Guidance

International qualified teacher status: criteria for providers

The criteria that organisations must meet to provide international qualified teacher status (iQTS) for applicants training outside the UK.

From:: Department for Education
Published: 15 November 2021
Last updated: 1017 ~~June~~October 2022 — See all updates

Applies to England

Documents

International qualified teacher status: criteria and supporting information

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Details

The criteria and supporting information are for:

accredited English ITT providers who are approved to offer iQTS, and their partner schools
organisations seeking approval to offer iQTS

Published 15 November 2021
Last updated 1017 ~~June~~October 2022 + show all updates

17 October 2022
'Suitability' section updated with information on safeguarding children and childcare disqualification. 'Inspection' section updated with iQTS inspection policy and inspectorate pilot information. Information on international qualifications equivalency, assessing the fitness of applicants and mentoring has been updated.

10 June 2022
Section C2.5 updated in preparation for wider roll-out of iQTS. Updates confirm that those who successfully complete iQTS will automatically be awarded qualified teacher status.
15 November 2021
First published.

Update history

2025-10-29 12:00
Added ‘International qualified teacher status: criteria and supporting information, 2025 to 2026’.

2025-08-01 11:15
Updated table 4 in criteria and supporting information for 2024 to 2025 to fix incorrect figures.

2025-05-08 14:15
Updated ‘iQTS: criteria and supporting advice, 2024 to 2025’ to reflect changes to the iQTS general mentor training time requirements, and additional clarifications on the 80% contact ratio time requirement for part-time ITT courses.

2024-02-26 10:00
‘International qualified teacher status: criteria and supporting information – 2024 to 2025’ for courses starting from September 2024 was added.

2023-08-25 14:41
‘International qualified teacher status: criteria and supporting information’ updated to reflect end of pilot year.

2022-11-18 14:06
Updated ‘International qualified teacher status: criteria and supporting information’.

2022-10-17 10:56
‘Suitability’ section updated with information on safeguarding children and childcare disqualification. ‘Inspection’ section updated with iQTS inspection policy and inspectorate pilot information. Information on international qualifications equivalency, assessing the fitness of applicants and mentoring has been updated.

2022-06-10 11:04
Section C2.5 updated in preparation for wider roll-out of iQTS. Updates confirm that those who successfully complete iQTS will automatically be awarded qualified teacher status.