118+ Free TEF Canada Practice Questions

TEF Canada (Test d'évaluation de français pour le Canada) is a French-language proficiency test developed by le français des affaires — CCI Paris Île-de-France. It has been recognised by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) since 2002 as an approved language test for immigration and citizenship applications, including Express Entry, the Canadian Experience Class, and Provincial Nominee Programs.

Each skill is scored on its own scale — listening 0–360, reading 0–300, writing 0–450, speaking 0–450 — and mapped to CEFR levels (A1–C2) and Canadian NCLC levels 1–12. There is no single pass mark; the required score depends on your immigration programme. The Federal Skilled Worker Program requires NCLC 7 or higher in each skill, which is also the threshold for the French-language category and for 25 or 50 extra CRS points. Enter the values from the "Équivalence ancien score" column of your certificate — IRCC does not accept the separate "Score / 699" column.

Both are IRCC-accepted French tests from different bodies: TEF Canada is administered by le français des affaires — CCI Paris Île-de-France, while TCF Canada is administered by France Éducation international (FEI). TEF Canada scores each skill on its own scale (listening 0–360, reading 0–300, writing and speaking 0–450); TCF Canada scores listening and reading on a 100–699 scale and writing and speaking on a 0–20 scale. TEF Canada has 40 listening and 40 reading questions; TCF Canada has 39 of each. In both tests the listening audio is played only once. Candidates can choose either test for IRCC applications.

It depends on the application. For a Canadian immigration application you must take all four tests — Compréhension de l'oral, Compréhension des écrits, Expression écrite and Expression orale — and all four must be sat on the same day for the certificate to be recognised by the Canadian authorities. For a Canadian citizenship application, only two tests are compulsory: Compréhension de l'oral (listening) and Expression orale (speaking), at NCLC 4 or higher.

You can sit TEF Canada as many times as you wish, but an official waiting period (délai de carence) of 20 days applies between two sittings of the same test, across all TEF versions — registering inside that window cancels the registration. Results are transmitted within 1 to 10 business days of the test date through a secure online vault, and the attestation is valid for two years from its issue date, so a re-sit can realistically be completed within about a month.

Le français des affaires publishes official sample papers and practice resources on their website at lefrancaisdesaffaires.fr under the TEF Canada section. These include sample listening and reading items that reflect the real test format and difficulty progression from A1 to C2.