October 11, 2023

Registration renewal opens on Nov. 1

Pay your fees by Dec. 31. Your fees support the important work of protecting the public by promoting safe nursing practice. 

Pay your fees by Dec. 31.

You can renew your CNO membership for 2024 beginning on Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2023.

Renewing your CNO registration annually allows you to practice nursing in Ontario. Your fees also help us respond to the evolving needs of the health care system, while building innovative and sustainable solutions that support safe practice now and into the future.

Your fees support the important work of protecting the public by promoting safe nursing practice because you are helping us to: 

  • maintain the registration of approximately 180,000 nurses who were actively practicing in 2023.

  • support innovative programs that respond to system challenges, such as the Supervised Practice Experience Partnership (or SPEP). 

  • reduce barriers and create registration process efficiencies for labour mobility applicants from other Canadian jurisdictions.

  • provide the safest and highest quality care to patients by engaging in quality assurance activities that promote self-reflection and life-long learning throughout your careers.

As a regulator for the largest group of health care providers in Canada, CNO has a proud 60-year history of influencing the patient safety agenda in Ontario and beyond. We do this by working closely with our partners like the public, employers, educators, government and you: nurses.

Together we support safe nursing practice in Ontario.

You will have until Sunday, Dec. 31, 2023, to complete your renewal without an additional fee. The 2023 renewal fee for those in the General and Extended classes is $340 plus HST. The renewal fee for those in the Non-Practising class is $63 plus HST. We’ll also share renewal updates on cno.org, Facebook, X (Twitter) and Instagram.

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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