Consultation on proposals to increase our registration fees

The consultation on registration fees has closed.

On 28 April, the Council approved an increase in the registration fees for the first time in 11 years.

From October – subject to Parliamentary approval – the main fee will increase by the equivalent of £1.92 per month or £23 annually, from £120 to £143 per year (before tax relief).

Due to inflation since the NMC last increased the fees, there has been a 28.8% loss in the real value of the fees, with a resultant loss of £186m of income up to the end of March.

As a result of freezing the fees, the regulator has had to start funding its vital and expanding workload by drawing down on its reserves – and posting substantial deficits.

Its reserves haven fallen from £101m in March 2024 to around £49.6m now. They are projected to fall to £15.9m in March 2027, if the fees do not increase.

Council recognised that many of the respondents who took part in the NMC’s consultation on its plans were clear about the ongoing financial pressures facing nurses, midwives and nursing associates today. However, it also could not ignore that the regulator is now posting substantial deficits on an annual basis.

Council also noted that, while most respondents to the NMC’s consultation opposed an increase in the fees, they also agreed that the regulator should continue to invest in improvements:

Better education quality assurance, ensuring new professionals are well prepared
Stronger and clearer professional standards, reflecting modern practice
Faster, fairer Fitness to Practise processes, reducing stress and delay
Regulatory fairness, embedding equity, diversity and inclusion to eliminate bias
Modern digital services, making it easier to interact with the NMC.

We consulted on the fees that nurses, midwives and nursing associates pay. This consultation was open for 12 weeks from 3 November 2025 to 26 January 2026.

This was a 12-week public consultation on proposals to raise our registration fees for the first time in 10 years. Our proposals would raise the main registration fee by the equivalent of £1.92 per month.

Being mindful of cost-of-living pressures, we have not raised this fee for the last decade. While it was well intentioned, the freeze has had a profound impact on the finances of the NMC, with our income contracting by 28% in real terms, in comparison to where we would have been if the fee had kept pace with inflation.

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

We created this consultation document (Cymraeg) which sets out all the changes we are proposing to the fees. We highly recommend reading this before responding to the consultation.

Why we need to make this change

At the same time as freezing our fees, our responsibilities have increased significantly, and the complexity of our work has also 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 nursing and midwifery 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.

Our proposal for increasing the fees

It is because of this backdrop that we are proposing to increase our fees – which is a decision that we have not taken lightly.

We are proposing to:

Raise our main registration fee by the equivalent of £1.92 per month
This would mean a rise from £120 a year to £143 – if we had raised the current fee in line with inflation it would now be £166
For those registrants who pay by quarterly instalments this would be an additional £5.75 every three months.
If you pay basic rate tax at 20% and claim tax relief on your fee, this would mean your main 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 our other fees.

Investing in transforming our performance

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.