International Medical Graduates – important information

This guidance sets out our requirements for registration for International Medical Graduates (IMGs). You need to read this guidance if you are:

• A national of a country outside the UK, European Economic Area (EEA) or Switzerland who graduated from a medical school outside the UK

OR

• A UK national who has graduated from a medical school outside the UK, EEA or Switzerland

AND

• You do not have EC rights.

IMG doctors are eligible for two types of registration: provisional and full. If you have completed an acceptable internship either overseas or in the UK you will be eligible for full registration.

If you have not completed an acceptable internship you will be eligible for provisional registration. This type of registration is granted for the purpose of completing an acceptable programme for provisionally registered doctors but not further. In the UK, the acceptable programme for provisionally registered doctors is the Foundation Programme Year 1 (F1). Any practice undertaken outside an acceptable programme for provisionally registered doctors would be counted as technically unregistered practice and will not count as experience to move to full registration. 

Please note: to undertake any other posts, including Foundation Year 2, you must hold full registration. 

Please note: if you have completed an acceptable internship you are only eligible for full registration.

To obtain registration you will need to provide evidence of all of the following:

An acceptable Primary Medical Qualification

To be acceptable your primary medical qualification must have:

• been awarded by an institution listed in the Avicenna Directory (formerly the WHO Directory of medical schools) or otherwise accepted by us and be currently acceptable to the GMC. (Please note: we do not accept all primary medical qualifications that are listed in the Avicenna Directory. See below for more information)
  
  
• been awarded by an institution that has a physical address included in the Avicenna Directory (for those in the Avicenna Directory)
  
  
• been awarded after a course of study comprising at least 5,500 hours (or four years full time equivalent study)
  
  
• not involved a course of study undertaken wholly or substantially outside the country that awarded the primary medical qualification
  
  
• not involved a course of study undertaken wholly or substantially by correspondence.

For further information and details of qualifications that are not acceptable please read our guidance on acceptable primary medical qualifications (opens in a new window).

English language capability

This will normally be demonstrated byachieving the required results in the IELTS test: an overall band score of 7 and a minimum score of 7 in speaking and 6 in each of reading, writing and listening. Your IELTS test will only be considered valid for a period of two years.

In some circumstances you may be able to provide alternative evidence of your English language capability, please refer to our English language requirements (opens in a new window) guidance for further information.

Fitness to Practise

As part of your application you will be asked to complete a declaration of fitness to practise. It is important that you answer this honestly and provide further information for any question you answer ‘yes’ to. Please see our guidance on the declaration of fitness to practise (opens in a new window) for further information.

You will also be asked to provide details of your registration for all the medical regulatory authorities of any countries where you have practised or have held registration in the last five years.

Please note: we require details of each medical regulatory authority that you have been registered with, even if you have not practised under their jurisdiction.

We will need to see a Certificate of Good Standing (CGS) from each of the medical regulatory authorities that you have listed.

In cases where you are no longer registered, this may be known as a certificate of past good standing.

Certificates of Good Standing can take some time to arrive, please ensure you have all CGS before you apply for registration.

If you cannot get a Certificate of Good Standing then we may ask you for employers’ references from each employer that you have worked for in that country.

If you are unable to get a CGS or employer’s reference because you have not worked in the last five years we will ask for other evidence of your good standing. You will find more information on this in our application guidance as you apply for registration.

Knowledge, skill and experience

You will be asked to provide evidence of your medical knowledge and skill. This can be provided in one of four ways:

• A pass in the PLAB test
  
  For more information please see our PLAB Test guidance (opens in a new window) . A pass in the PLAB test is only valid for three years. You must have been granted registration by the third anniversary of your PLAB 2 exam or you will need to re-sit the PLAB test.
  
  
  
• An acceptable postgraduate qualification (PGQ)
  
  Details of the UK and international qualifications that we accept can be found in our acceptable PGQ guidance (opens in a new window). If your qualification is not on this list we will also accept a letter from a UK medical Royal College confirming that an international qualification is equivalent to its own qualification.
  
  
  
• Sponsorship by an approved sponsor
  
  The GMC has a list of organisations and individuals approved to sponsor doctors for the purpose of full registration. If your sponsor is not on this list then you cannot apply using sponsorship as evidence of your knowledge and skill. For further details please see our list of approved sponsors (opens in a new window).
   

• Eligibility for entry onto the Specialist Register
  
  You must have been found eligible to apply for specialist or GP registration by the Postgraduate Medical Education and Training Board (PMETB) (opens in a new window).
  

If you are applying for full registration you will also need to provide evidence that you have completed an acceptable internship. You will be asked to provide details of your pre-graduate or postgraduate internship. To be eligible for full registration you must have satisfactorily completed either F1 in the UK, or a period of pre-graduate or postgraduate clinical experience that provides an acceptable foundation for future practice as a fully registered medical practitioner. This will usually be referred to as an internship.

To be acceptable your internship must be either:

• A 12 month programme that includes a minimum of three months in surgery and three months in medicine

OR

• A programme of at least 10 months duration that includes:
  
  
• a minimum of three months in surgery and three months in medicine
  
  AND
  
  
• an additional period of study of up to two months in order to prepare for an exit exam
  
  AND
  
  
• successful completion of all exit exams.

For your first 12 months of full registration you will be required to work within an approved practice setting. This means that you will only be able to work in settings that have been approved by us as having in place sufficiently supportive systems and quality assurance systems aimed at improving quality.

For more information on approved practice settings, please see our guidance on approved practice settings (opens in a new window).

The guidance you are reading is to help you understand the steps that are involved in applying for registration before you decide to work in the UK. You can find step by step instructions on applying for registration in our applying for registration guidance (opens in a new window). You should not attempt to complete your application without reading the registration guidance thoroughly to make sure you have all the documentation you need. If you submit your application before you have all the documentation you need this will delay the processing of your application.