Relinquishing your licence to practise

This guidance is to help doctors who want to relinquish their licence to practise, but retain registration without a licence to practise.

If you relinquish your licence to practise you will not be able to (amongst other things):

• work as a doctor in the National Health Service (NHS) or in private practice
• prescribe drugs, the sale of which is restricted by law
• sign certificates required for statutory purposes (death certificates, etc.)
  

These privileges are restricted to doctors who hold both registration and a licence to practise.
For more information about this please see the complete list of the legal privileges and obligations of registration.

Important information about the annual retention fee

Relinquishing your licence to practise is free of charge. You will still have to pay an annual retention fee but this is lower than the fee for registration with a licence to practise.

Read more information about current fees

Your annual retention fee is reduced from the date you relinquish your licence. We will automatically calculate and send any refund which is due to you. 

How to relinquish your licence

Your registration without a licence to practise will begin from the date we receive notification from you, unless you have chosen a future date which can be up to 28 days from the date of your application (please note that you cannot choose a date in the past).

To relinquish your licence you will need to log in to our secure web portal which is called GMC Online.

Existing users

If you already have an account, you can log in here and make your application in the My Registration section.

Log in (opens in a new window).

New users

If you have a GMC reference number, but have never logged into to your online account and do not have log in details, you can activate your account here.

Activate your account (opens in a new window).