Catch fish, crab or lobster for a living. Pay follows the catch, and it is one of the most dangerous jobs in the country.
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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.
Programs in the fields this career usually comes through. Each has its own page: what it takes to get in, the courses you need and what it costs.
The median pay is about $58,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $38,000 at the lower end to about $125,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
Up to 2 years, on the usual route, and you are paid while you train from the first day.
$1,000 to $3,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
Yes. It is a regulated job, so you need a licence or registration before you can work.
Limited 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
$58,000
Lower end
$38,000
Upper end
$125,000
Job Bank's national median is $27.77 an hour, about $58,000 a year full time. Real pay does not arrive as an hourly wage: most crews are paid a share of the catch, so your pay rises and falls with the season and the price of the catch.
$40 an hour in Newfoundland and Labrador
The highest provincial median on Job Bank, about $83,000 a year at 40 hours a week
British Columbia is next at $38.84, and New Brunswick is lowest at $22. New crew are usually paid a share of the landed value, meaning what the catch sells for at the wharf. Seasons are short: a Maritime lobster season runs a couple of months, so that money is earned in weeks, not spread over a year.
Up to 26 weeks
Of EI (Employment Insurance) fishing benefits, at 55% of your earnings, up to $1,325 a week in 2026
Self-employed fishers qualify on what they earned fishing, not on hours: $2,500 to $4,200 in the season, depending on unemployment where you live. There is a summer claim and a winter claim.
Roughly, all in
$1,000 to $3,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is joining a boat as crew, which needs only the basic marine safety courses and your own gear and rain gear. The high end adds the small vessel operator proficiency course, several hundred dollars, which you need to run a boat yourself, plus a fuller set of gear. This is one of the cheapest careers to start, which is why people get in young. Becoming an owner later is an entirely different scale of money, since a licence and boat in a good fishery can cost as much as a house, and most people get there through family or a long partnership.
Starting as crew costs almost nothing, which is why people get in young. Becoming an owner is the expensive part, and most do it through family or a long partnership.
Share of the catch
You are paid a percentage of what the boat lands, so a good captain and a good season directly raise your pay.
Few employer benefits
Job Bank reports that only 38.4% of people in this group get any non-wage benefit, such as insurance or a pension.
Time off between seasons
Many harvesters work another trade or job in the off season.
No pension unless you build one
Most crew are self-employed, so retirement savings are entirely on you.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
You get hired onto a boat, then earn the certificates that let you move up.
High school diploma
Grade 12
Helpful but not required on deck. Shop, math and any boat experience count for more.
Basic marine safety training
Days to weeks
Courses such as small domestic vessel basic safety or marine emergency duties, which Transport Canada requires of most crew.
Register as a crew member
Weeks
Fish harvesters register with the provincial fish harvester body or directly with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, depending on the coast.
Work seasons as crew
2 to 10 years
Learn the gear, the grounds and the species. Skippers hire people they have fished with.
Move up
Varies hugely
Earn a small vessel operator or fishing master certificate, run someone's boat, then buy a licence if you can finance it.
Math
Splitting shares, tracking landings and running a business.
Shop and small engines
Fixing hydraulics and a diesel engine at sea is the difference between a trip and a tow home.
Biology
Quotas, species and closures shape the whole job.
Physical education
Hauling gear for 18 hours is the job.
You cannot fish commercially in Canada without a licence, and licences are issued by Fisheries and Oceans Canada through its national online licensing system. The number of licences in each fishery is capped, so they are bought from someone who is leaving rather than issued to newcomers. Separate rules cover logbooks, gear tags, dockside monitoring and vessel monitoring systems. On top of that, Transport Canada regulates the vessel and the certificates the people on it must hold. On the Atlantic coast, owner-operator rules require the licence holder to be on the boat.
Newfoundland and Labrador
Fisheries and Marine Institute of Memorial University in St. John's, which runs fishing master and marine safety programs.
British Columbia
Fish Safe BC (British Columbia) in Richmond runs safety and vessel stability training for harvesters.
Maritimes
Nova Scotia Community College and the Fisheries and Marine Institute deliver marine emergency duties courses at coastal campuses.
On the boat
Most of what you need is still learned from a skipper over several seasons.
In Quebec, commercial fishing in tidal waters runs on a ladder of three certificates from the BAPAP (Bureau d'accréditation des pêcheurs et des aides-pêcheurs du Québec, the Quebec fisher certification board).
Secondary III, or a DEP
From age 16
To start as an apprentice you need a DEP (Diploma of Vocational Studies), or be 16 with Secondary III language, second language and math. No sea experience is needed.
Apprentice fisher certificate
Before your first season
$100 from the board, plus courses in domestic vessel safety (26 hours) and first aid and CPR (35 hours). Carry your booklet on every trip.
DEP in Professional Fishing, if you want it
2 years
At the École des pêches et de l'aquaculture du Québec (the Quebec fisheries and aquaculture school) in Grande-Rivière. Mid-August to March each year, with time on the school's fishing boat.
Fisher's helper certificate
1 season
At 18 or with a DEP. About 240 hours of courses in radio, collision rules, trip planning, fishing gear and crew skills, plus 1 full season (8 weeks) in the last 3 years.
Fisher certificate
2 seasons
The professional fishing DEP, a master of a fishing vessel, fourth class, certificate, or 2 seasons plus Secondary III courses. Add vessel courses and 2 seasons in the last 3 years.
Run your own fishery
Fisheries and Oceans Canada requires a fisher's helper or fisher certificate from the board to acquire and run an inshore fishing enterprise in Quebec. Keeping a certificate costs $100 a year.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Small vessel operator proficiency
Lets you command a small commercial vessel. Fish Safe BC (British Columbia) lists it among its core courses.
Fishing master certificates
Transport Canada certificates in four levels that qualify you to command larger vessels further offshore.
Restricted operator certificate for marine radio
Required to legally use the boat's radio.
Marine emergency duties
Survival, firefighting and first aid at sea. The baseline for working on deck.
Marine diesel mechanics
A mechanic who can also fish is always on a crew list.
Welding
Gear and deck repairs, plus steady winter income.
Strong swimming and cold water survival practice
Fish Safe BC (British Columbia) teaches cold water survival for a reason.
Bookkeeping
You are a small business, and most harvesters are self-employed for tax purposes.
A second trade
Carpentry, trucking or mechanics fills the months you cannot fish.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
In a day fishery you leave the wharf at 4am, steam an hour or two, then haul and reset traps or nets until the light goes, sorting and icing catch as it comes aboard. Back in, you offload, fuel, bait and fix gear before bed. Offshore trips run a week or more with the crew working watches, six hours on and six off, and you eat and sleep between hauls. Weather decides everything and it changes fast.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Lobster brought in about $3 billion in exports in 2025, more than any other Canadian seafood, according to Fisheries and Oceans Canada. Snow crab came second. That is why lobster licences sell for so much.
In 1992 Canada shut down the northern cod fishery off Newfoundland and Labrador, and tens of thousands of people lost their work. In June 2024 Ottawa reopened a commercial northern cod fishery, with a catch limit of 18,000 tonnes.
Fisheries and Oceans Canada says Canada exported fish and seafood to 114 countries in 2025. After lobster and snow crab, Atlantic salmon was the most valuable export.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Farming, forestry and fishing first, then the rest of the field. See every career in science and environment.
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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