Quick answer: Indian nurses use OET mainly for the UK's NMC, Australia's Ahpra, New Zealand, and Ireland. The most common target is grade B, which is 350, in each skill, with the NMC accepting C+, which is 300, in writing, and Ahpra now asking 360 in reading and speaking for tests sat on or after 23 April 2026. The test runs inside India at venues in the major cities and from home, and the full test fee is set in Australian dollars at AU$587. The roadmap, the traps, and the five step plan are below.
India sends more nurses abroad than almost any country on earth, and I have taught thousands of them, from Kerala to Punjab to Delhi. So let me give you what most Indian nurses never get in one place: the honest, complete roadmap. Where OET can take you, exactly which scores each door demands, how the test works inside India, and the trap that quietly eats attempt after attempt in our part of the world.
The Destination Match. Four taps. Your country.
Every Indian nurse carries the same first confusion: UK or Australia? So before the tables and the plans, answer four quick questions and submit. Your personal match appears instantly, your percentage for each road, with the exact OET scores that road demands. Then the full roadmap below explains everything behind your number.
The destination match
Four taps. Your country, and your exact target.
Nothing is sent anywhere and nothing is stored. Your match appears the moment you finish, here on this page.
0 of 4 answered
Answer all four to see your match.
United KingdomAustralia
New Zealand and Ireland stay open on both roads. Now scroll down. The full roadmap for your country is below.
Now, whichever way your match leaned, here is the complete map.
Where OET takes an Indian nurse
| Destination | Regulator | The English door |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | NMC | OET grade B, which is 350, in reading, listening and speaking, with C+, which is 300, accepted in writing. Then the NMC’s own steps: the CBT, and the OSCE after you arrive. |
| Australia | Ahpra | Sitting on or after 23 April 2026: Listening 350, Reading 360, Writing 350, Speaking 360. Reading and speaking sit above a plain B. |
| New Zealand | Nursing Council of New Zealand | OET at grade B level. Check the current combining rules before you book. |
| Ireland | NMBI | OET accepted at grade B level requirements. |
| Gulf countries | Local authorities | Many Indian nurses work in the Gulf first, then use OET to move West. |
Two rules before you plan anything. First, your registration English requirement and your visa English requirement are two separate doors, and visa rules change: the UK raised the Health and Care Worker visa from B1 to B2 on 8 January 2026, keeping B1 only for people who already held the visa before that date. Second, most regulators allow combining two test sittings under conditions, and for a retaker that rule can save months. Verify both on the official regulator pages the week you apply, not from any academy's poster, including mine.
Still deciding between OET and IELTS? The honest comparison, with the score equivalences, is here.
Taking OET inside India
The test runs inside India in the major cities, on paper and on computer at test venues, and there is also the option of taking it from home. The full test fee is set in Australian dollars: AU$587, converted at the day's rate when you book. I am not going to print a rupee figure that will be wrong next month, but you already know what it feels like in your own currency, and here is the part that matters: every retake is another full fee. One avoided retake pays for almost any preparation system on the market.
One thing many Indian nurses never learn, and it is worth real money to a retaker. If you have already sat the full test, you can book individual sub tests on paper at most venues: AU$315 for one, AU$415 for two, AU$525 for three, against AU$587 for all four. So the nurse who only needs Listening again does not have to buy the whole exam a second time. One condition, and it is not optional: check that your regulator accepts scores from individual sub tests and how it combines sittings, before you book anything.
The trap that eats Indian nurses' attempts
Now the part I need you to read twice, because I have watched it happen from Kochi to Chandigarh. India runs on shared files. The famous old 2018 papers travel through every WhatsApp group, every academy, every senior's pen drive.
A nurse practices them until she scores 32, 33 at home, walks into the 2026 exam, and comes out with 320. Then she pays the fee again. And again. It is not her English. It is a memory score meeting a moved exam, plus generic classes from teachers who never sat in that chair themselves.
Before you join any academy in India, online or offline, ask them the six questions on my retakers page. If the answers are no, you already know how that story ends. The six questions are here.
Nineteen attempts at one sub test
Let me show you how far this trap can go. An Indian nurse, now working in New Zealand, came to me having sat OET Listening nineteen times. Her last four attempts had all scored 270. Before those, 340, 330, 320. Always short of the 350 she needed, and every one of them a full test fee.
Shared with her permission. Her name and her profile photograph were removed from the image files themselves before publication, not covered over, so there is nothing to recover from the originals.
Her full story, and what she changed, is on the success stories page.
She did not change her effort, which was never the problem. She changed her strategy. Six weeks later the message changed: 350 in Listening. Nineteen attempts of trying harder, then one attempt of training differently.
The five step India plan
- Measure before you spend one rupee. Take my free assessment: a full Reading and a full Listening test on the current exam difficulty, marked instantly, with the score you should expect in the real exam. One honest hour saves months.
- Pick your destination and lock your target. The UK means 350, 350, 350 and 300 in writing. Australia means 350, 360, 350, 360. Write your target on paper. A nurse chasing a number trains differently from a nurse chasing a feeling.
- Train on current difficulty with real systems. The complete free systems are on this site: the Grade B Equation for Reading, the Listening Grade Equation, the letter structure, and the 9 Point Pattern for Speaking.
- Complete the clearance mocks before booking. In my tracking, students who complete them clear at a rate above 90 percent. Book the exam only when the mocks say you are ready, not when the calendar says you are impatient.
- Book once, clear once. That is the whole philosophy. The cheapest OET attempt is the one you never have to repeat.
Start with step one, today, free. The assessment takes about an hour and gives you the truth: your score, your grade estimate, and exactly which part is leaking marks.
About the author. Dr. Nasir Bukhari, MBBS, is an OET Certified teacher. He completed OET's official Teacher Training in all four skills, Reading, Listening, Writing and Speaking, certified by OET's Head of Education. He has taught OET to healthcare professionals in more than 40 countries, with India among the largest. He is the founder of CliniVerba, the house behind OET HQ.