Published 23 September 2026 · §12.7(h)
The order of precedence
Where more pairs apply than the trial admits, this is the order in which they are taken. §12.7(h) requires it to be published before applications close and applied as published. This is that publication.
The order
| Applied | The test | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| First | How near the trade is to losing its last teaching pair, by reference to the remaining practitioners the applicants report and their ages. An estimate or a range counts; “I don’t know” is an ordinary answer and is not held against an application. | Question 9 of the first-stage form |
| Then | Whether any federal occupation code reaches the trade. A trade that no federal series counts takes precedence over one that is counted. | The Trade Register’s occupation-code crosswalk |
| Then | Whether the trade is one that others depend on — admitted on the ground that a listed trade cannot be carried on without its output. | §20.12 |
| Cap | Not more than two of the trial’s transmissions are taken from any one group of the Trade Register, whatever the order above would otherwise produce. | §12.7(h) |
What it does not turn on
Stated because these are the things applicants reasonably assume are being scored, and none of them are.
- What would be lost if the practice stopped. It is recorded as part of the account and decides nothing. It is the question the field almost universally asks and the least discriminating question in the corpus, because it rewards fluency rather than practice.
- How well the application is written. Any answer may be given as a voice memo or a short video instead. What is assessed is the practice, not the applicant’s facility with a form.
- The size, prestige or budget of any organization behind the pair. A pair with no organization at all is not disadvantaged; the question is optional and an empty answer is ordinary.
- Whether the trade is one anyone has heard of. All 133 terms in the Trade Register are eligible on identical terms, and the register has no second class.
A rule about a cycle, not a mark on a trade
§12.7(i) governs this and is worth quoting in its own words: precedence is a rule about a cycle and not a mark on a trade. A trade not reached in a trial is recorded as nothing in the Trade Register, and its standing, its identifier and its terms of enrollment are unchanged. There is no waiting list, no ranking published, and no trade is described as less endangered for having been passed over in one cycle.
Applications that are not reached are told so, and told why, against this published order.