Alter, fit and make clothing by hand and machine. No licence, learn in a shop or at college, and the pay is modest until you own the shop.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Experienced tailor
$40,000
Alterations helper
$32,000
Bespoke tailor or shop owner
$54,000
Job Bank's national median is $19 an hour, about $40,000 a year full time. The low is $15.50 and the high is $26 an hour. Tailors who own an alterations shop in a busy neighbourhood, or who make bespoke suits, can earn above the top figure. Many alteration jobs are part time and pay near the bottom.
$15.50 to $18 an hour
Alterations at a dry cleaner, department store or bridal shop
Hemming, taking in waists, replacing zippers. Most entry jobs pay minimum wage or a little above. Some shops pay per piece.
$15 to $40 a job, hundreds for a suit
What alteration shops charge per piece
An alterations shop needs a machine, a serger, a press and a storefront. Owners keep the whole price and can do well in a neighbourhood with lots of office workers or weddings, but rent and slow months are on them.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
Tailoring is not a designated trade, so there are no apprenticeship loans or grants, but there is also no required school. The low end is learning on the job, paid from your first day, with your own shears and a basic machine. The high end is a college fashion or sewing program over two or three years plus a good machine and a full set of tools. Most tailors finish with no training debt, and the real cost is low pay in the first couple of years while your speed comes up.
Tailoring is not a designated trade, so apprenticeship loans and grants do not apply. Most tailors have no training debt.
Flexible, often part time
Easy to combine with family or another job.
Work from home
Many tailors run a home studio.
Employee discount
At department stores and menswear shops.
Health and dental
Rare outside large retailers.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Sewing skill is what gets you hired. Learn it at home, in a shop, or at college.
High school
Grades 10 to 12
Sewing and fashion classes if your school has them. Sew for yourself and friends. Take in a thrift-store jacket.
Alterations job or college
1 to 3 years
Dry cleaners and department stores hire helpers who can already hem and take in seams. Or take a fashion techniques or sewing program at a college; LaSalle College in Montreal and colleges in Toronto and Vancouver run them.
Learn fitting
1 to 2 years
Pinning a garment on a person and knowing what to change. This is what separates a sewer from a tailor.
Menswear, bridal or bespoke
3 to 10 years
Suits and wedding dresses are where the skilled, better-paid work is. Bespoke tailors train for many years under a master.
Your own shop
5 years and up
An alterations storefront or a home studio with regular clients.
Fashion, textiles or sewing
Where offered.
Art
Proportion, line, drawing a garment.
Math
Measuring, pattern drafting, pricing.
Business
Most tailors end up self-employed.
Job Bank lists tailoring and dressmaking as unregulated in every province and territory. There is no licence, no exam and no apprenticeship certificate. Employers hire on a sewing test: hem a pair of pants, take in a jacket, replace a zipper, all clean and fast.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Bridal alterations
Complex, seasonal, priced high. Bridal shops need tailors every spring.
Menswear and suit tailoring
Jackets are the hardest alteration. Menswear stores pay for people who can do them.
Pattern drafting
Making a garment from measurements. Opens custom and costume work.
Costume for theatre, film and dance
Union costume shops in Toronto, Vancouver and Stratford.
Leather and outerwear repair
Few can do it, so it pays.
An industrial sewing machine at home
Faster and stronger than a home machine.
Customer service
Fittings are personal. People are nervous about their bodies.
A sample book
Photos of before and after alterations.
A second language
Many shops serve immigrant communities.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Open at 9 or 10am. A rack of tagged garments: hem four pairs of pants, take in two dresses, shorten jacket sleeves, replace a coat zipper. Fittings between: pin a suit on a customer, mark it with chalk, book the pickup. Sew, press, bag, tag. Standing at the press, then seated at the machine. Spring is wedding and grad season, and the pile gets tall.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
Job Bank counts roughly 12,600 people working as tailors and dressmakers in Canada in 2023, and expects supply and demand to stay roughly balanced through 2033.
Shortening sleeves on a jacket with working buttonholes, or taking in the shoulders, is the hardest common alteration. Tailors who can do it cleanly get hired by menswear stores first.
Theatre and film costume departments in Canada are often unionized, with steady day rates. The Stratford Festival in Ontario runs one of the largest costume shops in the country.
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.