TL;DR

  • Teaching English online is one of the few remote careers you can enter without prior remote experience – the qualification is the entry ticket, and nobody asks whether you have worked from home before.
  • There is no single official TEFL accreditor, which is exactly why the sector attracts bad actors. Remote Work Europe has set out below how to check a provider before you pay.
  • Check the domain before you buy. Several TEFL businesses trade under near-identical names. Our partner for this guide is eTEFL Online Teacher Training, at eteflonline.com.
  • This guide is sponsored by eTEFL Online Teacher Training, whose Advanced Online Teacher Training programme is €390, with €20 off using the code RWE20.

Most routes into remote work have a catch-22 at the door: employers want people who have already worked remotely, and you cannot work remotely until somebody lets you. Teaching English online is one of the few that does not.

Nobody teaching a student in São Paulo from a kitchen table in Valencia is being asked whether they have used Slack before. The qualification is the entry ticket, and the work is remote by definition. That is unusual, and it is why Remote Work Europe readers ask about this route more than almost any other.

It is also a sector with a genuine cowboy problem, which we will come to – because knowing how to tell a real provider from a bad one matters more here than the choice of course.

eTEFL Online Teacher Training ✳️ **This guide is sponsored by eTEFL Online Teacher Training.** They paid for it to be written, and they have reviewed it for factual accuracy about their own programme. The editorial view is ours, including the parts that tell you how to check them.

Can you teach English online without a teaching background?

Yes – the standard industry requirement is a TEFL or TESOL certificate of at least 120 hours, not a teaching degree. TEFL stands for Teaching English as a Foreign Language; TESOL for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. In practice the terms are used almost interchangeably by employers and platforms.

That 120-hour figure is a convention rather than a law. It emerged because CELTA, the long-established in-person qualification run through Cambridge, runs to roughly that length, and the online sector standardised around it. Most reputable platforms and language schools will ask for 120 hours as a minimum, and many will take it as sufficient on its own.

What this means practically is that the barrier is a few hundred euros and a few weeks, rather than a career change. For somebody with the underlying capability – you speak English well, you can explain things, you have the patience for a beginner – the gap between where you are and being employable is genuinely small.

It is worth being honest about the other side of that. A low barrier means a crowded field, and the people who do well are the ones who get past “certified” to “actually any good in a classroom”.

What qualifications do online English teaching platforms actually ask for?

Most platforms ask for three things: a 120-hour TEFL or TESOL certificate, near-native or fluent English, and a quiet space with a reliable connection. A degree is asked for by some employers but by no means all, and the freelance platforms generally do not require one. It is more often a visa requirement for teaching in-country than a condition of teaching online from home.

Beyond the minimum, the things that separate a teacher who fills their timetable from one who does not are usually practical: experience with real learners rather than theory, a profile that reads like a person rather than a CV, and a specialism.

Specialisms matter more than people expect. General conversational English is the most crowded end of the market. Exam preparation – IELTS, Cambridge – and Business English are where the rates improve, because the learner has a deadline and a reason to care.

How do you check a TEFL provider is legitimate?

There is no single official accrediting body for TEFL, which means any provider can call itself accredited – including by an accreditor it invented. This is the single most important thing to understand before you spend money in this sector.

Five checks, in order of how much they tell you:

  1. Does the accrediting body exist outside TEFL? Recognised bodies – Ofqual, TQUK, the CPD Group, the SQA, the DEAC in the US – accredit training across many industries and can be looked up independently. An “accreditor” whose only visible presence is a handful of TEFL websites is a warning, not a credential.
  2. Can you find the provider on the accreditor’s own register? Not a badge on the provider’s homepage – the accreditor’s list, with the provider named on it.
  3. Are the reviews verified? Platforms that verify purchase, such as Trustpilot or Reviews.io, are worth more than testimonials on a provider’s own site. Look for specifics about the course. Vague praise is cheap to buy.
  4. Are you being asked to pay in order to get a job? A training provider selling training is normal. Somebody advertising a job, rejecting the qualification you already have, and then selling you their own certificate with a “guaranteed referral” is running a different business. Never pay to be hired.
  5. Check the domain, not just the name. Several TEFL businesses trade under near-identical names, and a company with a good reputation can share a name with one that has not earned it. Before you enter card details, confirm you are on the site you meant to be on.

That last point applies directly here. Our partner for this guide is eTEFL Online Teacher Training, at eteflonline.com. Similar names exist in this sector and are separate businesses.

A worked example of check two

eTEFL Online is accredited by the CPD Group. We did not take that from their website – we looked them up on the CPD Register, where “eTEFL Online Teacher Training” appears by name as provider #779727 with five active accreditations. The 120-Hour TEFL course was accredited in May 2025, and a 30-Hour Business English course was added in March 2026. Each accreditation carries a renewal date – 2027 and 2028 respectively – which is how the register shows that a provider’s status is current rather than historic. It is the provider’s accreditation that comes up for renewal, not your certificate: a qualification you have earned does not expire.

That is what a real accreditation looks like: a third party, findable independently, with dates on it. You can and should do the same check on any provider before you pay them.

What is in eTEFL Online’s Advanced programme?

eTEFL Online’s Advanced Online Teacher Training programme is €390 and bundles the certification, supervised practice with real students, and career mentorship into one purchase. There is no upgrade path to buy afterwards, which in a sector fond of upsells is worth saying plainly.

What is included:

ComponentWhat it is
120-Hour TEFL certificationThe industry-standard qualification, CPD Group accredited
30-Hour Teaching PracticumSupervised teaching with real learners, not role-play
Four live Career Mentorship sessionsSmall-group help (4–6 people) with your profile, applications and first students
IELTS, Business English and Cambridge coursesAll three included – IELTS and Cambridge are exam prep, Business English a specialism in its own right

Three things about that list are worth drawing out.

The practicum is the part most online courses do not have. A great many TEFL certificates are earned entirely by reading and answering questions. Standing in front of a real learner who has not understood you is a different skill, and it is the one an employer is actually buying.

The mentorship is aimed at the gap that strands most newly-qualified teachers – having the certificate and no idea how to convert it into paid work. Four live sessions covering your profile, your applications and getting your first students is a different proposition from a PDF of job-hunting tips.

It runs along two tracks rather than one: getting you interviews with online schools, and getting you set up to work for yourself. Those are different skills with different paperwork behind them, and most people entering this work end up doing some of both.

No prior teaching experience is required, and the whole thing is designed to fit around an existing life – which for most of our readers means around a job they have not left yet.

eTEFL Online says it has been running since 2016, with over 1,000 graduates and more than 5,000 learners currently enrolled across its courses.

eTEFL Online Teacher Training

eTEFL Online – Advanced Online Teacher Training

The 120-hour TEFL certification, a 30-hour practicum with real students, four live career mentorship sessions, and all three specialist courses – in one programme at €390.

Readers of Remote Work Europe get €20 off with the code RWE20.

→ See the programme

What graduates say

“I highly recommend this course. It is comprehensive and covers everything you need to know about teaching English as a second language. The support from the team was great and the modules are informative and easy to follow.” – Sue Uken

“I’ve genuinely been enjoying my experience with the eTEFL [Online] course so far – it’s been such a positive and reassuring journey. The course is well-structured, easy to follow, and strikes a great balance between theory and practical application.” – Jessica Jonker

What do you need to sort out on the admin side in Europe?

If you are teaching online from an EU country and being paid by platforms or private students, you are almost certainly self-employed – and that has consequences your certificate will not mention. This is the part that catches people out, and it is where a TEFL course ends and the rest of your working life begins.

In Spain, that means registering as autónomo before you invoice anybody, with a monthly social security contribution attached. Our guide to Spain’s autónomo rates for 2026 sets out what that actually costs, and freelancing through international platforms from Spain covers the VAT and invoicing side when your students or platforms are outside the country.

The details differ by country, but the shape rarely does: you register, you invoice, you pay contributions, and you keep records. Doing it properly from the first euro is far cheaper than fixing it later.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a degree to teach English online? Not always. Some employers ask for one; the freelance platforms generally do not. A degree is more commonly a visa requirement for teaching in a country than a condition of teaching online from your own home.

Is a 120-hour TEFL certificate enough? For most online platforms, yes. It is the industry convention and the usual minimum. Where courses differ is in what comes with the certificate – supervised teaching practice and career support are the parts that change your chances, not the hour count.

How long does a TEFL course take? Self-paced online courses are typically completed over several weeks to a few months alongside other work. Be sceptical of anything promising certification in a single evening.

Can I do this from anywhere in Europe? Yes, subject to having the right to live and work where you are. The teaching is online; the paperwork follows the country you are tax resident in.

How do I know a TEFL provider is not a scam? Check that the accrediting body exists independently of TEFL, find the provider on the accreditor’s own register, look for verified reviews, and never pay a fee in order to be given a job. The five checks above set this out in full.

Where this fits if you are looking for your first remote role

Teaching English online will not suit everyone, and it is not the only route in. If what you want is an employed remote role in the field you already work in, our work on remote gateway roles is a better starting point – those are the jobs where the experience you already have is the qualification, rather than remote experience you have not been allowed to get yet.

What teaching has that most routes do not is a clear, purchasable entry point and a short distance between starting and earning. For a lot of people that is the difference between a plan and a wish.

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