FAQs - Consultation on proposals to increase registration fees

We are the independent regulator of more than 853,000 nurses and midwives in the UK and nursing associates in England. Our role is to protect the public and maintain confidence in the nursing and midwifery professions. We do this by setting and upholding standards of proficiency.

Our role and remit are set out in the Nursing and Midwifery Order: The Nursing and Midwifery Order 2001. This is the legislation that governs our work.

Yes – Nursing and midwifery professions are regulated professions. You cannot legally practise as a nurse, midwife or nursing associate without being on the NMC register.  

We are proposing to raise the annual registration fee for the first time in 10 years – by the equivalent of £1.92 per month, from £120 to £143. If we had raised the current fee of £120 per year in line with inflation it would now be £166.

If you pay basic rate tax at 20% and claim tax relief on your fee, this would mean the annual registration fee effectively becomes £114.40 per year – the equivalent of £1.53 more per month if you already claim tax relief.

We are also proposing to raise the initial registration fee for internationally-qualified applicants from £153 to £182 - an increase of £29 a year.

We are also proposing to increase all other registration fees, which include the fees for evaluating international qualifications and fees for adding additional qualifications to the register.

The consultation documents set out all the changes we are proposing to the fees and is available here 

The consultation is open for 12-weeks from 3 November 2025 to 26 January 2026.

When the consultation closes, we will publish an analysis of the responses in spring 2026. This will include our Equality Impact Assessment.

Our Council will consider all the feedback before a decision is taken on the next steps.

We welcome all responses via our survey. You can find the survey on our consultation webpage

You can respond as an individual or on behalf of an organisation or a group. We encourage everyone to share their thoughts.

Taking part in the consultation survey is optional. You can skip any section of the consultation not relevant to you. The exception is the 'About you' questions where we use this information to ensure we have heard from a diverse and broad range of people. This includes an option for people to prefer not to say.

The survey takes around 15 minutes to complete.

If you have any questions or need the survey in a different format, please email consultations@nmc-uk.org

The consultation is open to everyone.

All data shared (with the exception of the name of your organisation if you are not responding as an individual) will be aggregated and anonymised.

Your personal data will be collected and stored in line with our privacy policy.

Fees are paid by nurses, midwives and nursing associates to the NMC. There are different types of fees that nurses, midwives and nursing associates are required to pay to join and stay on the NMC register.

The fees paid by nurses, midwives and nursing associates account for about 97% of our income and enable us to protect the public and support your professions.

Being mindful of cost-of-living pressures, we have not raised the annual registration fee for the last 10 years.

While it was well intentioned, this freeze in the fee has led to a 28% real-terms reduction in our income, in comparison to where it would have been if the fee had kept pace with inflation.

This means that up to the end of March 2026, we have lost £180m in potential income.

At the same time as freezing our fees, our responsibilities have increased significantly, and the complexity of our work has grown:

• The NMC now regulates a larger number of nursing and midwifery professionals than ever – with the Register having increased from 686,782 in 2015 to 853,707 in 2025. This includes nursing associates, a new profession in England since 2018.
  
  
• We are now the Regulator of 1 in 50 working-age people in the UK – with our Register of health professionals being the biggest in the UK and one of the biggest in the world.
  
  
• We oversee 99 approved education institutions offering 2,527 programmes to more than 115,000 students.

We receive an ever-growing number of monthly Fitness to Practise referrals. In April 2024, the rolling average of referrals stood at 499 per month. This figure has risen to an average of 574 per month – an increase of 15%.

As a result of freezing the fee, while investing in regulatory improvements and responding to growing demand at a time of high inflation, we are now having to use reserves to fund day-to-day activities.

In 2023–24, we spent £1.1m more than we brought in through income. Last year, we posted a deficit of £19m. This year, we are projecting a deficit of up to £27m.

To keep the fee increase as low as possible, we are also cutting our own costs wherever we can. In October, we proposed reducing our headcount by 145 roles (10%). We also plan to reduce our non-staff costs by £3.1m per year.

We are proposing to increase all our registration fees.

Fees related to the Test of Competence, including the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) and Computer Based Tests (CBT) that are required as part of the international registration process, are not included in our proposals. This is because these fees are set by the independent providers of these services.

Any changes to fees – if approved by our Council – would not take effect before 1 October 2026. 

We believe that a flat fee structure is a fairer and more transparent way to spread the cost of professional regulation. The cost of regulation is the same for everyone on the NMC register and our fee remains one of the lowest fees set by a UK healthcare professional regulator.

The fees paid by nurses, midwives and nursing associates account for about 97% of our income and enable us to protect the public and support your professions.

The Nursing and Midwifery Order (2001) sets out how we are funded.

We do not receive any funding from the UK or devolved governments.

Nurses, midwives and nursing associates are not alone in having to pay a fee for registration. All other regulated healthcare professionals must pay an annual registration fee to work.

We use our income to protect the public, conduct our regulatory work and invest in improvements.

We are under new management and building a new NMC, with the aim of ensuring we become the strong and independent regulator that everyone wants to see.

As we transform our performance, we are investing in:

• Making Fitness to Practise faster and fairer
  
  
• Modernising the Code, revalidation and professional standards
  
  
• Assuring the quality and safety of education for nursing and midwifery students
  
  
• Embedding equality, diversity and inclusion in our regulatory processes, to better support the professions, and
  
  
• Improving technology and data to modernise the way we work.
  
  

• Our expenditure by function represents the operational costs of different business areas plus overheads, such as IT, finance, communications and HR, which have been allocated proportionally.

While there are differences in the types of fees and renewal periods, our annual registration fee remains one of the lowest fees set by any of the UK healthcare professional regulators:  

Regulator Current Registration Fee

To keep the fee increase as low as possible, we are also cutting our own costs wherever we can. In October, we proposed reducing our headcount by 145 roles (10%) and we are making further savings in non-staff costs by £3.1m per year.

At the same time as freezing our fees, our responsibilities have increased significantly, and the complexity of our work has grown:

• The NMC now regulates a larger number of nursing and midwifery professionals than ever – with the Register having increased from 686,782 in 2015 to 853,707 in 2025. This includes nursing associates, a new profession in England since 2018.
  
  
• We are now the Regulator of 1 in 50 working-age people in the UK – with our Register of health professionals being the biggest in the UK and one of the biggest in the world.
  
  
• We oversee 99 approved education institutions offering 2,527 programmes to more than 115,000 students.
  
  
• We receive an ever-growing number of monthly Fitness to Practise referrals. In April 2024, the rolling average of referrals stood at 499 per month. This figure has risen to an average of 574 per month – an increase of 15%.

Without the proposed increase, we would not have the means to move forward, which would leave us unable to meet our statutory obligations and protect the public effectively.

The rent of our headquarters at 23 Portland Place in London is £250 per year. We would not be able to get a building of this size for £250 per year anywhere else in the country.

Our other offices at 1 Westfield Avenue, London; 2 Stratford Place, London; and 10 George Street, Edinburgh, are important spaces for our staff to work in and are where we deliver fitness to practise work.

Our Council reviews the fees we charge every financial year.

We would not make any future changes to our approach to fees without running a consultation.

In future, we will consider making smaller, more frequent adjustments to the fees.

There are two options available to nurses, midwives and nursing associates.

The first is quarterly payments which spread the cost over the course of the year.

Currently, each quarterly payment is £30. Under the proposals, this would rise to £35.75.

More information is available on NMC online and on our website Paying your annual fee - The Nursing and Midwifery Council

If you're a UK taxpayer, you may be able to claim ‘tax relief’ on your annual registration fee.

You can claim for the last four years. Claims may only be made when you pay the fee yourself. Check the HMRC website to find out how to claim and the time limits for receiving tax relief on payments in previous years.

You can also claim tax relief for subscriptions to some professional bodies and trade unions if they are included on the list of approved professional organisations and learned societies.

Any proposed changes to the fees would not take effect until October 2026 at the earliest.

If you want to stay on the register during a period of leave, you will need to continue to pay your fee.

If you prefer, you can lapse your registration and then pay to begin the process of rejoining the register at a time that suits you.

More information is available here: Paying your annual fee - The Nursing and Midwifery Council

Currently, we do not refund any part of your annual registration fee if you decide to lapse your registration at any point during the year. We are also unable to offer a refund if you are removed from the register.

We are reviewing our refund policy and will communicate any updates that are made.

Information about our current refund policy is available here: Registration fee refunds - The Nursing and Midwifery Council

It’s important that you pay your fee on time, otherwise your registration will automatically lapse, and your entry will be removed from the register.

This means you won’t be able to practise until you’re readmitted to the register – this can take between two and six weeks.

Your payment is due by your fee expiry date. You can check your date in NMC Online.

Any changes to fees – if approved by our Council – would not take effect before 1 October 2026.