The Florida CG-10 educator certification application is the form you file with the Florida Department of Education’s Bureau of Educator Certification to be evaluated for a Florida Educator’s Certificate. You submit the form with official transcripts from every college you attended, a nonrefundable $75 fee for each subject area you want evaluated, and fingerprints for a criminal background check.1Legal Information Institute. Florida Administrative Code Annotated R 6A-4.0012 – Application Information Once your package is complete, the Bureau takes roughly seven to ten weeks to review it and send back an Official Statement of Status of Eligibility telling you whether you qualify for a Temporary or Professional Certificate. Gathering everything before you open the form is what keeps that timeline honest.
What to Gather Before You Open the Form
The CG-10 itself asks for your Social Security Number, current home address, and an email address the Bureau will use for correspondence. It also asks you to list every college or university you attended, with dates of attendance and any degrees earned. Pull this information together before you start. Guessing at dates or forgetting an institution is the most common reason an application stalls.
You will also need an official sealed transcript from every postsecondary school you list on the form. Each transcript must bear the institution’s seal and the registrar’s signature, and the institution has to send it directly to the Bureau. Photocopies and student-issued copies are not accepted.1Legal Information Institute. Florida Administrative Code Annotated R 6A-4.0012 – Application Information If any of your degrees come from schools outside the United States, the transcript must include an English translation.
Order transcripts early. Some registrars take weeks to process a request, and the Bureau will not begin evaluating your application until every transcript you listed has arrived. A single missing transcript is enough to hold up the entire review.2Florida Department of Education. Step 1: Completing Your Initial Application Package
Choosing Temporary or Professional on the Form
The CG-10 asks you to pick which type of certificate you are applying for. There are two main choices, and which one fits depends on how far along you are in Florida’s certification requirements.
The Temporary Certificate is for applicants who meet the subject-area knowledge requirement but have not yet finished all professional preparation steps. It is valid for five school years and is nonrenewable, giving you a window to finish remaining requirements, such as professional education coursework or a teaching demonstration, while already working in a classroom.3Florida Department of Education. Certificate Types and Requirements
The Professional Certificate is Florida’s highest educator credential. It is also valid for five school years, but it is renewable if you complete the required continuing education credits before it expires.3Florida Department of Education. Certificate Types and Requirements If you already hold a bachelor’s degree, have completed a state-approved teacher preparation program, and have passed the required Florida subject area exam, you may be eligible to apply directly for the Professional Certificate. Most first-time applicants still finishing professional preparation requirements start with the Temporary Certificate.
Entering Your Subject Areas
The CG-10 has a section where you identify each subject area you want the Bureau to evaluate. Every subject has a code assigned by the Department of Education, such as Elementary Education, Biology, Mathematics, or Music. You enter the code for each area you want evaluated, and the Bureau only looks at the ones you list. If you skip a subject you intend to teach, it will not appear on your certificate, and adding it later means paying another $75 and waiting for a separate evaluation.4Florida Department of Education. Certification Application Fee Schedule
You can show subject-area competence in several ways: holding a degree with a major in the subject, completing a qualifying set of courses with at least a 2.5 GPA, or passing the corresponding Florida Teacher Certification Examination subject area test. If you plan to teach several subjects, list each code on the form. Just remember the $75-per-subject fee stacks quickly when you request several areas at once.
Submitting the Application and Paying the Fee
You have two ways to send in the CG-10: online through the FLDOE’s Online Licensing Service portal, or by mail on paper.
Online Submission
The Online Licensing Service lets you fill out the application, upload documents, and pay the processing fee in a single session.5Florida Department of Education. Apply The portal accepts major credit and debit cards, and you can log back in at any time to check on your application. Online submission is faster, because paper applications still have to go through mail handling and manual data entry before anyone looks at them.
Paper Submission
If you prefer to mail the form, send it with a check or money order made payable to the Florida Department of Education to:
Florida Department of Education
Bureau of Educator Certification, Room 201
325 West Gaines Street
Tallahassee, Florida 32399-04001Legal Information Institute. Florida Administrative Code Annotated R 6A-4.0012 – Application Information
Fees
All certification fees are nonrefundable, and the Bureau will not start evaluating your application until payment clears.
- Initial certification: $75 per subject area requested.
- Upgrade from Temporary to Professional: $75 (covers all subjects on the current Temporary Certificate).
- Adding a subject to an existing certificate: $75 per subject.
- Removing a subject: $20 per subject.4Florida Department of Education. Certification Application Fee Schedule
Fingerprints and the Background Check
Every applicant has to pass a criminal background check before the Bureau will issue a certificate. Your fingerprints go to both the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the FBI for statewide and federal records checks.6Florida Department of Education. Step 4: Submitting Fingerprints For Certification
How you get fingerprinted depends on your employment situation. If you are employed by a Florida public or charter school, your district’s personnel office handles the fingerprinting as part of hiring.6Florida Department of Education. Step 4: Submitting Fingerprints For Certification If you work at a private school or are not yet employed, you visit an approved Livescan vendor service provider, who submits your prints electronically and takes your photograph at the same visit. If no Livescan location is nearby, you can have your prints captured on an FBI FD-258 fingerprint card at a local police station and mail the card to an approved provider for electronic conversion.7Florida Department of Education. Fingerprint Processing Instructions
Watch the timing. If you pay for fingerprinting before being hired by a Florida public school, you may need to be re-fingerprinted through the district’s system once employed, which can mean paying a second processing fee. The FLDOE flags this on its fingerprint instruction page, so if a public school job is on the horizon, consider waiting until the district can run your prints.
Florida law bars certification for anyone on the department’s disqualification list, anyone registered as a sex offender, and anyone convicted of a disqualifying offense under Section 435.04(2), Florida Statutes, which covers a broad list of felonies including offenses against children, sexual offenses, drug trafficking, and violent crimes. An out-of-state conviction counts if the equivalent offense would be disqualifying in Florida.8The Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 1012.315 – Disqualification From Employment
What You Get Back: The Statement of Status of Eligibility
Once the Bureau finishes reviewing your complete package, you receive an Official Statement of Status of Eligibility, often shortened to SOE. The SOE is not your certificate. It is a determination letter that tells you one of two things: either you are eligible for a Temporary or Professional Certificate, or you are not yet eligible and need to complete additional requirements.9Florida Department of Education. Step 2: The Official Statement of Status of Eligibility
The SOE stays valid for three years. If it finds you eligible for at least a Temporary Certificate, the certificate itself is issued once you are employed as a teacher in Florida and your fingerprint results have been processed. If the SOE lists unmet requirements, it includes a customized list showing exactly what you still need: specific coursework, a particular exam, or a professional education program. Read that list carefully; it is your roadmap to the certificate.
If You Already Hold a License in Another State
Holding a valid standard teaching license from another state does not let you skip the CG-10. Through the NASDTEC Interstate Agreement, Florida accepts credentials from educators who completed an approved preparation program or hold a current certificate in a comparable subject area from a participating state, but you still submit the CG-10, pay the $75-per-subject fee, and complete fingerprinting and the background check.10National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification. Interstate Agreement Reciprocity does not cover every credential; temporary or provisional certificates from other states are often excluded, and Florida may require you to pass the FTCE subject area exam or complete specific coursework within a set period before issuing a full Professional Certificate.