The path to US nursing licensure
For internationally educated nurses
This is an orientation, not legal or immigration advice. Requirements are set independently by CGFNS, each state's Board of Nursing, and US immigration law, and they change over time — confirm current details with those official sources, and consult a licensed immigration attorney before making decisions that depend on visa timing or eligibility.
Passing the NCLEX-RN — what the rest of this app trains you for — is one step in a longer sequence. Here's the full picture, in the order most internationally educated nurses (IENs) go through it.
Credential evaluation (CGFNS)
Most US state boards require your nursing education to be verified as comparable to a US program before you're eligible for the NCLEX. CGFNS International runs two different services for this, and which one you need depends on your state:
Credentials Evaluation Service (CES) — a report summarizing your secondary education, nursing program, and licensure. This is what most state boards ask for.
CGFNS Certification Program (CP) — a more complete package: the same credentials review, plus the CGFNS Qualifying Exam and an English proficiency exam. You'll need this version if you're pursuing the VisaScreen certificate for immigration (step 5), not just NCLEX eligibility.
Coming from one of these? Quick orientation:
Licenciatura en Enfermería (university, ~4–5 years) · Técnico en Enfermería (shorter, technical-school level) · Auxiliar de enfermería (non-professional)
The Licenciatura is Mexico's full university nursing degree and is the level that maps to a US RN — the Técnico and Auxiliar tiers are explicitly non-professional under Mexico's own nursing standard (NOM-019-SSA3-2013) and generally won't clear CGFNS's registered-nurse comparability bar on their own. Licensure is issued as a cédula profesional by the SEP's Dirección General de Profesiones, verifiable through the national Registro Nacional de Profesionistas. One genuinely useful fact: Mexico is one of the countries where the NCLEX itself is offered at an international Pearson VUE test site, so you may not need to travel to the US just to sit the exam.
This is general orientation on how degree levels typically compare, not a prediction of your own CES result — CGFNS evaluates every credential individually.
English proficiency exam
TOEFL iBT, IELTS Academic, and OET (Occupational English Test — Nursing) are the three exams state boards and CGFNS commonly accept. OET is written around healthcare scenarios, which many nurses find more directly useful to prepare for than the general-purpose TOEFL or IELTS.
There's no single passing score — each state board sets its own minimum, and they don't all agree. Check your specific state board's current requirement (and CGFNS's, if you're doing the Certification Program) before registering for a test.
NCLEX-RN
The exam this app is built around. It's administered in English only — there is no official translated version — which is the whole reason Bilingual Mode exists here: to build your clinical reasoning bilingually while you prepare for a test you'll take in English.
State licensure
NCLEX-RN is a national exam, but the license it unlocks is issued by an individual state's Board of Nursing, and each board sets its own application requirements and timeline on top of NCLEX. Endorsement into a second state later is its own separate process, unless that state participates in the Nurse Licensure Compact (NLC).
A multistate NLC license lets you practice in any other NLC-member state without applying for a separate license there. Membership has grown over time and a few states are still mid-implementation, so check the NCSBN's own compact map for the current list rather than trusting a static one.
VisaScreen & immigration
If you need a visa to work in the US, most healthcare-worker immigration pathways require a VisaScreen certificate from CGFNS, which verifies your education, licensure, and English proficiency all over again for immigration purposes specifically.
A common assumption is that nursing follows the same H-1B path many other skilled-worker visas do — in practice, most general-staff RN roles don't qualify as an H-1B "specialty occupation." The route most internationally educated RNs actually use is EB-3 Schedule A, an employment-based green card category the Department of Labor has pre-designated for registered nurses — meaning no PERM labor certification step is required, which meaningfully shortens the process compared to most other employment green cards. It still moves on immigration's own timeline, which can run months to years depending on demand and your home country.
A hospital or staffing agency willing to sponsor you is usually part of this step — many specifically recruit internationally educated nurses and are familiar with the process.
Contact
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