The Departure Board, Edition 6: Latin America hires on a different calendar, and TAPIF is open

By Katie Troy, Premier TEFL. Reviewed by Jess Jeffrey.

Mexico's school year started on 31 August. Chile, Peru, Argentina and Costa Rica start theirs in February or March, which is why the next four months matter if you want to teach in Latin America in 2027. In the same fortnight, France's TAPIF opened with a 15 February deadline, and JET's UK window closes in 19 days.

Where every window stands today

Latin America runs on a different school year

Most of the programs we track hire for a September start. Latin America mostly does not. South of the equator the school year opens in late February or early March, Colombia splits its schools across two calendars, and Mexico's year is already nearly seven weeks old. If you want a classroom in Chile, Peru, Argentina or Costa Rica in 2027, the contract, the documents and the visa all have to land before a start date that is about four months away.

We are not printing a hiring season for any of these countries, because no ministry publishes one. What the calendars do tell you is the order of work. A school that opens in March needs its teachers contracted before then, and three of these countries make you start the visa from outside the country, so the paperwork has to be under way before you fly.

The visa is the slow part, and most of it starts at home

Every one of these countries treats paid teaching on a tourist entry as unauthorized work. The routes for a hired foreign teacher, from each government's own pages:

None of the official requirement pages we read for Mexico, Chile or Peru lists a university degree as a legal condition of the visa. Employers can still ask for one, and many do. The good news on documents is that all six countries, and the United States, are parties to the Hague Apostille Convention, so a US degree or FBI check needs one apostille rather than a chain of embassy stamps. The FBI's Identity History Summary costs $18, and the State Department apostilles a federal document for $20, with mailed processing of up to five weeks. Our Paperwork Desk has the full chain.

What governments publish is the floor, not the pay

No ministry in the region publishes a pay scale for private language academies, so we will not print one as fact. What each government does publish is the legal minimum wage, which is the lowest a full-time contract can pay. Treat these as a floor to check an offer against, nothing more.

The floor matters most in Argentina and Peru, where it has moved this month. Peru's rose from 1,130 to 1,230 soles on 1 October, and Argentina's rises every month through April. If an offer quotes a fixed peso figure for a year, ask how it is reviewed.

Fulbright's Latin America awards, for next time

The 2027-28 Fulbright competition closed on 6 October, so this is planning information for the following cycle, whose dates are not out yet. It is also the only teaching stipend in the region that a public body publishes in full.

Chile is not on Fulbright's list of English Teaching Assistant countries for this cycle. Two other routes you may read about elsewhere are not running either. Chile's English Opens Doors program says it has not been able to reactivate its full-time international volunteer scheme, and its current online workshop role is unpaid. The most recent call for the Colombian Ministry of Education's foreign English teacher program that we can find on the ministry's site dates from 2017. If either reopens, it goes on the board.

For the country detail behind this section, our Mexico guide, Colombia guide and Costa Rica salary and visa guide go further.

TAPIF is open, and it has a deadline

France's teaching assistant program opened on Thursday 15 October as Villa Albertine said it would, and for the first time this fall we can print a closing date. Villa Albertine says the 2027 to 2028 cohort is open until 15 February 2027. The application portal shows the form ending at 5am on Tuesday 16 February with no time zone given, so treat the 15th as the deadline and do not plan around the extra hours. There is a $149 application fee.

The terms have not changed: up to 12 hours a week across up to three schools, seven months from October to April, for 1,010.67 euros a month gross, about 810 net. That is roughly $1,137 gross and $911 net at the ECB rate for 16 October. You need to be a US citizen or permanent resident aged 20 to 35, with three years of higher education by departure and B1 French. Four months is a comfortable window, which is exactly why people leave it late.

JET: 19 days for UK applicants, 27 for everyone else

UK applicants close on 5 November, and the embassy says late applications will not be accepted. Canadian applicants close on Friday 13 November at 3pm EST. US applicants close the same day at 11:59pm Hawaii time, which is 4:59am Eastern on Saturday 14 November. US interviews are in late January and results in April.

A note on our last issue. We printed the Canadian and UK deadlines on 30 September, and an internal check afterwards could not read either official page, so we went back to both. JET Programme Canada's apply page gives Friday 13 November 2026 at 3pm EST, and the Embassy of Japan in the UK gives 5 November 2026. Both dates stand. Canada calls this its 2026-2027 application cycle, which is the same intake US applicants know as JET 2027.

Pay is unchanged: 4.02 million yen before tax in the first year, according to CLAIR, which is about $25,440 at the ECB rate for 16 October, or roughly $2,120 a month.

EPIK: a correction to the pay line

Korea's spring intake is still open with no closing date, and EPIK's own timeline puts interviews and document checks between October and January. We have been printing EPIK's pay as 2.1 to 2.8 million won a month. That bottom figure belongs to Level 3, and EPIK's salary page says the education offices are not currently hiring at Level 3. The lowest rate a new teacher can be hired at today is Level 2, at 2.2 million. So the main scale now reads 2.2 to 2.8 million won, about $1,652 to $2,102 at the ECB rate for 16 October. Chungbuk also pays two higher levels, 2.9 and 3.0 million. The page is stamped as updated on 4 May 2026 for the Fall 2026 intake and has not been updated for spring.

Fulbright: what happens now

If you applied by 6 October, the next date is the end of January, when Fulbright says every applicant hears whether they have been recommended. Final decisions follow on a rolling basis between late February and June, depending on the country, and Fulbright says it cannot predict when a specific award will be decided. There is nothing to submit in the meantime, which makes it a good time to line up a backup.

What should you do in the next fortnight?

Get qualified before the southern school year starts

A teacher hired for a February or March start in Latin America will usually be asked for a TEFL certificate, and four months is enough time to finish one. The 120 Hour Online TEFL Course is the standard entry qualification and most people complete it in four to eight weeks. If you want more weight on paper, the 180 Hour Level 5 TEFL Diploma is a regulated qualification. You can compare everything on our accredited TEFL courses page.

Catching up? Issue 005 covered JET's opening and Fulbright's final week, and issue 004 the document work that decides an application before it opens.

Sources and method: school calendars are from Mexico's Secretaría de Educación Pública, Chile's Ministerio de Educación, Costa Rica's MEP and Colombia's MinEducación circular of 9 October 2026. Visa routes are from Chile's Servicio Nacional de Migraciones, Peru's Migraciones, Mexico's Instituto Nacional de Migración and Foreign Ministry consulates, Colombia's Cancillería and Argentina's Dirección Nacional de Migraciones. Apostille membership is from the Hague Conference status table. Minimum wages are from Mexico's CONASAMI resolution in the Diario Oficial of 9 December 2025, Colombia's Decreto 0159 of 2026, Chile's Dirección del Trabajo, Peru's Decreto Supremo 015-2026-TR and Argentina's Resolución 4/2026 in the Boletín Oficial. Fulbright award details are from each country page on the Fulbright US Student Program site, and its notification timeline from its competition and selection page. TAPIF is from Villa Albertine and its application portal. JET deadlines are from JET Program USA, JET Programme Canada and the Embassy of Japan in the UK, and JET pay from CLAIR. EPIK is from its salary and benefits page and application timeline. FBI and State Department fees are from fbi.gov and travel.state.gov. Conversions use the European Central Bank reference rates of 16 October 2026 (1 euro to 1.1253 US dollars, 177.82 yen, 1,499.01 won and 20.6871 Mexican pesos), Colombia's TRM of 3,170.46 pesos, Argentina's BCRA wholesale reference rate of 1,514.57 pesos and Peru's BCRP interbank rate of 3.428 soles for 15 October. All checked 17 October 2026.

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