December 15, 2022
December 2022

Make sure to renew membership, as deadline approaches

CNO’s Annual Membership Renewal (AMR) is well underway, with just over two weeks until the deadline.

All nurses in Ontario are required to renew their registration for 2023 by 11:59 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 31, 2022. It doesn't take long to renew: The average time is just over 10 minutes... 

CNO’s Annual Membership Renewal (AMR) is well underway, with just over two weeks until the deadline.

All nurses in Ontario are required to renew their registration for 2023 by 11:59 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 31, 2022. It doesn't take long to renew: The average time is just over 10 minutes. As of Dec. 4, 19,968 nurses have renewed their membership, giving themselves one less thing to worry about for the rest of the year and ensuring they can legally practice as a nurse in 2023.

Have questions or need support?

We’re here to help you. You can start by looking at our FAQs. If you can’t find your question and answer there, you can call our Renewal Call Centre at 1 866 573-5405 in North America or 416 849-6135 outside North America. They are open Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. EST.

Fees

The renewal fee remains unchanged since 2019. The 2023 fee for members in the General and Extended Classes is $270. (With HST, the total is $305.10.) The renewal fee for members in the Non-Practising Class is $50. (With HST, the total is $56.50.)

You can still renew from Sunday, Jan. 1 to Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2023, but you will have to pay an additional $100 late fee ($113 with HST) to do so. The late fee for nurses in the Non-Practising Class is $25 ($28.25 with HST). Nurses who do not renew by Wednesday, Feb. 15 will be suspended.

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.

Related links