The College of Nurses of Ontario (CNO) is the governing body for Registered Nurses (RNs), Registered Practical Nurses (RPNs) and Nurse Practitioners (NPs) in Ontario, Canada.
The nursing profession has been self-regulating in Ontario since 1963. The government may give a profession permission to self-regulate when it shows that it can put the public’s interests ahead of its own. Ontario’s nurses use their knowledge and expertise to regulate themselves as individual practitioners and to regulate their profession through CNO.
CNO fulfils its role by
CNO also supports the regulation of nursing to keep the public safe by
CNO works with employers, educators and the government to make sure everyone in Ontario benefits from quality nursing services.
Achieving our purpose
CNO’s purpose is to protect the public by promoting safe nursing practice
CNO aims to prevent harm by identifying potential problems and addressing them before they can harm the public. We are committed to a whole-system approach to nursing regulation and working with nurses and other system partners to make a greater collective impact on the patient care system.
Strategic Plan 2021-2026
Our strategic plan will ensure that we continue to deliver on our purpose.
"Our Strategic Plan is alive; it is the fibre of this organization and we embed it into all we do. The plan has already supported a number of our successes, and it is the foundation for our future. We are driving transformation with our commitment to our purpose."
– Silvie Crawford, Registrar & CEO
Annual Report
The theme of CNO’s 2025 Annual Report is “Leading in a Time of Transformation.”
This report highlights how we helped regulation keep pace with a health system in motion, supporting nurses as they adapted and protecting the people to whom they provide care.
To showcase this work, the report is structured around three themes: improving patient access to care, reinforcing patient safety and strengthening the conditions that support positive patient experiences.
Highlights in the 2025 Annual Report include:
- By the numbers: 201,284 nurses fully registered.
- Patient access to care: We continued advancing labour mobility by introducing Interjurisdictional Nurse Licensure (INL), a national initiative that helps nurses maintain registration in multiple Canadian jurisdictions while streamlining regulatory requirements.
- Patient safety: We introduced a new Professional Boundaries and Nurse-Client Relationships practice standard, which offers clarity on situations where communication can blur professional lines.
- Patient experience: We analyzed the results from our first Workforce Census, which illuminated workplace inequities related to racism, ageism and gender-based discrimination. These insights are critical, because when nurses experience discrimination, the ripple effects are felt by patients.
By-laws
CNO’s by-laws are the rules that govern how we operate. Government legislation authorizes our Council to make by-laws related to CNO’s governance (such as committee structure, appointments and elections), administration and regulatory functions.
College of Nurses of Ontario By-Laws
Approved by Council March 2000
Amended through June 2026
CNO Fees
These fees reflect amendments to By-law No. 2: Fees, which were approved by CNO’s Council and went into effect June 24, 2026
Why CNO charges fees
We use fees to pay for the costs of regulating the nursing profession in the public interest and maintain public confidence and safety.
In Ontario, legislation identifies certain professions that are self-regulated to ensure public safety. Nursing is one of these self-regulated professions, along with other professions overseen by regulated health colleges. Members of these professions pay a regulatory body like CNO to set and enforce standards and entry requirements.
You are required to pay certain fees to become registered with CNO, and an annual fee to remain authorized to practice in Ontario or to remain registered in the Non-Practising Class. It is your contribution to nursing regulation and public protection.
How CNO uses your fees
We use fees to fund our regulatory functions and other activities that support safe nursing practice, all in the public interest. The regulatory functions include registration of nurses, setting practice standards, maintaining a quality assurance program, and responding to reports and complaints about a nurse’s conduct when necessary.
More specifically, your fees help us to:
- maintain the registration of over 200,000 nurses in Ontario
- manage new registrations by ensuring that applicants meet all the requirements to practice in their category and class
- support innovative programs that respond to system challenges, such as the Supervised Practice Experience Partnership (SPEP), which has matched more than 3,200 applicants with more than 650 employers
- make registration simpler for applicants from other Canadian jurisdictions and internationally trained nurses
- help nurses provide safe, high-quality care to patients by engaging in quality assurance activities that promote self-reflection and lifelong learning
- increase access to quality care across the province through updates to RN prescribing practice standards, which allow registered nurses who meet requirements to prescribe certain medications and communicate a diagnosis
- maintain the voluntary Nurses’ Health Program for Ontario nurses, which encourages them to seek treatment for substance use and mental health disorders that may affect their ability to practice nursing safely
Notes
- All fees listed are in Canadian dollars, are not refundable and are subject to Ontario’s 13% Harmonized Sales Tax (HST).
- Annual fees are assessed on a calendar-year basis. The annual fee you pay must correspond to the year for which you are registering, either for the first time or an annual renewal. For example, the 2026 annual fee applies to the 2026 registration year, while the 2027 annual fee applies to the 2027 registration year, even though the 2027 fee would be paid by most registrants during the renewal period in late 2026.
- Annual fees are not pro-rated for partial years.
- Labour mobility applicants who are already registered in another Canadian jurisdiction and are applying to register with CNO in an equivalent Ontario category and class of registration through automatic recognition will receive a credit equal to 25% of their application fee. This is a one-time credit that will be applied to a future payment made to CNO.
- An Interjurisdictional Nurse Licensure registrant will receive a rebate each year equal to 25% of the annual fees paid that year.
List of fees
| Fee Name |
2026 Fee Amount |
2027 Fee Amount |
| Application Fee |
$433.00 |
$454.00 |
| Application Fee - Other Classes |
$73.00 |
$76.00 |
| Fee Name |
2026 Fee Amount |
2027 Fee Amount |
Education Requirement -
Additional Evaluation Fee RN (French) |
$719.00 |
$754.00 |
Education Requirement -
Additional Evaluation Fee RPN |
$324.00 |
$340.00 |
Education Requirement -
Additional Evaluation Fee RNEC (NP) |
$324.00 |
$$340.00 |
| Fee Name |
2026 Fee Amount |
2027 Fee Amount |
|
Initial Registration Fee
NOTE: Not applicable to RNEC (NP) effective July 1, 2026
|
$69.00 |
$72.00 |
Registration Fee - RNEC (NP)
NOTE: Effective July 1, 2026
|
$138.00 |
$144.00 |
| Fee Name |
2026 Fee Amount |
2027 Fee Amount |
Specialty Fee - RNEC (NP)
NOTE: Speciality certificates not issued after July 1, 2026. |
$69.00 |
N/A |
| Fee Name |
2026 Fee Amount |
2027 Fee Amount |
| Annual Fee |
$368.00 |
$386.00 |
| Annual Fee - Non-Practising |
$69.00 |
$$72.00 |
| Fee Name |
2026 Fee Amount |
2027 Fee Amount |
| Penalty Fee |
$135.00 |
$141.00 |
| Penalty Fee - Non-Practising |
$36.00 |
$37.00 |
| Fee Name |
2026 Fee Amount |
2027 Fee Amount |
Reinstatement Application Fee -
DC/FTP Proceeding |
$514.00 |
$539.00 |
Reinstatement Application Fee -
Non-Practising/Former Member |
$216.00 |
$226.00 |
| Lifting Suspension Fee |
$73.00 |
$76.00 |
| Reinstatement Fee |
$73.00 |
$76.00 |
Reinstatement Fee - RNEC (NP)
NOTE: Effective July 1, 2026. |
$142.00 |
$149.00 |
| Reinstatement Additional Fee |
$676.00 |
$709.00 |
| Fee Name |
2026 Fee Amount |
2027 Fee Amount |
| Examination Rescore Fee |
$110.00 |
$115.00 |
| Jurisprudence Examination Fee |
$40.00 |
$42.00 |
| Fee Name |
2026 Fee Amount |
2027 Fee Amount |
| QA Practice Assessment Fee |
$1,500.00 |
$1575.00 |
| QA Practice Assessment - Additional Fee |
$1,500.00 |
$1575.00 |
| Fee Name |
2026 Fee Amount |
2027 Fee Amount |
| Administrative Fee - Declined Credit Card |
$50.00 |
$52.00 |
| Administrative Fee - Refund |
$25.00 |
$26.00 |
| Administrative Fee - Change of Information |
$100.00 |
$105.00 |
Paying your fees
Please do not make any payments to CNO until you have been advised of the exact amount, as only certain fees may apply to you. Any fees you are required to pay must be paid in full.
We accept the following payment types:
- Visa credit card and Visa Debit
- MasterCard credit card and MasterCard Debit
- American Express credit card
- prepaid credit cards