Evaluating your qualification

Pay fee and submit for evaluation

When you're ready to submit your eligibility application, you’ll need to pay the £140 qualification evaluation fee.

This fee is non-refundable, even if we determine that you're not eligible to apply or you don’t gain registration. 

Before you do this, review your application and make sure everything is correct to avoid any delays.

Verifying your information

Once you've received your completed application and payment, we'll contact your regulator to verify your registration or that your qualification would allow you to register with them in the relevant profession.

If your regulator is unable to confirm this, for example if you have not completed a registration examination, we may not be able to accept your eligibility application.

If you haven't registered, we'll also contact your education institution to verify your qualification.

When we might need more information

We may need to ask you for more information if any of the details you provide are unclear or appear incomplete, or if you or your verifiers provide conflicting information.

If we need more information at any point, we'll email you.

Evaluating your qualification

We can only evaluate your qualification once we’ve received the information we need from your regulator and/or training institute.

Once we have everything we need, we'll aim to assess your qualification within 14 days of their response.

Tracking your application status

Your application tracker in your NMC Online account will update automatically to show what stage your application is at.

Please do not email us asking for an update on your application as this can lead to delays.

If you do not meet our eligibility criteria

If we cannot confirm your eligibility, you won't be able to proceed with your registration. We'll email you to let you know and then close your application.

If you meet our eligibility criteria

Once we've confirmed your eligibility, we’ll email to let you know and ask you to complete your registration application.

Depending on the qualification you have, we may also ask you to complete a Test of Competence as part of your application.

This is so we can be sure that you have the skills and knowledge to deliver the high standards of care expected from everyone on our register.

Who needs to take the Test of Competence?

New regulations passed by the UK Government following the UK's departure from the EU allow for certain EU general nursing and midwifery qualifications to be recognised up until the end of 2022.

If you have a relevant European qualification that meets the requirements for automatic recognition, we’ll recognise your qualification and you won’t need to take the Test of Competence.

This applies even if you are not an EU national, but you have a relevant European qualification.

Check if your qualification is on the list of European qualifications that meet the requirements for automatic recognition.

If you do not hold a relevant European qualification, you will need to take a Test of Competence as we cannot recognise your qualification.

Find out more about the Test of Competence.