Surveillance, background checks and insurance fraud, not car chases. Licensed in every province and Yukon after a short course.
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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 $44,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $34,000 at the lower end to about $65,000 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.
$450 to $1,000 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, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Saskatchewan and Yukon. Elsewhere there is none to hold, though many employers still ask for training or a certificate.
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
$44,000
Lower end
$34,000
Upper end
$65,000
Job Bank's national figures for private investigators, 2023 to 2024: a median of $21 an hour, about $44,000 a year at 40 hours a week, with a lower end of $16.55 and an upper end of $31.45 an hour. This is a survey of employees, so agency owners are not in it. Police detectives are a separate occupation with separate pay.
$26.68 an hour
The Job Bank median in Yukon, the highest in Canada
Among the provinces BC (British Columbia) is highest at $22.75, Ontario is $20, and Nova Scotia is lowest at $17. Much surveillance work is casual: you are paid for the hours on a file, plus mileage.
Roughly, all in
$450 to $1,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
This is one of the cheapest licensed careers in Canada to enter. You pay for a short basic training course, about 50 hours in Ontario, then the provincial licensing test and a yearly licence fee. A college police foundations or investigation diploma is sold as preparation but no province requires it, so it is left out of these numbers. The real cost is the thin first year of work while you build clients or wait for an agency to feed you files.
This is one of the cheapest licensed careers to enter. The cost is the slow first year, not the training.
Hourly plus mileage
The norm for surveillance.
Per file
Background checks and skip traces (locating people) are flat fee.
Salary
Insurance companies and big agencies employ in-house investigators with benefits.
Owning an agency
Needs a separate business licence and insurance.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
A short course, a provincial test, a licence. Then the hard part: getting hired.
High school diploma
Grade 12
Not always required by law, but agencies expect it.
Basic training
1 to 3 weeks
Ontario: a ministry-approved course (about 50 hours, online or in class) covering law, evidence, surveillance and report writing. Alberta: the Alberta Professional Investigator Training course. BC (British Columbia) and Quebec have their own.
Provincial test and licence
Weeks
Ontario: pass the ministry test, then apply through ServiceOntario with a clean record check. You must be 18 and eligible to work in Canada. Alberta licenses through its security services and investigators program.
Get hired
Months
Insurance investigation firms and large agencies hire most new licensees. Expect surveillance shifts first.
Specialize or go solo
3 to 5 years
After a few years: corporate fraud, workplace investigations, or your own agency licence.
Police foundations, criminology or investigation diploma
Not required, but agencies like it.
A clean driving record and a reliable car
Writing skills
The report is the product. Sloppy reports lose cases in court.
Patience
Surveillance means hours of nothing.
Every province and Yukon license private investigators. The Northwest Territories and Nunavut have no licence. Ontario regulates them under the Private Security and Investigative Services Act through the Ministry of the Solicitor General, with mandatory training and a test. Alberta and BC (British Columbia) license through their security services programs, and Quebec through the Bureau de la sécurité privée. Working without a licence is an offence. Licences do not transfer: moving provinces means a new application, and sometimes a new course.
In Quebec the licence comes from the BSP (Bureau de la sécurité privée, the private security board), and the training rule is fixed: one 135 hour college course, or a recent police diploma or degree.
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
The investigation course is a continuing education course. Colleges usually expect you to have been out of full-time school for at least 2 terms, or to meet another adult admission rule.
Turn 18 and keep a clean record
Before applying
The licence needs good character and no conviction linked to private security work unless pardoned. You also need citizenship, permanent residence or a work permit.
Take the 135 hour investigation course
15 weeks
Initiation aux techniques d'enquête et d'investigation (introduction to investigation techniques), three 45 hour courses at a CEGEP (public college) such as Alma or Maisonneuve. In French. Alma runs it online on weekday evenings.
Or use a police diploma
Instead of the course
A Police Technology DEC (Diploma of College Studies) or a bachelor's in security and police studies earned in the last 5 years also counts, as does Université de Montréal's certificate in investigation and intelligence.
Apply for the BSP agent licence
Weeks
In the investigation category. In 2026 a new licence costs $69.50 plus $119 for the security check, then $69.50 plus $18 for security monitoring every year.
Fees from Collège d'Alma for fall 2026 and the BSP (Bureau de la sécurité privée) for 2026. The BSP raises its fees each January with inflation.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Insurance fraud and disability claims
Checking claims for insurers.
Corporate and workplace investigations
Harassment complaints, theft, due diligence. Often run through law firms.
Digital forensics and open-source intelligence
Tracing people and money online.
Process serving
Delivering court documents; steady side income.
A second language
Photography and video skills
Former police, military or security experience
Many investigators are retired officers.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Surveillance: in the car before dawn outside a claimant's house, camera ready, waiting for them to leave. Follow, film, log every minute. A 10-hour shift might produce 3 minutes of useful video. Office days: database searches, interviews, and writing reports the insurer or lawyer can use in court. No badge, no power to arrest, no right to trespass.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
A private investigator has no more legal authority than any other citizen. They cannot arrest, detain or enter private property. Their power is patience, public records and a camera.
Many investigators in Canada work on insurance files: disability claims, car accidents and workplace injuries, checking whether the story matches the video.
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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