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.

Applies to England

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The criteria and supporting information for the 2023 to 2024 and 2024 to 2025 academic years are for:

accredited English initial teacher training (ITT) providers who are approved to offer iQTS, and their partner schools
organisations seeking approval to offer iQTS

You should refer to the 2024 to 2025 criteria and supporting information for courses starting from September 2024.

Published 15 November 2021

Last updated 81 ~~May~~August 2025 + show all updates

1 August 2025
Updated table 4 in criteria and supporting information for 2024 to 2025 to fix incorrect figures.

8 May 2025
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.
26 February 2024
'International qualified teacher status: criteria and supporting information - 2024 to 2025' for courses starting from September 2024 was added.
25 August 2023
'International qualified teacher status: criteria and supporting information' updated to reflect end of pilot year.
18 November 2022
Updated 'International qualified teacher status: criteria and supporting information'.
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.