September 12, 2023
September 2023

Record-breaking net gain of nurses in Ontario in 2023

CNO is the authoritative source of province-wide nursing employment and registration data. We’re committed to transparency and accountability by sharing data with the public, nurses and health care partners. Stay tuned for future editions of The Standard where we share charts to illustrate data and nursing trends.

A question we at CNO are often asked by nurses, media, policy-makers, the public at large and other stakeholders is: “How many nurses are entering and leaving Ontario’s health care system?”

This is information we track and publish annually in our Registration Renewal Statistics Report. The 2023 edition, released in June, provides answers to this question and others regarding registration of nurses in Ontario.

Last year was a strong year for new registrants. Within the general and extended classes there was a total gain of 12,485 nurses to the registrant pool. That’s a new record. We don’t count only who is coming into the profession, we also account for those who left.

Graph of registration growth on a net basis, 2018-2023

Each year our data shows that some nurses leave the system, whether due to retirement, pursuing another career, or other reasons. By tracking both gains and losses, we can confidently report on the net gains to the system — the number of new registrants  decreased by the number of nurses who left the system. With that measurement, there was a net gain of 5,270 nurses — and that’s the biggest gain since 2016. This is also the third consecutive annual increase. In 2020, we saw 2,847 net nurses added to the system. In 2021, we saw 2,945 and in 2022 saw 4,041.

Interested in seeing more CNO data? Visit the Nursing Data Dashboard.

About CNO

The College of Nurses of Ontario (CNO) is the regulator of the nursing profession in Ontario. It is not a school or a nursing association. CNO acts in the public interest by:

  • assessing qualifications and registering individuals who want to practice nursing in Ontario.
  • setting the practice standards of the profession that nurses in Ontario are expected to meet.
  • promoting nurses' continuing competence through a quality assurance program.
  • holding nurses accountable to those standards by addressing complaints or reports about nursing care.

The College was founded in 1963. By establishing the College, the Ontario government was acknowledging that the nursing profession had the ability to govern itself and put the public's well-being ahead of professional interests.

For the latest information, please see our Nursing Statistics page.

Anyone who wants to use a nursing-related title — Registered Nurse (RN), Registered Practical Nurse (RPN) or Nurse Practitioner (NP) must become a member of CNO.

Frequently Asked Questions

Go to the public Register, Find a Nurse, to conduct a search for the nurse. Contact us if you can't find the person you are looking for.

All public information available about nurses is posted in the public Register, Find a Nurse, which contains profiles of every nurse in Ontario. Publicly available information about nurses include their registration history, business address, and information related to pending disciplinary hearings or past findings.

Unregistered practitioners are people who are seeking employment in nursing or holding themselves out as being able to practice nursing in Ontario, but who are not qualified to do so. They are not registered members of CNO. Only people registered with CNO can use nursing-related titles or perform certain procedures that could cause harm if carried out by a non-registered health professional. CNO takes the issue of unregistered practitioners seriously. See Unregistered Practitioners for more information.

To ensure procedural fairness for both the patient (or client) and the nurse, the Regulated Health Professions Act requires that information gathered during an investigation remain confidential until the matter is referred to the Discipline Committee or Fitness to Practise Committee. CNO will not disclose any information that could identify patients (or clients) or compromise an investigation. See Investigations: A Process Guide for more information.

Information obtained during an investigation will become public if the matter is referred to a disciplinary hearing. If a complaint is not referred to a hearing, no information will be available publicly.

See CNO's hearings schedule, which is updated as hearing dates are confirmed. Hearings at CNO are open to the public and the media. For details on how to attend a hearing, contact the Hearings Administration Team.

A summary of allegations and the disciplinary panel outcomes can be found on the public Register, Find a Nurse. Full decisions and reasons are also available.

Where a disciplinary panel makes a finding of professional misconduct, they have the authority to reprimand a nurse, and suspend or revoke a nurse's registration. Terms, conditions and limitations can also be imposed on a nurse's registration, which restricts their practice for a set period. Nurses can also be required to complete remedial activities, such as reviewing CNO documents and meeting with an expert, before returning to practice.

For detailed information see the Sexual Abuse Prevention section.

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