The quickest job to start on this site. Watch for the versions where you pay for the van, the fuel and the insurance.
Click through it
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 $42,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $31,000 at the lower end to about $61,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
Up to 1 year after high school, on the usual route.
$70 to $200 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
No. There is no licence to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.
Moderate 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
$42,000
Lower end
$31,000
Upper end
$61,000
Job Bank's national median is $20 an hour, about $42,000 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, $15 and $29.35 an hour. App-based delivery usually pays per drop, and you pay for fuel and vehicle wear out of it.
Often the minimum wage
$17.95 an hour in Ontario from October 1, 2026
Many first jobs pay at or near the minimum wage, which each province sets. Full-time seats at large courier companies and grocery chains are often filled from inside, after time as a casual or part-time driver.
Roughly, all in
$70 to $200
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is a driving abstract and a criminal record check, assuming you already hold an ordinary car licence, which is all most delivery jobs require. The high end is the same two documents at the pricier end, with a fresh abstract each time an employer asks for one. A vehicle is not counted here because it is not a cost of entering the job, but if the work is app or contractor based you should subtract fuel, insurance, maintenance and the value the vehicle loses before you compare the pay.
If a job needs your own vehicle, subtract fuel, insurance, maintenance and the value the vehicle loses before you compare the pay.
Benefits at the larger employers
Courier companies and grocery chains offer them more often than small firms and apps.
Overtime in peak season
November and December are busy everywhere.
Union coverage
At the big courier companies and grocery chains.
Flexible hours on app work
Though flexibility is often what you get paid in instead of money.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
A short path.
Get a full driver's licence
Before you start
A regular car licence covers most delivery vans. Most employers want you to be 18 or older.
Build a year of clean driving
About 1 year
Job Bank notes that employers usually want about a year of safe driving experience.
Apply directly
Weeks
Courier companies, grocery chains, pharmacies, food distributors and auto parts suppliers all hire delivery drivers.
Company training
Days
Route software, handheld scanners, safe lifting and the company's delivery rules. Usually a few days on the job.
Move up if you want to
1 to 3 years
From here: a bigger licence class and trucking, a dispatcher desk, or a supervisor role in the depot.
Geography
Knowing the city saves you hours every week.
Math
Counting stock and handling payments.
Physical education
Lifting parcels all day is real work.
English
Customers, paperwork and scanners.
Delivery driving is not regulated in Canada and needs no certificate, just a licence matching the vehicle you drive. What matters instead is your employment status. Some delivery work is a regular job with a company vehicle, minimum wage protection, overtime and benefits. Some is contractor work through an app, where you supply the vehicle, pay the costs and have almost none of those protections. The pay figures on this card come from the first kind.
In Quebec licences come from the SAAQ (Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec, the licensing agency), and a car licence starts with a mandatory driving course.
Class 5 learner's licence
12 months
From age 16. Take the driving course at a school the SAAQ recognizes and hold the learner's licence for 12 months before the road test.
Probationary licence
24 months
24 months with zero alcohol and fewer than 4 demerit points. Class 5 covers cars and vans; trucks with 2 axles and a net mass of 4,500 kilograms or more need Class 3.
Get hired
Weeks
Couriers, grocery chains, pharmacies and distributors hire with a Class 5 licence, and train you on the job.
Class 3 for bigger trucks
From 2 years of driving
After 2 years with Class 5: a medical report with an eye exam, a knowledge test, then 3 months as a learner, or 1 month from age 25, before the road tests.
DEP (Diploma of Vocational Studies) in Trucking (5291, or 5791 in English)
About 4 months
615 hours, about 4 months, if you want to move into heavy trucks. It also cuts the Class 3 learner period to 1 month.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Get onto a company vehicle fleet
Grocery, pharmacy, parts and courier fleets give you the vehicle, so its costs are not yours.
Dangerous goods training
Needed for fuel, chemicals and some medical deliveries.
Upgrade your licence class
A truck licence opens trucking, where Job Bank's median is $26.42 an hour.
Forklift ticket
Lets you work the warehouse side as well as the road.
Bondability
Job Bank notes some delivery jobs require you to be eligible for bonding, which means a clean record.
Customer service
You are the only person from the company the customer ever sees.
Winter driving skill
Half the Canadian year is ice, snow and early dark.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Start at the depot before the traffic: scan and load your van in stop order, then run a route of anywhere from 40 to 150 stops. You are in and out of the vehicle constantly, carrying boxes up stairs, finding buzzers and parking wherever you can. December adds hours and stops to every route. If you drive your own car for an app, the day looks the same but you also pay for the fuel and absorb the wear.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Job Bank reports that only about 57% of Canadian delivery drivers receive any non-wage benefit, compared with about 95% of letter carriers and about 77% of bus operators.
Job Bank's provincial medians for delivery drivers cluster tightly, from about $17 an hour in Saskatchewan to about $22 in the Northwest Territories. There is no province where this job suddenly pays much better.
A delivery job needs only a car licence, which makes it a common first step into trucking, dispatch and warehouse supervision. Job Bank's median for truck drivers is $26.42 an hour.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Road first, then the rest of the field. See every career in transport.
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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