Insights

Where Canada’s talent gets stuck.

For governments and regulators: how many internationally educated nurses are waiting in Ontario, and where in the licensing process they stall.

active international applicants living in Ontario, not yet registered with CNO
7,957
of 14,298 active applicants living in Ontario
Source: CNO: Applicant statistics, as of September 1, 2026
nurses registered after the Supervised Practice Experience Partnership (SPEP)
6,738
of 8,406 who applied since it launched
Source: CNO: Applicant statistics, as of September 18, 2026
months: CNO’s own guideline for registering nurses educated outside Canada
~12
Source: College of Nurses of Ontario (CNO)

Provinces

LiveComing soonOntario (CNO) is live. Each new province is a new pathway file plus expert review.

Where applicants stall

Illustrative data

Share of applicants still moving at each requirement

  1. Education assessed100%
  2. Application submitted88%
  3. Language requirement80%
  4. Evidence of practice62%
  5. Transition to practice57%
  6. Jurisprudence exam54%
  7. NCLEX-RN44%
  8. Police check40%
  9. Registered36%

To make this real, the platform needs anonymized counts of applicants at each requirement, by month, from each regulator.

Built for the FLMM credential recognition platform recommendations, Fall 2026.

Back to the start