The TCF Canada in your country

Same test, a different road

Picture three candidates in the week of their TCF Canada. A nurse from Davao books a flight to Cebu. An engineer from Kano plans the long road south to Lagos. A developer in Hyderabad, with no centre in her city, weighs a train to Bangalore against a longer one to New Delhi.

On the day, all three will open the same test.

France Éducation international (FEI), which runs the TCF, sets the same four sections and the same minutes wherever the room is.

Everything before the door differs, though most advice assumes a centre a bus ride away and a second attempt as easy as booking another Saturday.

For a great many candidates neither is true. We think the country you live in decides your logistics long before your French decides your score, and these guides exist because the logistics are where good plans quietly fail.

Where can I take the TCF Canada?

Start where FEI tells you to: its own list of TCF centres. On 25 October 2026 it named centres in 126 countries.

Its TCF Canada page is plain about the rest: it is up to you to contact the approved centre nearest your home, which tells you the dates, the registration procedure, paper or computer, and the price.

Seven, two, one. For a candidate, those numbers say more about the months ahead than any grammar book.

Nigeria: two centres, both in the south

FEI lists the Alliances françaises of Lagos and Port Harcourt, and marks a computer option at Lagos only. Abuja and Kano are not on the list. Our Nigeria guide argues that from the north, the journey changes the maths of a first attempt.

India: seven centres, and a race for seats

Seven Alliances françaises, four of them with a computer option. Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad and Pune are not on the list. Where sessions do run, seats go fast: the Alliance française de Delhi says they often fill within minutes of registration opening. The India guide plans for the seat as carefully as for the score.

The Philippines: one centre for a country of islands

One name on FEI’s list: the Alliance française de Cebu, with a computer option. Not Manila, not Davao. The Philippines guide makes the case for arriving the day before and treating the trip as part of the exam.

A list is not a seat

In all three countries, the mistake we would most like readers to avoid is the same: reading FEI’s list as a timetable.

FEI says approved centres organise sessions according to what they can offer. A centre on the list may hold the TCF; it has not promised you one this month.

The first line on the right matters more than it looks. The TCF comes in several versions, and the TCF Canada is the one IRCC accepts, with the TEF Canada, as a French test for Express Entry. A seat at another version is a seat at the wrong test.

And lists change. When our Nigeria guide was first written, FEI’s list held only Lagos; it now holds Port Harcourt too. Open the list yourself the week you plan to book, not the month you start studying.

Book the sitting you mean to pass

The commonest advice in candidates’ forums is to book early, let the date frighten you into studying and treat a first attempt as a rehearsal. For someone with a centre round the corner, that is defensible.

For most of the candidates these guides are written for, we think it is wrong. Four of FEI’s and IRCC’s rules explain why:

• 20 days between two sittings. You may sit the TCF Canada as often as you like, but where the next free seat is weeks off and a journey away, the calendar sets the real gap. (The 20-day rule)
• No re-marking of speaking and writing for sessions from 1 September 2026. FEI calls the suspension temporary and plans to resume the service in autumn 2027. (What the suspension means)
• 15 working days to results, counted from FEI receiving the session’s material, so you may learn that you need a second attempt weeks after the first.
• Two years of validity from the day results are issued, and IRCC wants them less than two years old when you complete your Express Entry profile and again when you apply for permanent residence.

A rehearsal on the real test costs a journey, a fee and weeks. Rehearse at home; travel to pass.

So the order runs the other way. Practise until your scores sit at NCLC 7 in all four sections, consistently, then book.

IRCC reads each section on its own: NCLC 7 in all four abilities earns the French additional points in Express Entry and opens its French-language proficiency category; one section at 6 misses both.

What to ask the centre

FEI leaves the dates, the registration, the format and the price to each centre, and so do we: they change, and we never print them. What does not change is the questions. Each country guide has its own; these hold everywhere.

• Do you hold TCF Canada sessions, and on which dates?
• When does registration open and close, and how do I pay?
• On paper or on computer?
• Where exactly is it held, and is speaking on the same day?
• Which identity document do you accept at the door?
• What happens if I am ill, or my journey is cancelled?

Paper or computer

FEI’s computer sessions have real comforts, but the computer version runs on the centre’s own machines, not online, and speaking is face to face with an examiner either way. We would not cross a country for a screen.

If your centre is on paper, practise writing by hand: our guide to handwritten practice takes it task by task.

The part that travels with you

If your country has no guide here yet, the method still travels: FEI’s list, the nearest approved centre, the same questions, the same rules, the same exam.

So does the stretch every candidate controls, the weeks between booking and the session. We think they are worth most spent in the exam’s own format, not in general French.

That is what Salut Canada is for:

• listening and reading as full series on the exam’s clock;
• the speaking tasks aloud, with an examiner at the exam’s timings;
• the writing tasks within their limits;
• a study plan that starts from your results and your exam date.

Sources

• France Éducation international (FEI), list of TCF centres: the countries listed; the centres in Nigeria, India and the Philippines and their computer option.
• FEI, TCF Canada page: the timings, sessions run by approved centres, the 20 days between sittings, results, validity, the suspension of re-marking, the TCF on computer.
• IRCC: Express Entry language testing; Comprehensive Ranking System criteria; category-based selection.
• Alliance française de Delhi, TCF Canada page.
• Checked on 25 October 2026.