Capture every word said in court, live on a steno machine or from the recording. Short training, home-based work.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Counsellors: send it to a student from your own email in one click.
The median pay is about $54,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $35,000 at the lower end to about $75,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
1 to 3 years after high school, on the usual route.
$4,500 to $22,500 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
It depends where you work. You need a licence, certificate or registration in Alberta, Ontario, Prince Edward Island and Quebec. Elsewhere there is none to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.
Good demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$54,000
Lower end
$35,000
Upper end
$75,000
Job Bank's national median is $26 an hour, about $54,000 a year at 40 hours a week. The lower and upper ends are Job Bank's low and high wages for everyone in the group, $17 and $36.06 an hour. Ontario's upper end is higher, $38.46 an hour. Self-employed transcriptionists are paid per page, so fast and accurate workers earn more and slow ones earn less.
$29.64 an hour
The median in British Columbia, the highest of any province
Ontario follows at $28 and Alberta at $27.41. Quebec's median is the lowest, at $24. Freelance transcription pays per page, so the first months are slow while you build speed.
$6.30 to $11.75 a page
Ontario's regulated fee for a new certified transcript in electronic format, set by Ontario Regulation 94/14
The lower fee is for normal delivery and the higher one for delivery within 24 hours. A busy Authorized Court Transcriptionist (the Ontario designation) earns by volume, so pages a week matter more than seniority.
Roughly, all in
$4,500 to $22,500
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is the digital transcription route: a one year college program at public rates, a foot pedal and headphones, and the certification exam where your province requires one. The high end is a two year program plus a stenotype machine and its software, which is the single biggest cost and applies only if you take the stenography route. Used machines cut that a long way. Ontario transcriptionists also pay a listing fee every year to stay on the authorized list, which is a cost of working rather than a cost of getting in.
Digital transcription needs only a good computer, a foot pedal and headphones. The steno machine is the big cost, and only for the stenography route.
Government courtroom jobs
Pension, health and dental, and a union: OPSEU (Ontario Public Service Employees Union) in Ontario.
Freelance freedom
Transcriptionists usually work from home and set their own hours.
A seat at every trial
You hear every case in the room, from traffic court to murder trials.
Captioning work
Live captioning for TV (television), classrooms and conferences uses the same skills.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Two routes: type the transcript from a recording, or write it live on a steno machine.
High school diploma
Grade 12
English matters most. Typing speed is the skill you can start building today.
Pick a route
1 to 2 years
Transcription: a college certificate in court transcription (Ontario recognizes programs at Durham College, Centennial College and the Ontario College of Business and Technology). Stenography: a captioning and court reporting program, such as the online diploma at NAIT (Northern Alberta Institute of Technology).
Build speed
Ongoing
Stenographers train until they can write about 225 words a minute with near-perfect accuracy. Most of the program is drills, and many students take longer than the official length.
Get certified or authorized
Weeks
Ontario transcriptionists pass the test in their program, get a security clearance and pay to join the authorized list. Alberta stenographers certify with the Alberta Shorthand Reporters Association.
First jobs
After graduation
Courtroom monitor for a provincial government, a transcription company, or straight into freelance.
English
Spelling, grammar and punctuation are the whole product.
Keyboarding or business technology
Speed and accuracy are what you are paid for.
Law or civics
Knowing the words makes them easier to hear.
French
Bilingual courtrooms need bilingual reporters.
Alberta requires court and shorthand reporters to be certified by the Alberta Shorthand Reporters Association. Prince Edward Island regulates court transcribers through its justice department. In Ontario, courtrooms are recorded digitally and only an Authorized Court Transcriptionist (an ACT, trained and tested at a recognized Ontario college) can certify an official transcript. Quebec's official stenographers must pass the Barreau du Québec (Quebec bar) exam. In the other provinces and the territories no certificate is needed: the courthouse job is simply a hiring decision. Certifications do not transfer automatically.
Quebec court reporters are sténographes officiels (official stenographers), and the Barreau du Québec (the Quebec bar) controls entry with its own exam and roll.
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
Work on spelling and grammar in French or English. The bar exam asks for 90% on that part.
Recognized training
12 months
The bar recognizes a short list of schools. Institut Grasset's AEC (Attestation of College Studies) teaches voice recognition with a stenomask: 615 hours over 12 months, online, in French only.
Training in English
Varies
The bar also recognizes the Court Reporting Academy of Québec and NAIT (Northern Alberta Institute of Technology) for court reporting.
Pass the stenography committee exam
A few days
Offered in French and in English, plus a theory test online. You need 90% in spelling and grammar and 80% in stenography technique. The next sitting is November 2026.
Get on the roll
Weeks
No conviction linked to the work, yearly dues and an oath before a Superior Court judge. Most official stenographers are self-employed.
Institut Grasset figures. Other recognized schools set their own fees and length.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Real-time stenography
Writing live text that lawyers and judges read as it happens. The top of the field.
Broadcast captioning
Live captions for TV (television) news and sports. Often remote work.
CART (Communication Access Realtime Translation)
Live captioning for deaf and hard-of-hearing students and workers.
Bilingual work
French and English transcripts in federal and Quebec courts.
Fast, accurate typing before you apply
Programs expect 50 to 60 words a minute on day one; you will need far more by the end.
Legal vocabulary
A paralegal or law clerk course helps you hear the words correctly.
Good ears and focus
Mumbling witnesses and crosstalk are the job.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
In a courthouse: set up the recording system, log every speaker and exhibit, and flag anything the transcript will need. At home: headphones on, foot pedal down, typing a bail hearing or a two-day trial with every name spelled right, then proofreading each page before it is certified. Deadlines are strict, because appeals wait on transcripts.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Ontario courtrooms record proceedings on digital systems. The transcript is produced afterwards by an Authorized Court Transcriptionist working from the audio, at a per-page rate set by provincial regulation.
Stenographers write on a machine with about 22 keys that types syllables, not letters. Certification tests in North America expect roughly 225 words a minute on testimony with almost no errors. Normal conversation is about 150.
Live captioning for television, video calls and classrooms uses the same steno skill. As courts moved to digital recording, many court reporters moved into captioning.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Courts and legal support first, then the rest of the field. See every career in law and public safety.
Last checked October 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. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
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