NMC consultation on registration fee increase closes on Monday

Nurses have just a few more days to have their say on the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s (NMC’s) plans to increase its annual registration fee for the profession before its consultation closes next week.

The NMC has been running a 12-week consultation on proposals to raise its annual registration fee from £120 to £143 per year – equivalent to £1.92 a month.

Those wanting to contribute to the consultation, which is open to professionals on the register as well as the public, have until 23.59pm on Monday 26 January to do so.

Nurses, midwives and nursing associates have been encouraged to share their views before the NMC Council makes its decisions in the spring of 2026.

Under the proposed increase, those on the NMC register would pay an extra £1.92 per month, equivalent to £23 a year. Those paying quarterly would pay an additional £5.75 every three months.

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For registrants who pay basic rate tax and claim tax relief, the annual fee would effectively increase to £114.40 – around £1.53 more per month.

When the news was announced towards the end of 2025, the regulator explained the rise was needed to maintain essential regulatory services after a decade-long fee freeze and to support ongoing improvements at the NMC.

It claimed that if it had increased the annual registration fee in line with inflation over the last decade, it would now stand at £166.

The decision to consult on the rise was approved in an NMC Council meeting in October, with proposals first being revealed by Nursing in Practice.

In November, the NMC suggested that registration fees accounted for ‘around 97%’ of its income and enables the regulator to ‘protect the public, maintain confidence in the professions and uphold standards’.

And it said that by freezing the fee for the last 10 years, the NMC had ‘imposed on ourselves a cut in fee income in real terms of more than 28% over that period’.

The regulator said this would be ‘equivalent to foregoing’ around £180m in income since 2015 to March 2026.

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And it suggested it was having to ‘use up reserves’ for its day-to-day running costs. In 2023–24, it spent £1.1m more than it brought in through income, the NMC claimed.

At the time of the consultation launch, NMC chief executive and registrar, Paul Rees, said the fee freeze was ‘well-intentioned’ but has had a ‘profound impact’ on the NMC’s finances.

He reiterated that the increased funding would be used to pay for ‘the ongoing transformation of the NMC’, including its work to improve fitness to practise timeliness, ‘fix’ its culture and improve education and standards.

‘We encourage everyone to share their thoughts on the proposed fee changes through the consultation – whether you are a nurse, midwife or nursing associate on our register, a student, a member of the public or someone involved in the wider health and social care sector,’ he said in November 2025.

In October 2025, the NMC announced its plans to cut almost 150 jobs at the regulator as part of other cost-saving measures.

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The NMC has been introducing a series of cultural changes following a review into the regulator by Nazir Afzal and Rise Associates which in 2024 exposed a ‘dangerously toxic culture’ in which bullying, racism and burnout are putting nurses and the public at risk.

Earlier this month, the regulator announced plans to upgrade the technology used in its fitness to practise hearings in a bid to minimise delays caused by technical issues and ensure a ‘more reliable’ service.

A separate consultation on proposed changes to student nursing education standards is to be launched by the NMC in the coming months.