The MCCQE exam is the Medical Council of Canada Qualifying Examination, a one day computer based test of medical knowledge and clinical decision making, and passing it is a requirement for any international medical graduate who wants to enter a Canadian residency programme. It costs 1,500 Canadian dollars, runs in four sessions a year at Prometric test centres in Canada and more than 70 other countries, and you get a maximum of four attempts. If you are aiming at the 2027 CaRMS match, one date matters more than the exam date itself: 16 October 2026.
Written by the travel4med Editorial Team, which helps medical and nursing students plan clinical placements abroad.
The MCCQE exam is Canada's national qualifying examination, set by the Medical Council of Canada and sat at the end of medical school. It assesses critical medical knowledge and clinical decision making at the level of a student finishing a Canadian medical degree. It used to be called MCCQE Part I. The MCC dropped the "Part I" once Part II was discontinued.
The format is fixed. You get 230 multiple choice questions, split into two sections of 115, with up to two hours and forty minutes for each section and an optional break in between. Questions are built from the MCC Examination Objectives, organised under the CanMEDS roles, and weighted across two blueprint categories: dimensions of care, and physician activities.
Two things follow from a pass. You become eligible to apply for the Licentiate of the Medical Council of Canada, the LMCC, and you clear one of the two exam requirements that CaRMS programmes look for from an international graduate. The other is the National Assessment Collaboration Examination, the NAC. You can sit the two in whichever order you prefer.
Secure your spot for your internship abroad now.
Because your result is useless to a residency programme that never sees your file. If you want to apply to the 2027 CaRMS R-1 Main Residency Match and verify your Canadian citizenship through the MCC or obtain a MINC, the MCC asks you to submit your MCCQE application and the required documents by 16 October 2026. That timing exists so your Identity Validity Period is issued before CaRMS file review opens on 26 November 2026.
Miss it and you are not banned from anything. You simply risk arriving at file review without the identity verification that makes your application complete, in a match that draws more than 4,800 applicants a year across 30 programmes at Canadian medical schools, according to CaRMS. The full cycle, with the application deadline and the fee table, sits in our CaRMS 2027 timeline for IMGs.
Planning a clinical placement around an exam calendar this tight? Talk to travel4med before you book anything. We organise clerkships, nursing internships and final year placements in Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bali and Zanzibar, and we will tell you honestly when a placement collides with a sitting.
You qualify if you have graduated from, or expect to complete all graduation requirements from, one of three kinds of school: a medical school accredited by the Committee on Accreditation of Canadian Medical Schools, a school listed in the World Directory of Medical Schools with a Canada Sponsor Note marking it acceptable in Canada, or a United States school of osteopathic medicine accredited by the American Osteopathic Association.
Check that sponsor note before you pay anything. It is the single eligibility item that stops otherwise strong applicants, and it is school specific, not country specific. Two schools in the same city can differ.
Students can apply early. You may submit up to 15 months before your expected graduation date, and once the application is accepted your eligibility window opens 12 months before that date. The MCC's own worked example: graduating 1 June 2024, you could apply from 1 March 2023, with an eligibility window running 1 June 2023 to 1 June 2024.
The MCCQE exam runs in sessions, not on single days. You book an appointment inside a session window at a Prometric centre, and appointments are first come, first served. Dates are subject to change, so confirm them on the MCC scheduling page before you commit to travel.
| Session | Window | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 session 3 | 19 August to 21 October 2026 | August and October combined into one extended window; results in three batches |
| 2027 session 1 | 19 January to 11 February 2027 | Results about 4 weeks after the last day |
| 2027 session 2 | 27 April to 1 June 2027 | Results about 5 weeks after the last day |
| 2027 session 3 | 10 August to 7 September 2027 | Results about 4 weeks after the last day |
| 2027 session 4 | 5 to 26 October 2027 | Results about 4 weeks after the last day |
Scheduling for a session opens roughly five months before it starts. So the January 2027 window opened for booking in late summer 2026, and the April 2027 window opens around the turn of the year. Booking on the day scheduling opens is not paranoia. The MCC says plainly that a specific date cannot be guaranteed and that you should sit early if you have a deadline to meet.
The application fee is 1,500 Canadian dollars, and the full amount is non-refundable. In limited circumstances a refund is possible, minus a 750 dollar withdrawal fee. Around that sit several smaller charges that catch people out, because an international graduate cannot simply pay the exam fee and stop there.
| Item | Fee (CAD) | Who pays it |
|---|---|---|
| physiciansapply.ca account setup | 150.00 | Everyone, once |
| Source verification request | 232.00 | Per medical credential, graduates |
| MCCQE application | 1,500.00 | Everyone |
| Eligibility window extension | 120.00 | Optional, once |
| NAC Examination application | 3,320.00 | IMGs applying through CaRMS |
| Appeal fee | 1,200.00 | Optional |
An international graduate heading for CaRMS therefore starts at roughly 5,200 Canadian dollars before a single programme fee: account, source verification, MCCQE exam and NAC together. Tuition tax credits are available for the MCCQE exam and the NAC with a receipt, which softens the blow if you pay Canadian tax. Fees are reviewed annually and change without notice.
Request all the important info for free, no obligation.
Everything runs through a physiciansapply.ca account. If you do not have one, that account is your first purchase. The steps below are the MCC's route for an international medical graduate, in order.
Still a student? Your route is shorter. You skip the source verification request and instead upload a Student Attestation Form completed by your medical school. If your expected graduation date changes later, you submit a new form.
Four, in total, and the counter is not generous. Any attempt from 2018 onward counts. A fail counts, a Denied Standing counts, and a No Standing does not. Once you start the exam it counts, whatever happens next. You cannot retake it after a pass.
There is also a cooling off rule that surprises people. After the third attempt you must wait one full year from receiving the result before you can reapply for the fourth and final attempt. The MCC states that this wait cannot be shortened or waived, for anyone, for any reason.
Practical read: treat attempt one as the real one. The four attempt ceiling plus a one year pause after the third means a candidate who rushes an early sitting can lose two full CaRMS cycles.
This is the change most likely to break an old plan you copied from a forum post. The MCC has paused remotely proctored delivery of the MCCQE exam and the TDM Examination. From the August 2026 MCCQE session onward, the exam is delivered exclusively at Prometric test centres, in person.
Candidates who had already booked a remote appointment were contacted and can rebook at a centre without extra exam or rescheduling fees. The MCC extended the 2026 session to 21 October partly to absorb that disruption. It will not reimburse travel, accommodation or time off work, though, so build those costs into your own budget rather than assuming a home sitting is still possible.
Rescheduling has its own price list. Up to 31 days before your appointment, Prometric charges 35 dollars plus tax. Inside 30 days it is 75 dollars plus tax. Cancel inside 120 hours, or simply not turn up, and your application fee is forfeited.
Let us be straight with you. A clinical placement in Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bali or Zanzibar will not raise your MCCQE exam score and will not substitute for any Canadian requirement. Canadian programmes weigh the MCC exams, Canadian clinical exposure and your immigration status.
What a placement does give you is different, and it still matters. Documented hands on hospital time. Referees who have watched you take a history rather than read about you. A concrete story for an interview that is not another score. If you are choosing between watching and doing, observership versus clinical elective sets out the difference, and our guide to medical electives abroad covers how placements are organised in practice. Bali is available for the final year placement as well as for shorter clerkships and nursing internships, so a final year student is not limited to the other three destinations.
If Canada turns out to be closed on status grounds, two doors get used more often: IMG friendly residency programs in the United States, and building documented US clinical experience for IMGs first. Whichever route you take, the writing you do for it overlaps, and our notes on the residency personal statement for IMGs apply on both sides of the border.
Editorially reviewed by Nils-Andre Stritt of travel4med, who advises students on placement organisation, timing and destinations.
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