Renewing a practising certificate with satisfactory recent teaching experience
Renewing a practising certificate ensures you continue to maintain high standards and best practice throughout your career.
When to renew
You may apply to renew your practising certificate up to three months before its expiry date. Applications submitted earlier than three months before expiry will not be processed as approval is based on your most recent teaching information.
Practising certificates are renewed for three years. The fee and levy for renewing a practising certificate is $464.37.
How to apply for renewal
Hapori Matatū | Online Community is an online portal for the teaching profession.
As a teacher you can:
- apply for and renew practising certificates online
- track the status of your online applications in real-time
- make payments online using credit card or internet banking (via POLi)
- manage and update your profile details
- view, download, or print your current or newly approved practising certificate in a variety of sizes (A4 – wallet-sized).
Professional leaders can:
- endorse teacher practising certificate applications (you can also delegate endorsement responsibility to senior staff in your setting)
- submit mandatory reports
If you have not recently updated your contact information in Hapori Matatū, we recommend you do so. This will allow our team to contact you as soon as possible.
You'll need an Education Sector Logon (ESL) to log in into Hapori Matatū. See the section below to find out how to get one. If you submit an application and have not heard from us, check your spam and promotion folders before getting in touch with us.
We recommend Google Chrome for the best experience using Hapori Matatū.
Please apply to renew your practising certificate online in Hapori Matatū | Online Community.
Learn about the fee and levy for registration and certification.
What happens if your practising certificate expires
If your practising certificate expires while the Council is processing it, you can continue to teach lawfully for up to 10 days (20 half days) in a year. If your application hasn't been processed beyond this, you can apply for an 'extension to teach'. Read more under Requesting an extension to teach.
If you apply after your practising certificate has expired, a late fee charge of $50.00 will be charged in addition to the practising certificate fee and levy if:
- Your renewal application form is submitted after your practising certificate has already expired; or
- You don’t have a practising certificate or Limited Authority to Teach (LAT), and you are currently employed in a teaching position in New Zealand that requires one.
What happens if you can't meet the requirements
If you don't currently meet the requirements for your practising certificate type, there are several options available for you to continue teaching.
If you've completed less than two years of uninterrupted teaching, or even no teaching at all in the last five years, we'll consider a range of other factors to determine whether you can deliver safe, high-quality teaching.
You can find more information under Renewing a practising certificate after a period of absence.