Foreign Medical Graduate Examination (Screening Test)(FMGE)

About the exam

About FMGE

The FMGE exam is the screening test an Indian citizen or Overseas Citizen of India with a medical degree from outside India has to pass, unless an exemption applies, before a medical council in India will register them. It is marked pass or fail against a fixed line, not ranked.

The National Board of Examinations in Medical Sciences (NBEMS), which conducts it, has scheduled an additional sitting for 31 October 2026. Applications for that session opened at 5:00 PM on 11 September and will close at 11:55 PM on 25 September 2026, according to the FMGE October 2026 Information Bulletin.

NBEMS conducts FMGE under the Screening Test Regulations, 2002. The NBEMS FMGE examination page quotes the rule behind it: an Indian citizen or Overseas Citizen of India holding a primary medical qualification from a medical institution outside India, who wants provisional or permanent registration with a medical council on or after 15.03.2002, has to qualify the screening test. The same page limits NBEMS's role to conducting the test, publishing the result and handing it to the National Medical Commission (NMC) and all State Medical Councils.

Passing does not register anyone by itself. The October 2026 bulletin states that appearing in FMGE confers no automatic right to provisional or permanent registration, which depends on the criteria of the National Medical Commission Act, 2019 and the repealed Indian Medical Council Act, 1956, and that State Medical Councils decide eligibility for registration when a candidate applies for it.

The schedule changed in 2026. The FMGE June 2026 Information Bulletin described the test as conducted biannually. An NBEMS notice dated 28-08-2026 then announced that NBEMS "has decided to conduct the Foreign Medical Graduate Examination (FMGE) thrice every year, instead of biannually", and the October 2026 bulletin records the June 2026 session as held on 28-06-2026 before saying NBEMS "shall now be conducting FMGE (Screening Test) three times in a year".

At a glance

FMGE highlights

Calendar

Important dates

The October 2026 session runs to this timetable. Only the application window takes new candidates, and it closes at 11:55 PM on 25 September 2026; the later edit window registers no new application and accepts no fee.

Session names and exam months have drifted apart. The June 2025 paper was sat on 26 July 2025, as the FMGE June 2025 result notice records, and the December 2025 paper did not take place until 17 January 2026, per the FMGE December 2025 result notice.

The 28-08-2026 notice also moves a sitting already on the calendar: the FMGE earlier scheduled for 09-01-2027 "shall be rescheduled to a later date in January/February 2027", with details to be notified in due course. NBEMS has not yet published dates for the sittings after that.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

The FMGE October 2026 Information Bulletin stacks several conditions, and a candidate has to meet each one that applies to their dates of admission and graduation.

Citizenship, Qualification and Documents

• Citizenship. Clause 4.1 of the bulletin admits citizens of India and Overseas Citizens of India, and clause 8.7 says that under the Screening Test Regulations an Indian citizen, NRI or OCI "alone" is eligible. The same clause then shuts out foreign nationals "other than Nepalese" who are not OCIs, and the upload list names the citizenship proof a Nepalese citizen provides: a Government of India photo ID such as a PAN card or driving licence. The bulletin does not reconcile the two, and it routes eligibility queries to the NBEMS Communication Web Portal.
• Recognised qualification. The primary medical qualification has to be confirmed by the Indian Embassy concerned as a recognised qualification for enrolment as a medical practitioner in the country where the awarding institution is situated.
• Result date. For October 2026, the result of the final examination must have been declared on or before 31-08-2026, with proof that the candidate passed every mandatory course; proof that fails to show both cancels the candidature.
• Documents in hand. Following an NMC recommendation of 22.01.2021 and Health Ministry approval of 09.03.2021, only candidates holding both the Eligibility Certificate (where applicable) and the provisional pass certificate or degree certificate may sit the test, per the October 2026 bulletin.

The Eligibility Certificate and NEET-UG

Which admission document applies depends on when the candidate joined the foreign course, under the rules the October 2026 bulletin sets out:

• An Eligibility Certificate issued by the NMC, or earlier by the Medical Council of India, is the default requirement.
• It is not needed for a qualification acquired before 15.03.2002, or for admission taken before 15.03.2002 or between 15.05.2013 and 03.01.2014, both dates included. A candidate admitted while the certificate was not required uploads an admission letter confirming the exact date of admission instead.
• For admission on or after May 2018, the candidate uploads a qualifying NEET-UG scorecard in place of the certificate, and the bulletin quotes a Gazette notification of 14.03.2019 keeping a NEET result valid for three years from its declaration.
• Every candidate is responsible for having met the Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 1997 at the time of joining: the MBBS admission age criterion and the minimum qualifying marks in Physics, Chemistry, Biology and English, with relaxed criteria for SC, ST, OBC and PwD candidates. Anyone who claimed the SC, ST or OBC relaxation needs a caste certificate issued at the time of admission.

Admission On or After 18 November 2021

The October 2026 bulletin decides eligibility for anyone admitted to their primary medical qualification on or after 18-11-2021 strictly under the NMC's Foreign Medical Graduate Licentiate (FMGL) Regulations, 2021, declares a candidate who breaches any provision of them ineligible, and says an FMGE certificate obtained by falsely claiming an earlier admission date will be revoked. It directs candidates to the NMC website for later updates to those regulations.

Regulation 4 of the NMC Foreign Medical Graduate Licentiate Regulations, 2021, as published in the Gazette of India ties permanent registration to a course of at least 54 months, a 12-month internship in the same foreign institution, English as the medium of instruction, the subjects in its Schedule I, and registration with the licensing body of the awarding country on par with that country's own citizens. Schedule I adds that the whole course, training and internship must be done outside India in that one institution, and completed within ten years of joining.

The same regulation also requires the graduate to have cleared "the National Exit Test or such other mandated test or tests conducted by the Commission". NExT itself is on hold: the NMC public notice of 13.7.2023 deferring the National Exit Test put it off on the Ministry's advice "till further directions from the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare", and names no date for it.

Two Special Cases

• Exempt from the test. A candidate with an undergraduate medical qualification from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom or the United States, who has also been awarded a postgraduate medical qualification in one of those countries and is recognised for enrolment as a medical practitioner there, does not have to qualify the screening test, according to the October 2026 bulletin.
• Qualifications from Pakistan. Under a Health Ministry letter dated 26.06.2023 quoted in the bulletin, a qualification acquired in Pakistan rules a candidate out unless they joined before November 2018, or joined later after obtaining Ministry of Home Affairs security clearance up to 13.04.2022, and results for such candidates are declared only after that clearance. Migrants from Pakistan who have been granted Indian citizenship need no further clearance, but upload their certificate of registration for citizenship.

Attempts and the Ten-Year Limit

Clause 5.7, in the scheme of examination of the October 2026 bulletin, places no restriction on the number of attempts, though a candidate who has qualified may not take FMGE again and any such later attempt is void. Annexure III of the same bulletin reprints an undated Medical Council of India press note describing three papers held twice a year and a "maximum of 3 chances"; the bulletin does not say how that note relates to clause 5.7.

A time limit comes from the regulator instead. NMC's Frequently Asked Questions dated 8 June 2026, which it describes as explanatory, say that a foreign medical graduate who took admission abroad after 2019 is "required to clear the FMG examination within 10 years from the date of admission", reading its public notice of 07.12.2023 with the Graduate Medical Education (Amendment) Regulations, 2019.

Step by step

Application process and fee

October 2026 applications go through the NBEMS website only, and registration fixes details for good. The FMGE October 2026 Information Bulletin locks the name, nationality, email ID, Aadhaar number and mobile number from registration, and the four test cities once the form is submitted. The name is entered as it appears on the primary medical qualification certificate, and a foreign national who holds an OCI card picks OCI as nationality.

What a session costs fell between the two 2026 bulletins. For October 2026 there is one fee for every applicant, and payment gateway charges come on top:

The gateway inside the form is the only way to pay, and the October 2026 bulletin lists UPI and credit or debit cards "issued by banks in India", plus whatever other modes the payment page shows. Once paid, the Rs 4,650 is locked in: it is not refunded, it does not move to a later sitting such as the one the 28-08-2026 notice pushed to January or February 2027, and absence on 31 October or a finding of ineligibility forfeits it. A second payment against the same application is the one exception: NBEMS returns the excess after the window closes, which the bulletin warns may take about two to three months.

The form asks for scanned copies of:

• the primary medical qualification degree certificate or provisional pass certificate, apostilled or attested by the Embassy of India in the awarding country, with the apostille or attestation belonging to that same document;
• proof of citizenship: a valid Indian passport (front and last page), an OCI card with the passport of the country of citizenship, or, for migrants, a certificate of registration for citizenship of India from the Ministry of Home Affairs;
• the Eligibility Certificate, admission letter or NEET-UG scorecard, whichever applies;
• a real-time photograph taken by the computer's webcam while filling the form, a recent photograph not more than 3 months old, and scans of the signature and left thumb impression, every image below 80 kb, as the bulletin's image upload instructions specify;
• a disability certificate or UDID card, only for a candidate asking for a scribe, compensatory time or both.

Candidates who failed an earlier session upload everything again. A defect in the documents themselves (the degree, its apostille or attestation, the Eligibility Certificate or admission letter, citizenship proof) can be put right only on the Online Deficient Document Submission Portal, which closes at 11:55 PM on 21-10-2026, according to the October 2026 bulletin. Documents handed in at the NBEMS office or sent by email or through the Communication Web Portal are not entertained, and a deficiency still open after that date makes the candidate ineligible, with the fee forfeited.

Before the exam

Admit card and exam day

Admit cards for the 31 October paper will be downloadable from the NBEMS website on 27 October 2026, and the FMGE October 2026 Information Bulletin tells candidates to keep a copy, since it will not be available after the result. A coloured printout goes to the centre, where the day is split into two parts:

The photo ID has to be an original, unexpired government document: a passport, PAN card, voter ID, driving licence or Aadhaar card with photograph. Clause 8.5 of the October 2026 bulletin connects it to registration, because the name typed then, taken from the primary medical qualification certificate, is the one the ID must carry at the centre. A mismatch keeps the candidate out unless a marriage certificate, divorce decree, legal name change document or gazette notification explains it. Aadhaar is only an optional identity aid in this bulletin, yet a candidate who put the number in the form is committed to carrying the card on 31 October with its biometric lock switched off.

Security at the October 2026 centres can include a hand-held metal detector, frisking (for women, inside a separate enclosed booth by female staff) and an inspection of the ears for concealed Bluetooth devices, according to the bulletin. The barred list takes in stationery, smart watches and AI-enabled glasses as well as ornaments, wallets, belts and water bottles, and any of these found beyond the security checkpoint is treated as unfair means. Because Face ID checks the candidate against the photograph uploaded with the application, an outdated upload can cause a mismatch on the day, which is why the bulletin insists that photograph be recent.

Structure

Exam pattern

FMGE is one 300-question multiple choice paper in English that candidates sit as two parts of 150 questions on the same day, with a scheduled break between them, according to the FMGE October 2026 Information Bulletin; each question has four options, and the task is to pick the most appropriate. A part is not one open block of time. It is cut into time-bound sections, and a candidate can neither move ahead before a section's time is up nor go back to change its answers afterwards. The bulletin's worked example splits a part into three sections of 50 questions and 50 minutes, without committing to three.

The October 2026 bulletin adds one minute per section, up to 3 minutes for each part, to make up for time spent on Face ID verification, biometric capture and other attendance steps, so each part runs 153 minutes. The June 2026 bulletin gave each part 150 questions in 150 minutes, without that addition.

There is no negative marking, and a candidate passes only with a minimum of 150 marks out of 300, per the October 2026 bulletin. Marks for Part I and Part II are not published separately, and FMGE has no re-totalling, re-evaluation or grace marks.

The bulletin's subject blueprint groups subjects as A, pre- and para-clinical subjects, and B, clinical subjects, while the paper itself is delivered as Part I and Part II. The bulletin does not say which subjects appear in which part.

What to study

Syllabus

The FMGE syllabus covers the subjects in the NMC's Competency Based Undergraduate Curriculum for the MBBS course, and the FMGE October 2026 Information Bulletin fixes how the 300 marks are distributed:

How to prepare

Preparation and books

The FMGE October 2026 Information Bulletin recommends no book or coaching course. The official material it does offer is the curriculum reference and marks blueprint above, plus a demo of the computer-based test that NBEMS plans to open on natboard.edu.in, tentatively from 22 October 2026.

Clause 9.9 of the same bulletin names the preparation material that can cost a candidature: actual FMGE questions or answers, whether met through a course, a service or an online forum, or passed on by the candidate. Evidence of either leads to cancellation of the candidature and nullification of the result, and the clause separately forbids coaching institutes and individuals from soliciting content from recent examinees.

Where it is held

Exam centres

Test cities for October 2026 come from a tentative table in the FMGE October 2026 Information Bulletin, and coverage is uneven: several states appear with a single city, among them Madhya Pradesh (Bhopal), Telangana (Hyderabad) and West Bengal (Kolkata), and Jharkhand is not on it. The form takes four cities with no order of preference, and NBEMS places each candidate in one of them by random allocation, weighing administrative, logistic and security factors. If none of the four has a seat, or to protect the examination, NBEMS may allot a centre anywhere in India.

The allotted city will reach candidates by email on 20 October 2026, and the full centre address will appear on the admit card of 27 October 2026, per the October 2026 bulletin. Requests to change either are refused, NBEMS may add or drop cities, PwBD candidates receive reasonable accommodation in allotment, and travel and boarding are the candidate's own arrangement.

After the exam

Answer key

Objections to the 31 October 2026 paper close on 02-11-2026, two calendar days after it and before any result. Until then, under the FMGE October 2026 Information Bulletin, a candidate who sat the paper can send NBEMS a question they consider technically wrong, together with the medical literature that shows it, using the Communication Web Portal and their registered email ID.

Each candidate will be able to set the published October 2026 key against their own attempt: the login view the bulletin describes pairs every question ID with the ID of the correct answer, the response the candidate marked and the score that question earned.

The post-exam review has changed marks in a recent session. The FMGE December 2025 result notice records one question found technically incorrect, credited to every candidate who appeared, and one with two correct answers, where either choice scored. The review of the June 2025 paper found no incorrect question, per the FMGE June 2025 result notice.

Scores

Result and scorecard

NBEMS expects to declare the October 2026 result by 30 November 2026 on its website, as Pass or Fail against 150 marks out of 300, per the FMGE October 2026 Information Bulletin, and it may withhold an individual result for reasons it gives the candidate. Two six-month limits then start from the date of declaration: the scorecard stays downloadable from the candidate's own login for six months and no longer, and a qualified candidate who has not collected the pass certificate within six months has the candidature and result deemed cancelled.

Only the certificate counts for registration. The FMGE June 2026 result notice, dated 7 July 2026, which declared the result with marks for the 28 June 2026 paper, opened scorecard downloads from 16 July 2026 and withheld twenty results, says the scorecard cannot be presented to a State Medical Council in place of the FMGE Pass Certificate that NBEMS issues after in-person identity and credential verification.

For June 2026, the NBEMS notice on distribution of pass certificates, dated 13 July 2026, set collection in person at the NBEMS office in Dwarka, New Delhi, from 22-07-2026 to 20-08-2026, and ruled out handing a certificate to anyone other than the candidate. A candidate who missed the slot could still collect it on or before 7 January 2027 after getting a revised schedule approved through the Communication Web Portal. The October 2026 bulletin puts certificate issue tentatively within four weeks of the result, and prices a duplicate certificate at Rs 1,000 plus 18% GST for a document up to 3 years old and Rs 2,000 plus GST for an older one.

How many candidates pass varies by session. For 2025, NBEMS reports:

The performance report notes that its counts include candidates declared ineligible after appearing, and that some universities' counts and pass percentages may change as withheld results are declared.

Scores you need

Cutoff

FMGE has no percentile cutoff and no rank. The FMGE October 2026 Information Bulletin fixes the pass mark at a minimum of 150 marks out of 300, with no grace marks, the same minimum the June 2026 bulletin set.

Many candidates finish just below that line. The score-range tables in the NBEMS FMGE Performance Report 2025 put 5,080 candidates in the 140 to 149 band for the December 2025 session, against 3,592 in the 150 to 159 band. In the June 2025 session, the same two bands held 4,321 and 2,975 candidates.

Getting a seat

Counselling and seat allotment

What follows a pass is registration with a medical council, not a seat allotment. Under the FMGE October 2026 Information Bulletin, NBEMS sends a digitally signed copy of the result to the NMC and all State Medical Councils to verify pass certificates. The medical council then decides registration after verifying credentials that include the candidate's eligibility for the primary medical course under the Graduate Medical Education Regulations (the 10+2 marksheet, caste certificate and Eligibility Certificate or NEET-UG result), the embassy-attested or apostilled qualification, and the FMGE Pass Certificate. Seeking registration with any medical council without qualifying FMGE is treated as unfair means.

Internship rules sit with the NMC. For graduates covered by the FMGL rules, Regulation 4 of the FMGL Regulations in the Gazette of India requires a supervised internship in India of at least 12 months, applied for through the Commission, before permanent registration. The NMC Compulsory Rotating Medical Internship Regulations, 2021, notified on 18 November 2021, require Indian citizens and overseas Indian citizens outside the FMGL rules to complete the internship in India if they have not done the practical training the awarding country requires. They restrict foreign medical graduates' internships to colleges approved to provide it, allow posting through a merit-based counselling or seat allocation process, let a college give up to 7.5 per cent of its permitted quota of interns to foreign medical graduates, and require the internship to be completed within two years of passing FMGE.

The NMC has since issued a public notice of 07.12.2023, clarified by another of 18.03.2026, on compensatory physical training for graduates whose studies fell in the period affected by the COVID-19 pandemic or the Ukraine-Russia war. Its Frequently Asked Questions dated 8 June 2026 leave each such case to documentary verification by the State Medical Council concerned.

Where it is accepted

Participating institutes

No college or university admits students through FMGE. What NBEMS publishes by institution is a performance report on the foreign universities where candidates earned their primary medical qualification, with candidates appeared, passed and pass percentage for each. For the December 2025 session, the NBEMS FMGE Performance Report 2025 lists the top 10 countries by number of candidates passed:

The same report breaks these figures down university by university for both the June 2025 and December 2025 sessions.

Get help

Contact

Before the exam, the FMGE October 2026 Information Bulletin makes NBEMS Candidate Care, on +91-7996165333, the preferred line for trouble with the form, failed payments and the gateway, with a helpline tab inside the applicant login as the written alternative. Eligibility and document questions go through the NBEMS Communication Web Portal, sent from the email ID in the application; the bulletin also says FMGE emails sent to NBEMS's own addresses are not processed.

Whether the phone line answers at weekends is unclear. The October 2026 bulletin gives 9:30 AM-6:00 PM from 11-09-2026 to 30-10-2026 and 7:00 AM-4:30 PM on exam day, 31-10-2026, with a footnote defining working days as Monday to Friday outside gazetted holidays, while the helpdesk panel of the FMGE October 2026 application portal gives the same hours "on all days". After a result, NBEMS notices add 011-45593000 for queries, as the FMGE June 2026 result notice does.

Source

Official links

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Disclaimer

Disclaimer

Exact exam dates, registration windows, pass percentages, answer keys and results are per-session. Anything per-cycle here is stated for the cycle it names and is taken from the conducting body's own notification; confirm it on the official website before acting on it. Expertie does not conduct any exam, process applications or charge fees.

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