Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia fees set for 2018/19

10 Sep 2018

The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (the NMBA) has announced its fees for 2018/19 for nurses and midwives.

Registration fees support the development of national standards for the nursing and midwifery professions, to ensure that the trust people place in nurses and midwives is being met. Registration in the National Scheme means nurses and midwives can register once and practise anywhere in Australia.

The fee for general registration has been set at $170. This will apply from 10 September 2018 and will apply to the majority of nurses and midwives in the next registration renewal period, from 31 May 2019. Registrants who hold both nursing and midwifery registration only pay one registration renewal fee.

The fee for nurses and midwives whose principal place of practice is New South Wales is also $170.¹

Nurses and midwives continue to pay one of the lowest registration fees of all the professions in the National Scheme. NMBA decreased general registration fees in 2014-15, and has only increased the general registration fee by $5 in the past four years. From 10 September 2018, national registration will cost a nurse or midwife $3.27 a week.

NMBA Chair Lynette Cusack RN explained that registration fees uphold the standards of nursing and midwifery across Australia, and do not cross-subsidise other health professions.

‘We consider the fees very carefully. Registration fees are the only funding that supports the NMBA’s work to set and uphold evidence-based standards for every nurse and midwife in Australia. This means Australians know the nurse or midwife caring for them is fully trained and competent to practise.

‘We now have 390,000+ nurses and midwives across the professions and the number of nurses and midwives continues to grow. There has been an increase in the National Scheme’s costs in particular in responding to an increase in complaints.’

She added, ‘Part of this cost is a strategic initiative which will improve the notifications process. This initiative will allow earlier resolutions and result in better experiences and outcomes for the notifier and the nurse or midwife.’

Martin Fletcher, AHPRA CEO, said that improving public and practitioner experiences was a key priority for AHPRA.

‘AHPRA is investing in modernising its information technology systems in order to meet the public and practitioner expectation of quicker online services. We have extensive work underway which will deliver better IT and customer support.’

A fees schedule, including the fee arrangements for nurses and midwives whose principal place of practice is NSW, has been published on the NMBA’s website.

For more information

• Visit the Nursing and Midwifery Board website
• Lodge an online enquiry 
• For registration enquiries: 1300 419 495 (within Australia) +61 3 8708 9001 (overseas callers)
• For media enquiries: (03) 8708 9200

¹NSW is a co-regulatory jurisdiction.