and those are different tests with different outcomes.

What works in your favour

Pennsylvania issues Science – Biology, Chemistry, Earth and Space and Physics separately at 7-12, and Florida issues Biology, Chemistry, Earth-Space Science and Physics separately at 6-12. For single-science teachers this is one of the cleanest subject matches in the project — the mismatch is one grade at the bottom, not a missing coverage.

Florida Department of EducationSubject Area Examinations — full certification-subject-area to test table

Pennsylvania mathematics is 7-12 and Florida mathematics is 6-12, so a Pennsylvania mathematics teacher is asking Florida to authorise one grade MORE than Pennsylvania did — the easier direction of a grade-band mismatch.

Florida Department of EducationSubject Area Examinations — full certification-subject-area to test table

What it costs to get this corridor wrong

Money, time and outcomes, each set by a rule or published by the agency and cited on its entry. None is our estimate.

Money

Florida initial certificate fee, per subject and nonrefundable

Florida charges per subject area. A teacher who applies for two coverages pays twice, and neither is refunded if the evaluation goes against them.
Florida Department of EducationCertification Application Fee Schedule

Blocked route

An examination passed more than ten years ago

Florida repeats under every section of its subject-area examination table: “Only passing exam scores earned no more than ten (10) years prior to the date of application are acceptable.” A mid-career Pennsylvania teacher who passed their content test in 2014 cannot use it.
Florida Department of EducationSubject Area Examinations

Blocked route

A grade band Florida does not issue

Pennsylvania issues PK-4 and Grades 4-8. Florida issues K-6 and 5-9. Neither Pennsylvania band matches a Florida band, and Pennsylvania discontinued the Elementary Education K-6 certificate that would have on 31.08.2013.
Pennsylvania Department of EducationCertificates in Pennsylvania — NASDTEC Stages of Licensure

Nothing here is a prediction about your file. It is what the published rules say happens, and what the agency charges, if a step is taken in the wrong order or on the wrong document.

Licence classes on this corridor

This corridor covers 6 licence classes: Secondary mathematics, Elementary, Middle grades, Secondary science, Secondary English language arts, Special education. The requirements above apply to all of them. No pack is written for any of them yet. Subject-specific facts are on the Florida page where we have them.

Where these facts come from

This page cites 8 sources. Every one is named on the entry that uses it, with the date we read it. The full register, including what we archived and what we could not retrieve, is at every source we cite.

Everything we have verified about Florida → · About Pennsylvania →

Cite this page: Teacher Cert Pathfinder, “Pennsylvania to Florida,” record as of 10 September 2026. Changes and corrections are logged on What changed.