Registering in New Zealand: Doctors and Allied Health Professionals (2026)

Doctors and allied health run on different systems

New Zealand regulates health professions under one Act but through separate authorities. Doctors register with the Medical Council of New Zealand. Physiotherapists, medical radiation technologists, occupational therapists, dietitians and the rest each have their own board. Nurses register with the Nursing Council — covered in our NCNZ guide.

What they share is that New Zealand is small, its shortages are concentrated outside the main centres, and a job offer usually comes before or alongside registration rather than after it.

Doctors: the comparable health system pathway

This is the route most UK, Irish and Australian-trained doctors use, and it involves no exams. To qualify you need an acceptable primary medical qualification and at least 33 months of clinical practice in the past 48 months, at 20 hours a week or more, in one or more of the health systems the Council recognises as comparable — a list of around 29 countries that is reviewed and added to.

Your practice also has to have been in the same or a similar area of medicine, at a similar level of responsibility, to the New Zealand post you are applying for. That last condition catches people: a doctor whose recent experience is in a different specialty to the job on offer may not qualify on this pathway even with the hours.

The pathway leads to provisional general registration, which means working under supervision at first. Documents are verified at source through EPIC, you will need a certificate of professional status issued within the last three months from every regulator you have held registration with, and there is an identity interview.

Doctors: the other routes

• NZREX Clinical. The Council's own clinical examination, for doctors not eligible under another pathway. It is an OSCE sat in New Zealand, with limited sittings each year and applications that open and close on fixed dates.
• PLAB. Doctors who have passed PLAB 1 and 2 within the last five years can use that as their route, which makes the UK a practical stepping stone to New Zealand.
• Vocational (specialist) registration, assessed by the relevant New Zealand college against the local training standard.
• The NZREX primary care pathway, which since 2025 has been placing overseas-trained doctors into a structured programme — six months hospital-based, then 18 months in community primary care — as a route into general practice. It is being expanded across districts.

Allied health: profession by profession

There is no single allied health regulator. Each profession has its own responsible authority — the Physiotherapy Board, the Medical Radiation Technologists Board, the Occupational Therapy Board and others — and each runs its own assessment of overseas qualifications before issuing an annual practising certificate.

The pattern is consistent even though the detail is not: your qualification is assessed against the New Zealand standard, you evidence recent practice and good standing from your current regulator, you meet the board's English requirement, and you hold a practising certificate that renews annually. Boards differ on whether an equivalent overseas qualification is accepted outright or needs a supervised period, so check your board's specific criteria early — that single decision determines your timeline.

Visas and the Green List

Several health occupations sit on New Zealand's Green List, which is the mechanism that makes the country competitive: some roles offer a straight-to-residence pathway, and others a work-to-residence route after a qualifying period. Registered nurses have been the headline beneficiaries, and a number of medical and allied health occupations also appear. Green List settings are adjusted periodically, so check the current list for your exact occupation rather than a recruiter's summary.

The Accredited Employer Work Visa is the standard employer-sponsored route where the Green List does not apply. In either case, registration or eligibility for registration is what makes the visa work.

The honest view

New Zealand pays less than Australia for most health roles and the cost of living in Auckland and Wellington is not low. What it offers instead is a shorter and simpler registration process for doctors from comparable systems, a genuine residence pathway for shortage occupations, and a scale of health system where clinicians often report more autonomy. For care workers it is the weakest of our four destinations — the Green List routes are aimed at registered professions, and Australia and Ireland are the realistic options there.

Frequently asked questions