How to become a registered doctor in the UK: the routes, and what the journey actually costs
For most international medical graduates without a UK, EEA or Swiss degree, the route to a UK licence to practise is the PLAB test — a two-part exam that alone costs £1,319 from April 2026, plus £481 to register. A small minority qualify a different way instead, through an acceptable postgraduate qualification, sponsorship, or a recognised equivalent. Either way, passing is not the finish line: what you can then work as depends on whether you have completed an internship.
“How do I become a doctor in the UK” is not really one question. The GMC recognises several different routes to a licence to practise, and which one applies to you depends on where you qualified and what you already hold. Get the route wrong and you can spend months preparing for the wrong exam. This is the decision layer that sits before the detail — what the routes actually are, which one most people end up on, and what the whole journey costs from a standing start.
There is no single path — find out which route is yours
The GMC itself is direct about who needs what: if you graduated from a medical school outside the UK, the European Economic Area or Switzerland, you’ll probably need to take the PLAB test. “Probably” is doing real work in that sentence — PLAB is how the majority of international medical graduates demonstrate they meet the GMC’s requirements, but it is not the only route on the books.
The routes to full registration, in outline: a pass in the PLAB test; an acceptable postgraduate qualification (typically a relevant Royal College membership examination, alongside the postgraduate training the GMC requires); sponsorship by a GMC-approved sponsor; or a recognised equivalent qualification. Each has its own eligibility rules, and they are not interchangeable shortcuts — which one is open to you depends on your specialty, your qualification, and your training history. If you already hold a postgraduate qualification in your specialty, check its acceptability with the GMC directly before assuming you need PLAB at all.
For the clear majority of readers of this page, though, the practical answer is PLAB. The rest of this post is written for that path.
For most people, that means PLAB — two parts, one set of clocks
PLAB is a two-part exam. Part 1 is a written test of 180 single-best-answer questions, sat in three hours at centres in a number of countries as well as in the UK. Part 2 is a 16-station objective structured clinical exam, run only at the GMC’s own assessment centre in Manchester. You must pass both before you can apply for registration with a licence to practise, and the test is now compliant with the Medical Licensing Assessment — the same core content map that UK medical graduates have had to pass as part of their degree since the 2024–25 academic year.
The exact fees, sitting dates, English-language thresholds, the four-attempt limit, and the three separate two-year clocks that govern how long a pass stays valid are covered in full, with every figure sourced to the GMC, in our dedicated PLAB post.
Passing PLAB is not the finish line
PLAB decides whether the GMC will register you. It does not decide what job you can then take — that depends on which type of registration you are granted, and for most international medical graduates the deciding factor is whether you have already completed an internship. Without one, a PLAB pass leads to provisional registration, which the law restricts to an approved Foundation Year 1 post and nothing else. With one, you can apply directly for full registration.
The full registration ladder — provisional, full, specialist and GP registration, the internship fork that decides between them, and the NHS’s own guidance on the recruitment fees that are always a scam — is covered in our post on registration and recruitment scams.
What the GMC side of the journey costs
| Stage | Cost |
|---|---|
| English test (IELTS Academic or OET Medicine) | Varies by country and test centre — the GMC does not set this fee |
| PLAB 1 | £283 |
| PLAB 2 | £1,036 |
| Registration with a licence to practise | £481, and the same £481 again every year to remain licensed |
That is the GMC’s side of the ledger only. It does not include travel and accommodation for a Manchester-only PLAB 2 sitting, any clinical attachment you take before applying for jobs, or your UK visa. Figures are current as of 23 September 2026; PLAB fees stated here take effect from 1 April 2026 — check the GMC’s own fee pages on the day you book, not this page.
The timeline is set by clocks, not by how hard you study
Three separate two-year clocks run through this process: your English certificate’s validity, the gap between passing PLAB 1 and PLAB 2, and the gap between passing PLAB 2 and having your registration approved — not merely applied for. Miss any one of them and evidence you already hold stops counting. Plan the whole sequence against these clocks from day one, not just the exam dates.
Where we fit, honestly. We file UK ETAs and nothing else. We are a private agency — not the GMC, not the NHS, not the UK Government, and not immigration advisers. Nothing on this page is medical, legal or immigration advice. The GMC decides your registration; check its own pages for the route, qualification and fees that apply to you, and take advice from a regulated UK immigration adviser for the visa side.
Checked against the official sources below on 23 September 2026.