Pennsylvania teacher licensure for out-of-state applicants

Framework

You don't need to do anything extra when applying. We will automatically review the application under the Compact rules. Follow the steps below under Pathway 3 to apply for certification.

This is the only member state, of the three whose guidance we have read, that operates the compact as a licensure route. Colorado publishes no compact guidance at all, and Florida does not mention the compact in its certification statute or on its reciprocity page.

Framework

Pennsylvania has developed a list of reciprocal certifications that will be accepted from each state.

ChangeChanged 12 Nov 2025

In accordance with Act 47 of 2025, standard certification fees have been reduced to no greater than $50. Under state law, the Pennsylvania Department of Education must collect a separate Professional Educator Discipline fee during the educator certification process, which is used to support the education profession. This fee has not been waived in Act 47 and is reflected in the new fee structure below.

A guide reporting “Pennsylvania cut its certification fee to $50” is quoting the true half of a two-column table. The whole table is what an applicant pays.

ChangeDated 10 Sep 2026 · effective date to confirm

Basic skills testing is no longer a certification requirement in PA. However, basic skills testing remains one alternative to the 3.0 GPA certification preparation program admissions standard required by Chapter 354, Preparation of Professional Ed

ambiguous_confirm_with_state on the DATE. PDE states the change as current fact but does not date it on this page, so changedOn records the date this project verified it, not the date the change took effect. Admission to a preparation programme and certification are different things, and a stale guide flattens the two.

Order of steps

If submitting transcripts electronically, do not submit your transcript request until you have submitted your application in TIMS.

PDE also says all certification requirements, including testing, should be met for all subject areas applied for before submitting the required documentation for review.

Who qualifiesTo confirm with the agency

What is unresolved: that is 13 states. The Council of State Governments lists 15 members. Pennsylvania would not list itself, which leaves MISSISSIPPI — a CSG-listed member since 2024 — unaccounted for and absent from Pennsylvania’s list. The page does not explain the omission. If you hold a Mississippi certificate, do not assume the compact route is open to you; ask PDE.

Who qualifies

Note the words “professional level”. As in Florida, a sending state’s entry-tier certificate may not qualify — the same distinction that decides the New York to Florida corridor.

Military families

Military families

Veterans and their spouses are exempt from both the standard certification fees and Professional Educator Discipline fee.

Exempt from both, and the sentence carries no “once” or “initial application” limitation on its face — unlike New Jersey’s waiver, which is expressly limited to one initial application.

Who qualifies

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.

Exemption

Educators who hold a certificate issued by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards may be issued a Level II certificate comparable in grade scope and content area to the National Board certificate​ upon application for Level II certification.

National Board certification now shortcuts the top tier in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and California — three of the six states researched. School psychologists holding a NASP certificate are issued Level II with no additional requirements at all.

Exemption

Full testing requirement exceptions apply only to candidates who meet one of the following: Candidates who qualify for Instructional certification based on the Interstate Teacher Mobility Compact pathway;Candidates who qualify for certification based on the national credential pathway;

This is the largest concrete benefit of compact membership found anywhere in this project. Not a faster queue and not a waived fee — every Pennsylvania examination, waived. It is why the compact question decides more in Pennsylvania than in any other state researched.

Exemption

Candidates who qualify for Instructional certification based on the certificate and experience pathway for out-of-state educators when all indicated conditions for a full testing requirement exception are not met; these candidates are required to take content testing only and will not be required to take general knowledge testing, Fundamental Subjects: Content Knowledge (5511), currently required of PK-12 Instructional candidates only

So there are three possible answers to “must I test in Pennsylvania?”: none (compact or national credential), content only (certificate and experience), or the full battery (everyone else). Which applies is decided by PDE at evaluation.

What to gather

One form is required for each non-PA PK-12 employer and any PA employer not found in TIMS but indicated in the application.

Pennsylvania joins New Jersey, New York, Georgia and North Carolina in needing paperwork from a school the teacher has left.

Fee

Out-of-State – Program completed outside PA: Instructional, Career and Technical, Educational Specialist, Administrative/Supervisory, Letter of Eligibility (LOE), Commission Qualification Letter (CQL) | $50 | $100 | $150

The same $50 + $100 = $150 structure applies to a Level II application and to testing add-ons. An endorsement is $50 + $50 = $100.

How long

Certificate eligibility, including testing exception determination, is made at the time of application review.

Deadline

Level I Pennsylvania Instructional and Educational Specialist certificates are valid for 6 years of service, not calendar years. The 6 years of service is not affected if the holder is not actively working in a PA school setting.

This cuts both ways. A career break does not burn the certificate — but six years of part-time or interrupted service still ends it, and the conversion must be completed BEFORE the sixth year of actual service, not within six years of issue.

How it goes wrong

No other tests can be substituted or exceptions made. This includes testing completed for another state when the test provider, test name, and/or test code for the completed test(s) differs from those posted in Certification Test and Score Requirements.

This is the DEFAULT, and there are two named exceptions to it — see pa-testing-full-exception and pa-testing-partial-exception. When this fact was first published on 9 September 2026 the pack had not read PDE’s Testing Requirements page and expressly declined to assert the compact exception. That page was read on 10 September 2026 and the exception is confirmed. PDE still decides which pathway you qualify under at the time of evaluation, not in advance.

How it goes wrong

It is the responsibility of the educator to track their years of service. Service is not tracked by the PA Department of Education nor is notice provided by the Department documenting years of service.

There is no expiry letter and no email. The failure mode is discovering in year seven that the certificate can no longer be converted — and Pennsylvania has said in advance that this is the applicant’s problem.

How it goes wrong

There are two time periods associated with a Level I certificate – a validity period (Valid/Lapsed) and a continuing education period (Active/Inactive).

They are not the same clock and they do not fail the same way. A certificate can be valid but inactive, or active but lapsed.

How it goes wrong

Test scores are submitted electronically to the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) by the test administrator. Test scores are automatically submitted to PDE when tests are taken in Pennsylvania. If not, or if taken remotely, contact the test administrator to request the scores be submitted to PDE.

By definition every out-of-state applicant is in the second category. A passed test that PDE never receives reads identically to a test never taken.

Not publishedNot published by the agencyTo confirm with the agency

ambiguous_confirm_with_state. No timeline is asserted on this site for Pennsylvania.

A single 7–12 mathematics certificate, matching Texas’s 7–12 band exactly and New York’s Adolescent 7–12 exactly. Florida’s is 6–12 and Colorado’s is 6–12.