In Alberta, mortgage professionals are licensed by the Real Estate Council of Alberta (RECA) under the province's real estate legislation, not by a separate mortgage-only regulator. The front-line licence class is Mortgage Associate — someone licensed to work under a Mortgage Brokerage's Managing Broker, as distinct from a Mortgage Broker licence that carries brokerage management responsibility.
This roadmap runs through six steps: meet RECA's baseline eligibility, complete RECA's pre-licensing education, pass the licensing exam, clear the criminal record check, get hired by a licensed brokerage, and submit your final licence application — then a first-week checklist once you're active.
Step 1. Meet RECA's baseline eligibility before you enrol
Before spending time or money on coursework, confirm you meet RECA's entry requirements: you must be at least the age of majority, legally eligible to study and work in Canada, and able to demonstrate the education and English-language proficiency RECA expects of applicants. You'll also need government-issued identification on file and will eventually need a clean (or explainable) criminal record check, since that's assessed as part of licence suitability, not just a formality — see our note on what suitability checks actually look at across provinces.
Confirm current specifics with RECA: exam pass standards, number of attempts, and course fees change periodically — always check RECA's own pre-licensing education page for the numbers in effect when you enrol rather than an older third-party summary.
Step 2. Complete RECA's mortgage pre-licensing education
RECA's mortgage pre-licensing curriculum is built around two courses, typically taken in sequence: Fundamentals of Mortgage Brokerage, which covers the foundational legal and industry knowledge, and Practice of Mortgage Brokerage, which builds toward the applied, deal-level side of the work. Both are delivered through education providers RECA has approved — there's more than one option, so it's worth comparing formats (self-paced online versus scheduled classes) before enrolling.
For a closer look at how the courses are structured and what each one actually covers, see our breakdown of the RECA mortgage education program.
Step 3. Pass the RECA mortgage associate licensing exam
Each course is paired with its own exam, and both need to be passed before you can move on to the application stage. Treat the two courses as sequential checkpoints rather than a single hurdle — RECA expects genuine competency at the Fundamentals stage before you move into the more applied Practice material.
Timing detail worth planning around: once you complete a course, there's a limited window in which to sit its exam — don't let a busy month push you past that window. Confirm the exact timeframe on RECA's site when you register.
Step 4. Submit your criminal record check early, not late
RECA requires a criminal record check as part of every new licence application, and it's assessed as part of your overall suitability for licensing — not simply a box to check. Processing takes time, and a record with unresolved items can add weeks to your timeline while RECA reviews it. Start this step as soon as you begin your coursework rather than after you've passed both exams, so it isn't the thing holding up an otherwise-ready application.
Step 5. Get hired by a RECA-licensed mortgage brokerage
A Mortgage Associate licence in Alberta doesn't exist independently — you must be engaged by a licensed Mortgage Brokerage, as an employee or as an independent contractor, and that brokerage's Managing Broker takes on responsibility for supervising your activity. This makes brokerage selection one of the higher-leverage decisions in this whole process; use our brokerage interview scorecard to compare support, lender access, and commission structure across offers rather than defaulting to the first one.
This is also a good moment to weigh joining an established team versus building solo from day one, since it shapes how quickly you'll see your first closed file.
Step 6. Submit your licence application, then plan your first week
With both course exams passed, your criminal record check cleared, and a brokerage confirmed, the final licensing application goes to RECA for review. Once approved, your licence activates and you appear in RECA's public registry.
- →Confirm your first RECA renewal date — Alberta licences run on an annual cycle that expires September 30 each year, renewed through myRECA, so mark that date the day you get licensed.
- →Get your brokerage's lender portal and file-management logins working before your first application, not during it.
- →Set up a simple system to log any continuing or re-licensing education as you take it — see our continuing education tracker for a format that works across renewal cycles.
From here, the work shifts from studying for RECA to building a pipeline — see how Treadstone supports Canadian mortgage professionals once the licence is active, and pair this roadmap with our first-30-days launch checklist.