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Can you move to Canada as a nurse? Getting licensed, the immigration routes that fit this job, and your first steps, from official pages.
You can, but in Canada it takes two separate permissions from two different authorities. The right to immigrate, for example as a permanent resident (PR, with the right to live in Canada permanently), comes from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), the federal immigration department. The right to work as a nurse is a licence, and it comes from the nursing regulator of the province or territory where you will work. Job Bank, the federal jobs site, says that for registered nurses, registration with a regulatory body is required in all provinces and territories. Neither permission gives you the other: IRCC does not license nurses, and a nursing licence is not a visa. Because each regulator sets its own first steps, the province you choose decides where you start.
Canada sorts jobs with the National Occupational Classification (NOC). Immigration programs use it to identify your job and its TEER level, which says how much training the job usually needs.
TEER 1: jobs that usually need a university degree
TEER 2: jobs that usually need a college diploma or apprenticeship training of 2 years or more, and supervisory jobs
Express Entry is the online system Canada uses to invite skilled workers to apply for permanent residence. Some of its rounds invite only people with recent work experience in a set group of jobs, called a category. This job is in:
In Canada, you need a licence to work in this job, from the regulator of the province or territory where you plan to work.
A national body for qualifications earned outside Canada: it assesses them or sets the entry exam for this job. The regulator in your province decides whether you go through it.
Nursing regulators are usually called colleges, and Job Bank lists them by province. The same page says registered psychiatric nurses, a separate profession, must register in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia and the Yukon.
The first step is a check of your nursing education, and who does it depends on the province. Job Bank points nurses educated abroad to the National Nursing Assessment Service (NNAS), a document-checking service for registered nurses (RN), licensed practical nurses (LPN) and registered psychiatric nurses. It says the process is different in Quebec, Yukon, Nunavut and the Northwest Territories. The College of Nurses of Ontario (CNO) instead asks for verification by an approved assessment service (WES, ICAS or ICES) before you apply, while still accepting NNAS expedited (faster) reports. On its regular route for nurses educated abroad, the BC College of Nurses and Midwives (BCCNM) sends applicants to Inspire Global Assessments, which checks your identity, English, education and nursing skills through a competency assessment. Nurses educated or first registered in Australia, New Zealand, the UK or the US follow separate instructions.
Both colleges then use the same licensing exams: the NCLEX-RN for registered nurses and the REx-PN for practical nurses, whom Ontario calls registered practical nurses (CNO guide, BCCNM). CNO also asks for a jurisprudence exam on Ontario's nursing law, a transition to practice course, and nursing practice within the past three years. BCCNM tells applicants on its regular route that they will likely need extra education, from a single course on the Canadian health system to a full re-entry or bridging program.
Regulators set their own language rules too. CNO accepts evidence such as recent nursing practice in English or French, or tests including CELBAN, an English test designed for nurses, and says its minimum scores may differ from the ones you need for immigration.
Express Entry is the online system IRCC uses to manage PR applications for its skilled worker programs. You create a profile, IRCC scores it with its points system, the Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS), and in each round of invitations it invites the highest-ranking eligible candidates to apply. Our Express Entry guide explains the steps, and our CRS calculator estimates your score.
Some rounds invite only candidates with recent work in jobs IRCC has chosen, and its list for health rounds includes registered nurses, registered psychiatric nurses and licensed practical nurses. What that changes for you: in such a round, IRCC invites the top-ranking candidates who fit that list, so you compete with them rather than with every Express Entry candidate. To count, you need at least 12 months of full-time work (or the same amount part-time) in one listed job within the past three years, in Canada or abroad, and the months need not be continuous. Our guide to category rounds covers how they work.
Provinces and territories can also nominate people who want to become permanent residents, which means putting them forward to IRCC; our provincial nominee guide explains how. Some provincial routes name nurses directly:
In Ontario and British Columbia, yes, under a limited licence once most requirements are met. CNO's Temporary Class lets applicants practise while they finish the requirements for the General Class, its standard licence. You need, among other things, the jurisprudence exam, recent nursing practice, proof of your language skills and of your authorization to work in Ontario, and a job offer from an approved employer such as a public hospital or a long-term care home. You cannot join after failing the registration exam twice, and you work under the title "RN (Temp)", or "RPN (Temp)" for practical nurses.
BCCNM may grant provisional licensure to applicants who have met every other requirement and are waiting to write the exam or for its result. You work as an "RN (provisional)" and can keep working after one failed attempt. BCCNM also assesses most nurses educated abroad for both the LPN and the RN licence in one application, so you can choose to start work as an LPN while you complete the RN steps, and it strongly recommends having the permits you need to work legally in Canada before you apply.
Only sometimes, so compare the lists before you book. For Express Entry, IRCC accepts CELPIP-General, IELTS General Training or PTE Core in English, or TEF Canada or TCF Canada in French, and it does not accept the IELTS One Skill Retake. CNO accepts both the General Training and Academic versions of IELTS, so a General Training result could serve both purposes if it reaches CNO's own minimum in every section and was taken within the two years before you apply to CNO. BCCNM's approved English tests are CELBAN, IELTS Academic, OET and PTE Academic, and none of them appears on IRCC's Express Entry list, so a result taken for one will not count for the other. Our guide to accepted English tests compares the immigration options.
Letting an agent run your licensing application. CNO says you must complete and submit your application yourself. Allowing an immigration consultant, an exam preparation service or anyone else to sign in to your account, answer questions or submit information as if they were you may be treated as misrepresentation, which can lead to refusal of registration or cancellation of a licence already issued. BCCNM likewise warns against agencies offering to complete applications for a fee and says the person applying must complete and submit the application. Getting advice is fine; handing over your login is not.
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