2025 Registration Fees

At its May 28 meeting, CMTO’s Board approved holding 2025 registration fees unchanged (General Certificate $915, Inactive $457.50). For more highlights from the May Board meeting, please see this TouchPoint article.

Massage Therapy Act Regulation Updates

In February and June 2024, the Ontario government released CMTO’s updated Registration Regulation and updated General Regulation under the Massage Therapy Act, 1991. These longstanding regulations needed to be updated to reflect changes to the societal expectations of regulated health professionals and the bodies that govern them. Both regulations came into effect on July 1, 2024.

Below is a summary of the key changes in both regulations. In addition, CMTO has developed a Professional Misconduct Guide to supplement the regulation and make it easier to understand.

Registration Regulation

• Massage Therapy education required for registration
  • The Registration Committee, or a body approved by them, will have the authority to approve Massage Therapy education programs for the purposes of registration with CMTO.
  • This authority comes into effect on January 1, 2027, 30 months after the updated regulation comes into force.
  • CMTO has long been a supporter of the accreditation standards and process of the Canadian Massage Therapy Council for Accreditation (CMTCA). The Registration Committee has determined that accreditation with CMTCA will be required for a program to be approved for the purposes of registration with CMTO.
• Practice hours for maintaining a General Certificate
  • Previously, Registered Massage Therapist/Massage Therapist (RMTs/MTs) with a General Certificate were required to provide a minimum of 500 hours of direct client care within the previous three years to maintain their certificate. This requirement has been changed to 500 hours of actively practising the profession in the previous three years. This will make it easier for educators to maintain their General Certificate as the requirement to practise the profession includes time spent teaching in an approved Massage Therapy education program.

Professional Misconduct Section of General Regulation

• Additional categories of abuse
  • Categories of abuse considered professional misconduct have been expanded from verbal and physical abuse of a client by an RMT/MT to include psychological and emotional abuse.
  • Examples of this include harassing or intimidating a client.
• Increased responsibility for sexual abuse prevention
  • RMTs/MTs must take reasonable steps to prevent sexual abuse of clients by anyone working under their direction or supervision.

Clarifying responsibilities around recordkeeping and billing

• RMTs/MTs cannot permit, counsel, or assist any person who is not a member of the profession to hold themselves out as a member. An example of this could include an RMT/MT permitting an unregulated person or suspended RMT/MT to offer Massage Therapy and/or issue RMT/MT receipts.
• RMTs/MTs must take reasonable steps to ensure that any receipts, accounts, or charges issued in their name or with their registration number are fair and accurate. This includes appropriate oversight of clinic staff preparing receipts on the RMT/MT’s behalf.
• It is considered professional misconduct to sign or issue a receipt for professional services unless it is the member who provided the professional services. This ensures registrants are avoiding billing practices that could facilitate billing fraud.

For more information, please review the Professional Misconduct Guide.

In addition to the changes above, there are various administrative updates to the Registration Regulation and Professional Misconduct section of the General Regulation.