Last reviewed: 9 October 2026

Home › Mortgage help › Canada › Quebec's AMF mortgage broker framework

How Quebec regulates mortgage brokers: the AMF's courtier hypothécaire framework

Our overview of Canadian mortgage broker regulation notes that Quebec licenses mortgage brokers — called courtiers hypothécaires — through the Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), the same integrated regulator that licenses Quebec insurance representatives. Quebec's path to that AMF certificate has its own structure, and it's a relatively recent one.

Oversight moved to the AMF in 2020 — it wasn't always there

Before May 1, 2020, mortgage brokerage in Quebec was supervised by the Organisme d'autoréglementation du courtage immobilier du Québec (OACIQ) — the province's real estate self-regulatory body, not a financial-services regulator. A 2018 amendment to Quebec's Act respecting the distribution of financial products and services moved supervision of mortgage brokerage to the AMF, effective May 1, 2020, requiring anyone practicing as a courtier hypothécaire to hold an AMF-issued certificate rather than an OACIQ credential. This is a materially different — and more recent — regulatory history than Ontario, BC, or Alberta, where mortgage brokerage has long sat with a dedicated or integrated financial-services regulator rather than a real estate body.

Getting certified: training, an exam, then a supervised probationary period

A prospective courtier hypothécaire must first complete specialized training through an AMF-recognized training body under the Mortgage Brokerage Qualification Program (MBQP) curriculum, then pass the AMF's mortgage brokerage sector exam. Passing the exam doesn't itself produce a certificate — the candidate then completes a supervised probationary period at a mortgage brokerage firm, under a designated supervising representative, before applying to the AMF for the certificate that actually authorizes practice. This supervised-probation structure has no direct equivalent in Ontario's, BC's, or Alberta's licensing paths, none of which require a formal post-exam internship before full licensing.

The probationary period itself is being changed, effective September 14, 2026

Under the AMF's current rules, the probationary period runs a fixed 12 weeks at a minimum of 28 hours per week — 336 hours in total. Effective September 14, 2026, the AMF is restructuring how that same 336-hour total can be scheduled: the fixed 12-week, 28-hour-per-week structure is replaced with a more flexible window of up to 24 weeks, capped at 40 hours per week rather than held to a fixed weekly floor, and the maximum number of trainees a single supervising representative may oversee (where supervision is that person's primary responsibility) rises from five to ten. Probationary-period applications submitted before September 14, 2026 continue under the old fixed-schedule rules; applications submitted from that date get the new flexibility. The total training-hour requirement itself isn't being reduced — only how it can be scheduled and supervised. A reader checking a Quebec mortgage broker's credential around this date should be aware the underlying training-path mechanics changed then, even though the certificate requirement itself did not.

Continuing education after certification

Once certified, a courtier hypothécaire must complete mandatory continuing-education modules on a recurring AMF professional-development cycle — the current cycle runs May 1, 2026 through April 30, 2028 — a different cadence again from Ontario's annual April-to-March licensing cycle and Alberta's annual RECA renewal (see our companion explainers on Ontario's continuing education requirement and Alberta's licensing tiers, linked below).

Ontario licences run on an annual licensing cycle (April 1 to March 31); see Ontario’s continuing education requirement for how continuing education fits in.

Correction (9 October 2026): this page originally described Ontario's FSRA licensing as a two-year cycle. Ontario Regulation 409/07 sets a one-year licensing cycle (April 1 to March 31); the sentence has been corrected. See the updates log.