The doctor for allergies, asthma, hives and immune system problems. About 13 years of training, then office hours and very few emergencies.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Typical net
$260,000
Part-time or new
$180,000
Busy private clinic
$420,000
Job Bank pools allergists with all medical specialists and lists a median of about $311,000 a year in gross billings (low $126,000, high $607,000). Gross means before office costs. An allergy clinic needs rooms, nurses and testing supplies, so overhead takes roughly 30% to 40%. Most allergists net somewhere around $180,000 to $420,000. It varies by province and by how you bill.
$65,000 to $95,000
Salary across 5 to 6 years of residency, rising each year
Residents are paid employees with a union contract. The 2 allergy years come after 3 years of internal medicine or 4 years of pediatrics, so you are earning by then, but still paying down medical school debt.
Mostly 9 to 5
Almost no nights or weekends once you are staff
Anaphylaxis is a real emergency, but it is treated in the emergency room, not by you at 3 a.m. Allergy is one of the most predictable weeks in medicine.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is three years of undergraduate study at cheaper tuition, three years of medical school at the low end of Canadian medical tuition, one clean round of the MCAT (medical school admission test) and applications, and the exam fees. The high end is four undergraduate years plus four years at $28,000 a year for the MD (doctor of medicine), a heavier application season, and both Royal College exams, your core specialty first and then clinical immunology and allergy. The five or six years of residency after medical school are paid work, so they add fees but no tuition. Typical debt at the end of medical school is $80,000 to $150,000, and the interest on it is not in these numbers.
Typical debt at the end of medical school is $80,000 to $150,000. Residency pay slows the bleeding but rarely pays it off.
No employer pension
Most allergists are self-employed and save through a professional corporation.
Union contract during residency
Provincial residents' associations negotiate pay, call limits and leave.
Malpractice coverage
Through the CMPA (Canadian Medical Protective Association). Fees are low for allergy.
Industry money
Drug companies fund a lot of allergy research and talks. Disclosure rules are strict.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Every doctor's road, then a core specialty, then a second match into allergy.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Top marks in biology, chemistry, math and English. You need a very high average for a science undergrad.
Bachelor's degree
3 to 4 years
Any major works. Keep a GPA (grade point average) above 3.8, volunteer, do research. Write the MCAT (medical school admission test).
Medical school, the MD (doctor of medicine)
3 to 4 years
Acceptance rates are 5% to 15%. Classes, then clinical rotations.
Core residency
3 to 4 years
Matched through CaRMS (the residency matching service) into internal medicine (3 years) or pediatrics (4 years). Allergists see both adults and children, so both doors lead here.
Clinical immunology and allergy
2 years
A second match near the end of core residency. Two years of allergy clinics, skin testing, food challenges, asthma, immune deficiency and drug reactions. Pass the Royal College exams to become FRCPC (Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada), then register with your provincial College of Physicians and Surgeons.
Biology and chemistry
Required for nearly every pre-med path. The immune system is biology at its most complicated.
Calculus and functions
Physics
Tested on the MCAT (medical school admission test).
English
Allergy visits are long conversations. Explaining risk clearly is the core skill.
You need a licence from your provincial College of Physicians and Surgeons to practise, and Royal College certification in clinical immunology and allergy to call yourself an allergist. Family doctors and pediatricians treat plenty of allergies too, but only certified specialists use the title. The credential is national, so moving provinces is mostly paperwork.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Food allergy and oral immunotherapy
Feeding tiny, growing doses of peanut or milk to build tolerance. Slow, careful, and in high demand from parents.
Immune deficiency
Rare patients whose immune systems do not work. Hospital-based, often with infusion treatments.
Drug allergy testing
Working out whether a penicillin label from childhood is real. Most are not.
Research and clinical trials
New biologic drugs for asthma and eczema keep arriving. Academic allergists run the trials.
Research experience
Subspecialty programs weigh publications.
Detective patience
Finding the one trigger in a life full of them takes a good history and a lot of listening.
Comfort with needles
Skin prick tests, allergy shots and supervised food challenges are daily work.
French
Opens Quebec, Ottawa and New Brunswick programs and jobs.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Twenty to thirty patients. A child with a suspected peanut allergy gets skin prick tests on the forearm and you read the welts after 15 minutes. A teen with hives that will not go away. An adult whose asthma keeps flaring. A supervised food challenge where a patient eats small doses of egg while your nurse watches for a reaction, with epinephrine ready. Allergy shot patients come and go all day. Charting and letters to family doctors fill the gaps. Home by dinner.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Health Canada reports that roughly 7% of Canadians self-report a food allergy. Doctor-confirmed rates are lower, around 3% to 4% of adults and 5% to 6% of young children, which is why testing matters.
For years parents were told to keep peanut away from babies. Research then showed that feeding it early cuts the chance of peanut allergy, and Canadian guidance changed. Allergists are the ones who rewrite the rules when the evidence moves.
Immunotherapy for pollen, dust mites or bee stings usually runs 3 to 5 years of regular injections. It is one of the few treatments that changes the allergy itself instead of just covering the symptoms.
Cold urticaria is a real diagnosis: hives that appear where skin touches ice or cold water. Allergists test for it with an ice cube on the arm.
Last checked September 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in Canadian dollars, based on Government of Canada Job Bank wage data and published salary grids. They vary by province, employer and experience. Tuition is for domestic students.