Nursing in the US, from Nigeria
Nigerian nursing education is delivered and examined in English, which is why the English requirement that stops many international applicants is one you are likely to be exempt from. Nigeria has also become one of the fastest-growing sources of internationally educated nurses in the United States, so the path you are about to walk is well traveled.
What is left is paperwork, and the order you do it in matters more than the speed.
Nurses trained in Nigeria are likely exempt from the English requirement most US boards impose, because their nursing education was delivered and examined in English.
Your own regulator, Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria, is who a US board will verify your license with — Your Nigerian registration, and the verification a US board or evaluation agency will ask it to send on your behalf.
- Step 1
Confirm your NMCN registration is current
Everything downstream — the credential evaluation, the board application, VisaScreen — eventually has the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria send verification of your license directly to a US body. Start by making sure your own registration is active and has not lapsed, rather than finding out when a verification request comes back unanswered.
If you have changed your name since you registered, or your certificate and your passport do not read identically, sort that with the Council first. A mismatch between what the Council holds and what you submit elsewhere is the kind of thing that stalls a file for reasons that are hard to see from outside.
Check with
- Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria — Checking and renewing your registration, and how the Council verifies a license to a requesting body abroad.
- Step 2
Order the credential evaluation your target board requires
A US state board will not read your Nigerian transcript directly. An approved evaluation agency converts it into a report the board recognizes, and boards differ on which agencies and which report type they accept — read your target board's own page before ordering anything.
Nigeria trains nurses through both hospital-based schools of nursing and university degree programs, and the evaluation report is what tells a board how your particular program compares with its own requirements. If the report shows a gap the board cares about, the board will say what it wants done about it; the agency cannot decide that for you.
Most agencies require your school to send transcripts to them directly rather than through you, and separately require the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria to verify your license directly to them as well. Requesting both early avoids the evaluation sitting incomplete while it waits on documents you did not know were needed.
Watch outOrdering a document-verification report when your board asked for a course-by-course evaluation. They are different products from the same agencies, and the wrong one will not satisfy a board that named the other.Check with
- CGFNS International — The evaluation and certification services most US boards recognize, and what each report type contains.
- NCSBN — Directory of every US state board, so you can read that board's own evaluation requirements.
- Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria — Requesting verification of your certificate and registration to a body abroad.
- Step 3
Check the English requirement, and why you are likely exempt
Most US boards require an English exam, but many waive it for applicants whose nursing education was delivered and examined entirely in English — which describes Nigerian nursing programs. Confirm the exemption with your specific target board rather than assuming it, because the wording of the waiver differs from board to board.
Some boards want the exemption evidenced rather than asserted, typically by a statement from your school or by what the evaluation report itself says about the language of instruction. If a board you are considering offers no exemption, you will need to sit an exam it accepts — and boards do not all accept the same exams, so read the requirement before booking anything.
Check with
- NCSBN — Your target board's own English requirement and whether it exempts English-medium education.
- Step 4
Apply to the one state board you choose
There is no national US nursing license. A single state board decides your application, so choose the state you actually intend to work in before you file — a license from one board does not transfer automatically to another. (A multistate compact license is the exception: it depends on declaring residency in a compact state, so while you are still abroad, what you can apply for is a license valid in the issuing state only.)
Expect the application to ask for more than your evaluation report: verification of your Nigerian license sent directly by the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria, your practice history, identity documents, and a criminal background check. Read the whole list from your chosen board before you start. Your board's approval of this application is also what makes you eligible to register for the exam in the next step.
Watch outFiling with more than one state board at once to 'see which is faster.' Boards do not share files, so this usually means paying twice and untangling duplicate verification requests sent to the Council and to your evaluation agency.Check with
- NCSBN — Directory of every US state board, so you can read that board's own requirements for internationally educated applicants.
- Step 5
Register for the NCLEX and sit it
The NCLEX registration is separate from your board application and cannot be scheduled until your board declares you eligible. Once that happens, an authorization to test is issued, and only then can you book a seat.
Check Pearson VUE's current list of test locations before you plan anything around the exam, because where you can sit it decides whether you travel for it. The exam has also been redesigned to include case-study items and answer formats older study material does not contain, so check that anything you revise from is written for the current version.
Watch outAn authorization to test is valid for a fixed window set by your board, and that window cannot be extended. Letting it lapse always means registering with Pearson VUE again, and some boards also require a fresh board application on top of that — check your board's own policy before the window closes.Check with
- NCLEX (Pearson VUE) — Registration, the current list of test locations, and what happens on exam day.
- NCSBN — The body behind the exam — current test plans and candidate rules.