The CFAT Was Replaced: What Canadian Armed Forces Applicants Sit Now
The Canadian Forces Aptitude Test was replaced by the SEAF in October 2024. What the CFAT measured, what applicants sit now and how to prepare.
If you have searched for CFAT practice, most of what you found describes a test the Canadian Armed Forces no longer sets. In the words of the Department of National Defence: “In October 2024, the CAF replaced the Canadian Forces Aptitude Test, a multiple-choice written test, with the Scored Employment Application Form (SEAF).” Here is what the CFAT was, what Regular Force applicants complete now, and what is worth preparing instead.
What changed, and when
Candidate timelines on the army.ca forums tell the same story: one 2025 officer applicant’s checklist simply reads “CFAT: Changed to SEAF”. The Auditor General’s report is the fullest official account if you want the background.
What the CFAT was
For anyone holding an old score or an old study guide: the CFAT was 60 four-option questions in three timed sections, taken in order under supervision at a Canadian Forces Recruiting Centre, latterly on a computer, in English or in French as the TAFC.
There was no calculator, scrap paper was provided, and wrong answers cost nothing. Older guidance gave Problem Solving 30 minutes rather than 45. Scores did not expire. You could rewrite at least a month after your first sitting, and a second rewrite needed proof of an academic upgrading course; the most recent score counted, not the best. Each occupation family set its own minimum as a percentile against other applicants, and the score also fed the competitive ranking for each occupation.
What applicants complete now
The Scored Employment Application Form (SEAF)
An online questionnaire of 20 to 30 minutes about your life so far: school and further education, work, sport and fitness, community activity and awards. The forces.ca How to join page says it evaluates “achievement orientation, physical fitness and athletics, teamwork and leadership, realistic expectations/person-job fit, and well-roundedness”. You receive the link at step 3, sign in with your service number, and have a two-week window; if you find you are missing some information, you can leave and come back on the same device. Your answers are facts about you, and the CAF verifies what you submit against your documents and background checks.
The TSD-PI
The Trait Self Descriptor Personality Inventory is, in forces.ca’s words, “a 30-minute personality inventory” whose results let recruiters “further assess and rank applicants”. Every applicant completes it alongside the SEAF.
How to prepare instead
- Gather your documents before you open the SEAF link. forces.ca names your resume, degrees, diplomas and certificates with their transcripts, and any academic, athletic or extracurricular awards.
- Train for the FORCE fitness test and get ready for the medical and the interview, the steps that follow on the How to join page.
- Research the occupations you choose. Selection is competitive within each occupation, and forces.ca encourages applicants to learn the roles they are applying for and how their own experience relates to them before the interview.
Who might still meet the CFAT
Nothing official settles this. The Auditor General did not audit the Reserve Force, and 2025 Reserve candidate timelines on army.ca list the fitness test, medical and interview with no CFAT. A CAF instruction on component transfers, last modified in February 2025, still lists “CFAT testing (for any career action)” as a recruiting centre task, which may be text that has not caught up. If a recruiter does ask you to sit the CFAT, the format above is the last one published, and it is worth asking them directly what the sitting involves.
Aircrew selection was always separate
Pilots, Aerospace Control Officers and Air Combat Systems Officers go on to two days of computer-based testing at the Canadian Forces Aircrew Selection Centre in Trenton, about seven hours in all, including psychomotor tasks with a joystick and foot pedals. It was never part of the CFAT, and the RCAF’s candidate guide, updated in January 2026, still describes it. We do not simulate it: it needs the centre’s own equipment and its content is not published.
If you are applying to the federal public service rather than the forces, the Public Service Commission’s tests belong to a different organisation and changed in 2025 too: see the new PSC tests explained and our Public Service Commission practice tests. Applying to another country’s forces? The UK’s Defence Aptitude Assessment and the ADF’s Job Opportunities Assessment are both still in use.