Last updated: February 24, 2026

Notarize PEO and Inter-Provincial P.Eng. Documents in Ottawa

Quick answer: Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO) accepts certified true copies of degrees, transcripts, identity documents, and out-of-province P.Eng. licenses signed and sealed by an Ontario notary public. We do that part. We don't review your application, vouch for your engineering experience, or recommend a licence category. Bring originals, valid government photo ID, and your PEO checklist. Walk-out the same visit with notarized copies ready to upload to PEO's portal or mail to North York.

If you're going through Professional Engineers Ontario right now, you probably have a checklist in your inbox and a stack of documents on your kitchen table. Maybe you graduated from the University of Ottawa or Carleton last spring and you're starting the Engineering Intern (EIT) program. Maybe you finished your degree in Mumbai, Manila, or Lagos and PEO has asked for an Academic Review. Maybe you're already a P.Eng. in Alberta or BC and your employer is moving you to Ottawa for a federal contract. Different starting points, but the documents you need to put in front of PEO often share one thing: they have to be certified copies, signed and sealed by a notary public.

This guide covers what PEO and the broader engineering regulatory system in Canada actually ask for, what a notary can do for you, and what we can't. We work with engineering applicants in Ottawa every week, so the practical tips here come from real PEO checklists, not generic credentialling theory. We'll keep it specific to what you bring into a notary appointment, what we hand back, and what happens next.

A note on scope: this is a notary's view of the paperwork. We don't help you decide between a Limited Engineering Licence and a full P.Eng. We don't translate documents from Mandarin or Tagalog. We don't prep your Experience Record. For those, you'll work with PEO directly or with a credential evaluator like World Education Services (WES). What we deliver is the certified copy step that almost every applicant runs into at least once.

Caption: A PEO file usually pulls together your degree, transcripts, identity documents, and out-of-province licence proof — a notary's job is the certified copy.

Key Takeaways

We charge from $20 per certified copy and from $25 per statutory declaration. Fees and turnaround stay the same whether you're a new graduate or a senior engineer.

What PEO Asks For

Professional Engineers Ontario regulates the practice of professional engineering in Ontario under the Professional Engineers Act. Their licence application process is documented on peo.on.ca, and the documents they collect haven't changed dramatically in recent years — what has changed is that more of the submission happens through PEO's online portal, which means more applicants scan-and-upload rather than mail. That has practical consequences for what we certify and how.

The two most common application paths bring different paperwork into our office.

Engineering Intern (EIT) Program. New graduates from a Canadian Engineering Accreditation Board (CEAB) accredited program — University of Ottawa, Carleton, Queen's, Toronto, Waterloo and so on — apply to PEO as Engineering Interns while they accumulate the required experience for full P.Eng. status. PEO knows these programs. They typically don't require a heavy academic review. What they do ask for, and what we end up certifying, is:

• A certified true copy of the engineering degree parchment if you're submitting a copy rather than presenting the original.
• A certified true copy of government-issued photo identification — usually a passport or Ontario driver's licence — to confirm your identity matches the name on your transcripts and the application.
• Sometimes a certified copy of your transcript if you submitted an unsealed copy and PEO's reviewer flags it.
• For applicants who've changed their legal name since graduation: a certified copy of the marriage certificate, divorce order, or name-change order, and occasionally a statutory declaration linking the name on the degree to the name on the application.

PEO also asks for a Confirmation of Experience Record once you've worked enough hours, but that's a self-reported document signed by your supervisors, not a notarial product. We don't draft, witness, or vouch for the experience itself.

Full P.Eng. Licence (initial Ontario application). This pulls in everything in the EIT list plus more. Applicants who didn't go through EIT first — international graduates, mid-career switchers, applicants with degrees in adjacent fields — submit larger packages. The notary's piece is still narrow: certify true copies of original documents the applicant doesn't want to mail or surrender.

The shape of those certified copies matters. Each certified copy is a single document, photocopied in front of the notary from your original, with a certification statement, signature, seal, and date applied to either the photocopy itself or to a face sheet attached to the photocopy. PEO accepts both formats. We use a stapled cover certificate with a tamper-evident seal placement so reviewers can tell at a glance the copy hasn't been pulled apart and reassembled.

A few PEO-specific points worth flagging. First, PEO does not require an apostille or Global Affairs Canada authentication for documents being filed within Ontario. Many internationally educated applicants arrive worried they'll need their certified copies authenticated as if they were going abroad. They aren't. PEO is the end user, in Toronto, and an Ontario notary's seal is sufficient. Second, PEO's online portal accepts colour PDF scans of certified copies, but they expect to see the original notary's blue ink signature, embossed seal, and any wet stamp at upload resolution clear enough to read. Don't compress your scan into oblivion to fit a file size limit — re-scan at 300 DPI if PEO emails you back asking for a clearer image.

For full details on what PEO is currently asking for, the source of truth is peo.on.ca. We can certify what you bring; PEO decides what they accept. If you're unsure whether a document needs to be certified, call PEO before booking with us.

Inter-Provincial Mobility for P.Eng.

If you're already a P.Eng. somewhere else in Canada and you've taken a contract in Ottawa, the path to practising in Ontario is shorter than most applicants expect. Engineers Canada — the national federation of provincial and territorial engineering regulators — administers a National Mobility Agreement that all 12 regulators have signed. The principle is simple: a P.Eng. in good standing in one Canadian jurisdiction can apply to be licensed in another without redoing the academic review or requalifying technically. PEO honours the agreement, and so do APEGA in Alberta, Engineers and Geoscientists BC (EGBC), the Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec (OIQ), Engineers Geoscientists Manitoba, APEGS in Saskatchewan, Engineers PEI, Engineers Nova Scotia, Engineers and Geoscientists New Brunswick, PEGNL in Newfoundland and Labrador, NAPEG in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, and EYukon.

What does that mean at the notary's desk? Mostly that you'll need fewer certified copies than someone applying from scratch, but the few you do need have to be tight.

The single most important document — a letter of good standing from your home regulator — is sent regulator-to-regulator. That letter does not get notarized. PEO contacts APEGA, EGBC, or OIQ directly, and the home regulator confirms your status, your discipline, your licence number, and any disciplinary history. We can't certify that letter for you because it never passes through your hands as a personal document. If a notary tries to "certify" a regulator-to-regulator letter, they're certifying nothing meaningful and PEO will reject it. Don't ask for it.

What we can certify, and what mobility applicants usually do bring in:

• Your physical P.Eng. licence card or wallet ID from APEGA, EGBC, OIQ, or another provincial regulator. PEO sometimes asks for proof you currently hold the licence as part of the initial application package, before the regulator-to-regulator confirmation completes. A certified copy of your wallet card is a common interim submission.
• Government-issued photo identification. Your passport, Ontario or out-of-province driver's licence, or Canadian citizenship card. PEO needs to confirm the licensee at the home regulator and the applicant in Ontario are the same person. Certified copies of two pieces of ID are standard.
• A current good-standing letter that the home regulator gave directly to you (some, like APEGA, will issue an applicant-held letter on request). If PEO tells you to submit it yourself, we can certify a copy and you keep the original.
• Name-change documentation if your APEGA or EGBC licence is in your maiden name and your Ontario application is in your married name, or vice versa. Marriage certificate or court order — both we can certify.

A practical timeline. If you've moved to Ottawa for a federal contract or a clean-tech secondment, plan for four to eight weeks total. PEO's mobility track moves faster than the full path, but it isn't instant. The regulator-to-regulator letter usually clears within 10 to 15 business days. Your certified copies and ID can be done in a single afternoon at our office.

A note on Quebec. The OIQ operates under Quebec's Engineers Act and uses French as its working language. If you're moving from Quebec to Ontario, your OIQ documentation will likely arrive in French. We can certify French-language originals — the certification confirms the copy matches the original, regardless of language. PEO accepts French-language source documents under the Federal Official Languages framework. If PEO asks for an English translation, you'll need a certified translator (ATIO or OTTIAQ accredited); we then notarize the translator's affidavit, not the translation itself.

A note on temporary licences. Some out-of-province engineers come to Ottawa on short federal projects and apply for a Temporary Licence rather than full Ontario licensure. The document set is similar — certified copy of your home licence, certified copy of ID, and a project description from your engineer-in-charge. We don't sign or witness the project description. That comes from the project lead, on company letterhead, addressed to PEO directly.

The mobility track exists to reduce paperwork for applicants who've already proven their qualifications elsewhere. Use it. Don't gold-plate your file with notarized academic transcripts PEO didn't ask for.

Caption: For interprovincial mobility, the good-standing letter goes regulator-to-regulator. The applicant brings certified copies of the licence card and ID.

Internationally Educated Engineers (IEEs)

If you trained outside Canada — IIT Bombay, Cairo University, the University of Lagos, Tsinghua, the University of the Philippines — your road to a P.Eng. in Ontario runs through PEO's Academic Review. This is where the document load is heaviest, where most of our certified-copy work happens, and where small mistakes cost the most time. Before we get into specifics, the most important framing: PEO does the academic assessment, not us. We can't tell you whether your B.Tech. from a particular institution will be accepted, whether you'll be assigned confirmatory exams, or whether your three-year B.Sc. needs topping up. PEO's Academic Review Committee makes those calls. We hand you the certified copies that go into the file.

Here's what an IEE file commonly contains, and which pieces typically need notarial attention.

The foreign engineering degree. PEO needs to see your degree parchment. If you're willing to mail or hand over the original, no certified copy is needed. Most international applicants are not willing — the original is too valuable to risk in transit between Ottawa and the issuing university back home. So we certify a true copy of the original you bring into the office. The original itself is what matters: a photocopy of a photocopy isn't certifiable. If you only have a photocopy because the original is in a parents' lockbox in Hyderabad, contact your university and request an institution-certified copy first; PEO often accepts that, and we don't need to add a layer.

Official transcripts. Sealed transcripts sent directly from the institution to PEO are the cleanest path. PEO publishes mailing instructions on their site. Don't break the seal. If your transcripts arrived unsealed years ago — common for applicants who used them for a previous immigration or graduate-school application — they're functionally photocopies, and PEO may not accept them. The fix is a fresh request from your institution. Some applicants ask us to certify an unsealed transcript "just in case." We'll do it, but PEO's published policy generally prefers institution-sealed delivery.

Course descriptions and syllabi. PEO's Academic Review compares your program against the CEAB curriculum. They want detailed course descriptions, often syllabus-level. These documents are typically issued by your university's registrar or department in PDF or printed form. We can certify true copies of original printouts on university letterhead. If your university only provides them as digital downloads, certify a printed version with the URL and date in the footer; PEO accepts that.

Identity documents. Passport (the photo and information page), and sometimes a second piece of photo ID. PEO compares the name on your application to the name on your degree to the name on your passport. They look for consistency. Inconsistency is the single biggest avoidable problem in IEE files.

Name-change documentation. If you got married between graduation and application, or if your country uses transliteration that varies between Latin alphabet renderings, you may need a statutory declaration explaining the variations. We commission stat-decs at our office. The declaration is in your words, sworn before us, stating something like: "The name 'Mohammed Hassan Ali' on my engineering degree refers to the same person as 'Mohamed Hasan Ali' on my Canadian passport." That kind of small spelling delta trips up automated review.

Work-experience letters. PEO wants letters from former employers describing your engineering work, on company letterhead, signed by a supervisor. These letters are not notarized as a rule. Occasionally, when a former employer no longer exists (a small consultancy that closed during 2020) or won't respond, PEO will accept a sworn statutory declaration from you describing the work. We commission those declarations. We don't draft them — your wording, your responsibility — but we administer the oath, sign, and seal.

A note on the immigration overlap. Many internationally educated engineers in Ottawa came in under Express Entry, the Federal Skilled Worker Program, or the Provincial Nominee Program. The same documents — degree, transcripts, IELTS scores, work-experience letters — feed both your IRCC immigration file and your PEO licensure file. Bundle the appointments. We can certify the same set of originals for both purposes in one visit, charged per certified copy. We do not give immigration advice and we don't fill out IRCC forms; that's a regulated activity for licensed immigration consultants and lawyers. Our role stops at the certification.

For deeper coverage of academic credentials specifically, see our academic credentials certification guide. For the broader professional licensing picture across regulated occupations, see our professional license notarization guide.

Documents That Typically Need a Notary

Here's a working table of the documents PEO applicants bring into our office, what we do with each, and which Minute Notary service line covers it. Treat this as a planning checklist, not a guarantee that PEO will request every item — they tailor their requests to your specific application.

A short word on stacking. If your file requires three certified copies (degree, passport, marriage certificate), the cost is per copy, not per appointment. Doing them together in one visit is faster and cheaper than coming back three times. We recommend bringing your full PEO checklist into the appointment so we can catch anything you missed before you leave.

A short word on multiples. PEO usually only needs one certified copy of each document. But if you're also planning to submit the same degree to a foreign regulator, an immigration application, or a future employer, ask for two or three certified copies in the same visit. Additional copies of the same document are heavily discounted — $10 each after the first — and you avoid a second trip later.

If a document isn't on this list and you're not sure whether it needs notarial treatment, the answer is almost always "ask PEO first, then come see us." We can certify almost any original document, but PEO's reviewers decide what's necessary. Don't pay for certifications PEO won't read.

Caption: A certified true copy stays with the application file; the original parchment goes home with you.

What to Bring to Your Appointment

A useful appointment is a prepared appointment. Most of the friction we see comes from applicants arriving with the wrong version of a document, not the wrong document. Here's the working list we send PEO clients before they walk through the door.

Originals, originals, originals. A notary in Ontario can only certify a copy as true to an original we hold in our hands. Photocopies of photocopies cannot be certified, no matter how clean they look. That means your engineering parchment in its original university folder, your passport with the embossed coat of arms, your physical out-of-province P.Eng. card, and your original marriage certificate or court order. If your original lives in another country, contact the issuing institution and ask for an institution-certified copy on letterhead with a registrar's signature — PEO accepts those, and we can certify a copy of the institution-certified copy because it's a fresh original from the institution's perspective.

Two pieces of valid government photo identification. A passport plus an Ontario or out-of-province driver's licence is the standard pairing. A passport plus a permanent resident card works equally well. The IDs must be current — expired passports or licences won't satisfy a notary's identity check, and we'll have to reschedule.

Your PEO checklist or correspondence. PEO emails applicants document-by-document requests as they review the file. Bring whatever the most recent message from PEO says they want. If you're applying for the first time and don't yet have a checklist, the document categories listed on peo.on.ca for your application route are a fine starting point. If you're not sure whether something needs notarial treatment, bring the original anyway — we'd rather see and pass than miss a step and force a second visit.

Spare cash or card for additional copies. Many applicants discover during the appointment that they want two or three certified copies of the same item — one for PEO, one for their employer's HR file, one to keep at home. Additional copies of the same document are $10 each after the first. Decide before we seal the first copy, because re-running a certification later is a fresh job, not a re-print.

A clear sense of what you do not need to bring. You don't need your supervisors, your engineering experience record, your PEO portal login, your bank statements, your IELTS or TOEFL score report, or your CV. None of those documents pass through a notarial step in the PEO process. Leave them at home; bring what we can actually use.

Time. Block 30 to 45 minutes for a standard PEO file with three or four certified copies and one statutory declaration. Larger IEE packages with seven or eight items can take 60 to 90 minutes. We don't rush the inspection step — that's the part of the appointment PEO is paying us, indirectly, to do carefully.

When in doubt, call us at (613) 434-5555 before the appointment and read your PEO checklist over the phone. We'll tell you what to bring and what to skip.

Common Mistakes Specific to PEO Applications

PEO files have their own pattern of avoidable mistakes. They differ from generic immigration certifications in instructive ways, mostly because PEO's reviewers are engineers themselves and they're stricter about formal correctness than a busy IRCC officer who's processing a hundred files a day.

Bringing photocopies and asking for "verification." This is the most common one, and it usually comes from international applicants whose originals are stored back home. A photocopy is not a document we can certify. We can witness your signature on it, we can swear an affidavit about it, but we cannot stamp it as a true copy of an original we never inspected. The fix is either to retrieve the original from your home country, request a fresh institution-certified copy from the issuing university, or ask PEO whether they'll accept a sworn statutory declaration explaining the original's location. Don't show up with a photocopy and hope.

Asking us to certify a transcript that says "OPENED — VOID IF SEAL BROKEN." Sealed transcripts are issued for direct delivery from the institution to a regulator. The sealed envelope itself is the security feature. Once an applicant opens it — usually by mistake, sometimes years ago for a previous purpose — its evidentiary value drops, and PEO's stated preference is for fresh sealed delivery. We can technically certify the contents as a true copy, but PEO often won't accept that as substitute for a fresh institutional copy. Request a new transcript and have the institution mail it directly to PEO, or to your home address sealed and unopened.

Name mismatch between degree and current legal name with no statutory declaration. Many internationally educated engineers got married, divorced, or naturalised since graduation, and their degree is in one name and their passport is in another. PEO's reviewers compare names letter-for-letter. A statutory declaration sworn before a notary, plus a certified copy of the marriage certificate or court order, ties the names together cleanly. Skipping the declaration and hoping the marriage certificate alone will do the work is risky — sometimes it's enough, often it isn't. Spend the extra $25 on the stat-dec.

Submitting a self-translated foreign document. PEO requires translations into English (or French) by a translator certified by ATIO (Association of Translators and Interpreters of Ontario), OTTIAQ in Quebec, or another provincial body that's a member of CTTIC. Self-translations, translations by a friend who speaks the language, and unsigned freelance translations all fail PEO's review. Hire a certified translator first; we then notarize the translator's signature and statement of accuracy. We do not translate, ever — translation is a regulated, separate service.

Treating PEO's online portal as a regular file upload. The portal is a regulator's intake tool, not a Dropbox folder. Compressed scans that lose seal detail, photos taken with a phone at an angle, and PDF-of-a-PDF re-saves all reduce the readability of your certified copies. Scan flat, at 300 DPI, in colour, with the notary's seal and signature clearly visible. If PEO emails you back with a request to re-upload, the problem is almost always image quality, not document content.

Mailing originals to PEO when a certified copy will do. Some applicants get nervous and send PEO their original engineering parchment by registered mail. PEO doesn't ask for that. The application instructions specifically request certified copies of degrees, not the parchments themselves. Mailing the original means it's out of your hands for weeks, and if PEO's mailroom misplaces it, you're calling your university's registrar in another country to issue a duplicate. Send certified copies. Keep the original at home.

What a Notary Cannot Do for Your Application

It's worth saying clearly what's outside our lane. The Notary Public role in Ontario is narrowly defined by the Notaries Act and the Commissioners for Taking Affidavits Act. We administer oaths, take affirmations, witness signatures, certify true copies of original documents, and commission affidavits and statutory declarations. That's the list. Everything beyond it is somebody else's job, and pretending otherwise would harm your application.

We can't review your PEO Academic Review submission. PEO's Academic Review Committee is staffed by licensed engineers who evaluate foreign engineering education against the CEAB benchmark. They decide whether your B.Tech. from a particular institution meets PEO's academic requirement, whether you'll be assigned confirmatory technical examinations, and whether your specialty matches the licence category you're seeking. Notaries are not engineers, not credential evaluators, and not authorised to second-guess the Committee. If you want a pre-screen, World Education Services (WES) and Engineers Canada's services are designed for that; PEO itself has assessors who can give informal feedback in some cases.

We can't vouch for your engineering experience. Your Confirmation of Experience Record is a document signed by your engineering supervisors, on company letterhead, describing the work you did and the engineering judgment you exercised. PEO weights those letters heavily. A notary's seal on an experience letter doesn't add anything PEO values — they want the supervisor's signature and contact information, verifiable by phone. If your supervisor needs help understanding what PEO expects, refer them to PEO's Experience Requirements Committee guidelines, not to us.

We can't translate. Document translation is a regulated activity in Ontario. ATIO-certified translators have the credentials to produce translations PEO will accept. We notarize the translator's affidavit — meaning the translator swears in front of us that the translation is accurate, and we seal that affidavit — but we don't read or evaluate the translation itself. If your engineering degree is in Mandarin, Arabic, Tagalog, or French and PEO requires English, hire an ATIO translator first, then bring both source and translation to us.

We can't give immigration advice. A surprising number of internationally educated engineers come into our office with overlapping PEO and IRCC files and ask whether their PEO licensure will affect their Express Entry score, whether their work permit allows them to practice as an EIT before their P.Eng. is granted, or whether they should apply for the Federal Skilled Worker stream or the Provincial Nominee Program. Those are legal questions for a licensed immigration consultant (RCIC) or an immigration lawyer. Giving immigration advice without a licence is a federal offence under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, and we won't do it.

We can't recommend an engineering licence category. PEO offers several routes — full P.Eng., Limited Engineering Licence (LEL), Provisional Licence, Temporary Licence — and the right one depends on your education, experience, project scope, and citizenship status. PEO's licensure team is the right place to ask. They take phone calls and email queries directly. We can't recommend the licence type because the choice is shaped by application strategy, not paperwork mechanics.

We can't sign your engineer's seal application. When PEO grants you a P.Eng., they issue you a personal engineering seal that you'll use to seal drawings and reports. The application for the seal is part of PEO's internal post-licensure workflow, and there's no notarial step in it. If a colleague tells you "the notary signs the seal request," they're misinformed.

We can't fix a PEO rejection. If PEO declines your application or asks for additional documents, the response goes back to PEO with new evidence and, if needed, an appeal through PEO's licensure review process. We can certify additional documents you submit on appeal, but we don't draft appeal letters and we don't negotiate with PEO on your behalf. For complex appeals, an Ontario lawyer with administrative-law experience is the right partner.

The narrowness is intentional. A notary's seal is trustworthy precisely because the notary's role is bounded — we say only what we can verify, and we say it the same way every time. Anything that requires judgment about your engineering qualifications belongs upstream of us, with PEO or with the credentialling and immigration professionals who specialise in those questions.

Caption: A notary's role on a PEO file ends at certified copies and commissioned declarations. Application strategy belongs with PEO and the applicant.

Pricing and Booking

Our pricing for the services PEO applicants typically use is flat and published. No surprise fees, no per-page charges, no "rush" upcharge for same-day appointments.

Most PEO appointments run between $40 and $90 in total fees, depending on how many documents you bring. Payment is by debit, credit card, or cash at the appointment. We issue a receipt that itemises each certification, which you can keep with your tax records — fees paid for licensure-related notarial services are generally not deductible for individuals, but check with your accountant if you're submitting through a corporate sponsor.

To book, call (613) 434-5555, email [email protected], or use the contact form. Same-day and next-day appointments are usually available. We're open weekdays 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM and Saturdays 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does PEO accept certified copies notarized in Ottawa, or do they have to come from Toronto?

PEO accepts certified true copies signed and sealed by any Notary Public commissioned in Ontario. The certifying notary's location within the province doesn't matter — Ottawa, Toronto, Sudbury, or Thunder Bay are equally valid. PEO's reviewers care about three things: that the certification is from an Ontario notary in good standing, that the notary's seal and signature are legible on the copy, and that the certification statement clearly identifies the document. The geographic distance between you and PEO's North York office has no bearing on acceptance. If you live or work in Ottawa, getting your certifications done locally is faster and cheaper than travelling to Toronto.

Do I need an apostille on my certified copies for PEO?

No. PEO is an Ontario-based regulator and the documents you submit stay within Canada. Apostille and Global Affairs Canada authentication are needed when documents will be used in a foreign country that requires authenticated Canadian seals — for example, sending an Ontario notary's certification to a regulator in the UAE or Germany. For a domestic PEO submission, an Ontario notary's seal alone is sufficient. If you later plan to use the same certified copies abroad — say, applying to NCEES in the United States or to Engineers Australia — that's when you'd add the apostille step. We can advise on the sequence if you need both.

My engineering degree is in a language other than English. What do I need?

You need two things: a certified true copy of the original-language degree (which we produce by inspecting your original parchment and certifying the photocopy), and an English translation completed by a translator certified by ATIO, OTTIAQ, or another CTTIC-member body. The translator prepares a Statement of Translator (sometimes called a Translator's Affidavit), and you and the translator come into our office together so we can administer the oath, witness the signature, and seal the affidavit. PEO accepts source-plus-translation packages prepared this way. We do not perform translations ourselves.

How long does a PEO certified-copy appointment take?

A typical PEO file with three to four certified copies and one statutory declaration runs 30 to 45 minutes. Larger packages from internationally educated engineers — degree, transcripts, course descriptions, passport, two pieces of secondary ID, marriage certificate, and a name-change stat-dec — can run 60 to 90 minutes. We don't rush the document inspection step because PEO reviewers are strict about formal correctness, and a careful 45-minute appointment beats a sloppy 15-minute appointment that gets rejected. Bring your full PEO checklist so we can work through it in one visit rather than splitting it across two.

Can I bring a digital copy of my degree on a tablet for certification?

No. An Ontario notary can certify a true copy only when an original physical document is presented in person. A PDF on a tablet, an image emailed from your university, or a scan stored in cloud storage doesn't qualify as an original for certification purposes — there's no way to verify it hasn't been altered. The exception is when your university issues a digitally signed credential through a recognised credential service like MyCreds (formerly CHESICC) or Digitary, in which case the digital credential is sent directly to PEO by the institution and notarial certification isn't needed. For physical originals stored abroad, request an institution-certified copy from the registrar; we can certify a copy of that paper document.

Final Recommendation

PEO licensure is a long process for most applicants — six to twelve months for the EIT track, longer for an Academic Review with confirmatory exams. The notarial step is small inside that timeline, but it's the step where avoidable mistakes cost the most calendar time, because every rejected document means a fresh round-trip with PEO and another appointment with a notary. Three habits make the difference: bring originals (never photocopies of photocopies), match the names on every document or commission a statutory declaration explaining the differences, and ask PEO before notarising anything you're not sure about. PEO's licensing team answers email and phone queries directly, and a five-minute call to them can save you a $20 fee on a document they didn't actually want.

If you're an EIT applicant graduating from Ottawa or Carleton, plan a single 30-minute visit with your degree and ID. If you're an internationally educated engineer in Academic Review, plan a longer visit with everything PEO has asked for in their most recent message. If you're moving from Alberta, BC, or Quebec under inter-provincial mobility, plan a short visit with your wallet card and ID, and let PEO handle the regulator-to-regulator letter without us. The engineering profession in Ontario is tightly regulated for good reasons; the notarial step is part of how PEO maintains that integrity. Done well, it's a clean handoff between you and the regulator.

Book Your Appointment

Ready to move your PEO file forward? We're a quick walk from downtown Ottawa and we book most appointments within 24 hours.

• Certified True Copies from $20 per document. Engineering degrees, transcripts, passports, P.Eng. cards from out-of-province regulators — all certified the same visit.
• Statutory Declarations from $25, including name-variant declarations for internationally educated engineers and missing-employer-letter declarations.
• Phone: (613) 434-5555
• Email: [email protected]
• Online: Contact form
• Hours: Monday to Friday 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, Saturday 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM, closed Sunday.

Bring your originals, your government photo ID, and your most recent PEO checklist. Walk out with the certified copies you need to upload to PEO's portal or mail to North York. For broader context, see our certified copies service or the related guides on professional licence notarization and academic credentials certification.

Sources

• Professional Engineers Ontario (PEO)
• Engineers Canada — National Mobility
• APEGA — Alberta
• Engineers and Geoscientists BC (EGBC)
• IRCC — Certified true copies