Two years. That is the short answer, and it is the answer almost every page gives you.
It is also incomplete in a way that gets permanent-residence applications refused.
Express Entry checks validity twice
For Express Entry, IRCC requires your language result to be:
- less than two years old when you complete your Express Entry profile, and
- still less than two years old when you submit the permanent-residence application
Both. Not either.
Being valid when you enter the pool is not enough. If your certificate expires in the gap between creating your profile and submitting your PR application, you have a problem - and that gap is not fully under your control, because it depends on when you receive an invitation to apply.
The practical rule that follows: if you are sitting in the pool with a result approaching two years old, book a retake before you get an invitation, not after. Once the clock on an ITA is running, you have a fixed window to assemble a complete application, and "I am waiting on a language result" is not a reason it gets extended.
Citizenship is the exception
Canadian citizenship works differently, and in your favour. IRCC states that qualifying previous language-test evidence may be used even if the TEF result has expired.
Citizenship also looks only at speaking and listening, at roughly NCLC 4 - a far lower bar than the NCLC 7 that economic immigration programs ask for. It is entirely normal to hold a TEF result that is fine as citizenship proof and nowhere near enough for a Federal Skilled Worker profile.
Quebec
MIFI generally requires recognised test results to be two years old or less when you submit the relevant application. Quebec also assesses against the Échelle québécoise rather than the NCLC, so do not carry a Canadian NCLC target across.
When the result actually arrives
CCI states results are normally transmitted within 1 to 10 business days after the test, delivered electronically through a secure online system rather than as a paper certificate. Its own overview of the candidate journey summarises this as roughly two weeks.
Plan for the slow end. If you need a retake, remember there is a 20-day minimum gap between TEF Canada sittings, and add the result turnaround on top. A failed attempt six weeks before a deadline is tighter than it looks:
20 days before you can re-sit + up to 10 business days for results = the better part of five weeks, before you account for session availability at your centre.
Reading the certificate correctly
Your certificate shows a calibrated score out of 699 per component and a CEFR level. It also shows an "Équivalence ancien score / Old score equivalence" field.
Both IRCC and CCI currently instruct TEF Canada candidates to enter that old-score-equivalence value where an IRCC form asks for it, rather than the raw 0–699 number. It is counter-intuitive, and it is one of the most consequential data-entry errors in the whole process. Read the field label and give it exactly what it asks for.
Neither number is your NCLC level. Convert your scores properly here.
Checklist before you file
- Is the certificate under two years old today?
- Will it still be under two years old at the latest plausible date you submit the PR application?
- Have you entered the value the form actually asked for, not the one you think is your score?
- Does every skill clear the minimum for your specific program, checking the lowest skill, not the average?