The Medical Radiation Practice Board decides your pathway from where and what you qualified, not from where you work now. Your Gulf work matters for ASMIRT and for your documents, but it doesn't change the qualification pathway.
See which pathway appliesIf you qualified in India, the Philippines, Egypt, Nepal or a Middle East country and now work in the Gulf, none of those countries has a qualification on the Board’s recognised list, so expect the qualification assessment. If you qualified in the UK or Ireland, or at an institution on the recognised list, a different pathway may apply.
For diagnostic radiography and radiation therapy only, when your qualification was accredited at the time you completed it by a regulator the Board treats as comparable: CORU in Ireland (CORU-approved qualifications completed between 2013 and 2030) or the HCPC in the United Kingdom (HCPC-approved qualifications completed between 2010 and 2030). The Board doesn’t need to assess the qualification itself. The Board says this pathway is not available for nuclear medicine technologists.
For all three divisions, when the Board has already assessed the same qualification as yours and found it substantially equivalent, or based on similar competencies, to an approved qualification. Yours must match an entry on the Board’s list exactly: division, institution, qualification title and award year.
Likely for you
For everyone else, in all three divisions. You send the Board form PNAQ-91 (Portfolio for the assessment of non-approved qualifications) with all your medical radiation practice qualifications, and it assesses them before you apply for registration.
If you hold current registration with New Zealand’s Medical Radiation Technologists Board and a current practising certificate, you can apply for general registration under the Trans-Tasman Mutual Recognition Act 1997. If you qualified in New Zealand but don’t hold a current New Zealand practising certificate, you can’t use Trans-Tasman mutual recognition: you apply for general registration and give the details of your New Zealand qualification.
No qualification from India, the Philippines, Egypt, Nepal, Singapore or a Middle East country is on the Board’s recognised list (reviewed 13 March 2026). The recognised international qualification pathway needs an exact match with an entry on the Board’s list: the division, institution, qualification title and award year. If yours isn’t listed, or doesn’t match exactly, the Board must assess it before you apply for registration.
You send the Board form PNAQ-91 (Portfolio for the assessment of non-approved qualifications) with all your medical radiation practice qualifications, and it assesses them before you apply for registration. The fee is $660. The application fee for the qualification portfolio assessment is not refundable. You provide “a clear colour scan of a certified copy” of each document, and Ahpra asks for proof of identity when you apply for an assessment of your qualifications, as it does when you apply for registration. The Board publishes no processing time. It will contact you if the assessment is expected to take more than 28 days or it needs more from you, and it says qualification assessments can’t be fast-tracked.
“Substantially equivalent, or based on similar competencies, to an approved qualification”: You are qualified for general registration in that division, and the Board tells you how to apply. “Relevant to the medical radiation practice profession”: You are not yet qualified: you must complete the National exam for medical radiation practice. The Board’s exam FAQs say that to be eligible to sit the exam you must have submitted an application for registration as a medical radiation practitioner, or already be registered; its next-steps page puts applying for general registration after you pass. The two are worded differently, so follow the instructions that come with your assessment outcome. “Not qualified for general registration”: The Board suggests completing an approved qualification from an Australian educational institution, or other career options. If you think something was missed, you can ask for a re-assessment within 28 days of your outcome; the Board says it will tell you the result within two months of receiving the request.
First set up an account on the Board’s examination portal (you need your Ahpra user ID). The Board says accounts are reviewed and activated within five working days, and you need an active account before you can register for a sitting. See the exam section below.
Ahpra asks for certified copies of your documents, with English translations of anything not in English; proof of identity; your qualifications; evidence for your English declaration; and, if you have been registered as a health practitioner outside Australia, a Certificate of Good Standing or Registration Status from each regulator, which you arrange and the regulator sends to Ahpra directly, dated within three months of your application. You also need an international criminal history check, through an Ahpra-approved supplier, for every country you have lived in for six consecutive months or more as an adult. Ahpra suggests applying at least three months before you intend to start work, and accepts applications up to six months before; good-standing certificates and criminal history check results are valid for only three months.
You apply in the Ahpra practitioner portal and upload scanned, certified copies of your documents there. The Board charges an application fee and a registration fee, and both are paid when you apply. For a first general registration that is $460, or $410 if your principal place of practice is in NSW (our sums from the Board’s fee schedule).
Being qualified is only part of it. When you apply for general registration, the Board checks you against its registration standards on criminal history, English language skills, professional indemnity insurance and recency of practice. Criminal history: you declare your criminal history in all countries, including Australia. A revised standard took effect on 15 July 2026. Professional indemnity insurance: your arrangements must cover all aspects of your practice, and you declare that you won’t practise without them. Recency of practice: at least 450 hours of practice in the previous three years (about three months full-time), under the standard dated 1 December 2016. Falling short doesn’t necessarily stop a return to practice. English is covered below.
Licensing to use radiation is up to each state and territory’s radiation authority: the Board says most states and territories require a radiation use licence, so check with the authority where you will practise before you start work. The Board recommends that you don’t apply for work or set up a practice until you are registered.
Ahpra asks for a Certificate of Good Standing or Registration Status from every regulator you are or have been registered with, in your home country and in the Gulf, sent to it directly; and an international criminal history check for every country you have lived in for six consecutive months or more as an adult. Both are valid for only three months, so time them with your application.
The Board looks at three things: registration (your qualification was recognised for registration where you gained it, or, where there is no statutory registration body, evidence that it let you practise there); quality assurance (accreditation by a body outside your education provider, or issue by a legally authorised institution meeting minimum requirements); and academic level (comparable to an Australian Bachelor degree, AQF level 7, or one level lower: an Associate degree or Advanced diploma at AQF level 6, or a Diploma at AQF level 5 if gained in a comparable regulator jurisdiction).
Meeting all three at the higher standard gives “substantially equivalent”. Meeting one or more only at the lower, threshold standard gives “relevant to the profession”, which means the exam. Missing a threshold means not qualified.
For “substantially equivalent”, the Board’s core topics for every division are anatomy, physiology and pathology; principles of patient care; communication with patients and their families or carers; medical radiation physics; safe radiation practice; computed tomography (CT) imaging; and the safe use of medicines, including contrast media. Diagnostic radiography adds projection radiography and fluoroscopy; nuclear medicine technology adds preparing radiopharmaceuticals and assessing their purity, radionuclide therapies, SPECT (including SPECT/CT) and PET examinations, and in vivo and in vitro laboratory procedures; radiation therapy adds equipment and techniques for patient reproducibility, localisation and pre-treatment imaging, treatment planning and treatment. For “relevant to the profession” the essential content is shorter: anatomy, physiology and pathology, principles of patient care, medical radiation physics and safe radiation practice, plus projection radiography and fluoroscopy (diagnostic radiography); radiopharmaceuticals, nuclear medicine examinations and therapies, and laboratory procedures (nuclear medicine technology); or treatment planning and treatment (radiation therapy).
You can ask for your portfolio to be assessed for more than one division. If you think something was missed, you can ask for a re-assessment within 28 days of your outcome; the Board says it will tell you the result within two months of receiving the request.
You sit the exam if the Board assesses your qualification as “relevant to the profession”. The Board can also use it for practitioners returning after an extended break, or where there are concerns about safe practice. You need at least 65 per cent in both Part A and Part B, and you have 3 attempts (a fourth and final attempt only if the Board agrees).
English is one of the Board’s registration standards, and Ahpra checks it when you apply for registration. ASMIRT’s English rules for a migration skills assessment are separate and different. Ahpra’s recognised countries for the education pathways are Australia, Canada, the Republic of Ireland, Malta, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, plus 23 other listed countries and territories, most of them in the Caribbean, all named in the standard.
Working in English in the Gulf doesn’t make it a recognised country for Ahpra’s English standard, and no Gulf country is on the list. Unless you have studied in one of the recognised countries, expect to use an English test.
ASMIRT says its assessment is “not a registration process” and is “not mandatory” for registration with the Board. It says you need it if you require a skills assessment for immigration, or eligibility for ASMIRT membership; which visas require a skills assessment is a question for the Department of Home Affairs.
Status at 7 November 2026: ASMIRT’s overseas assessments page says it is under review and that the page and its links will be live by 20 November.
ASMIRT’s July 2026 form asks for letters from your past and present employers describing your work (with a percentage breakdown of the modalities you performed), your duties and whether you worked full or part time, signed and dated by the Head of Department on hospital or departmental letterhead. It also asks for payslips and yearly tax returns for each year of employment: if your employment produced no tax return, or you can’t supply something the form lists, ask ASMIRT before you lodge.
The Board charges an application fee and a registration fee, and both are paid when you apply. For a first general registration that is $460 ($410 in NSW). If the Board assesses your qualification ($660, not refundable) and the outcome sends you to the exam ($787 per attempt), one sitting brings the total to $1,907 ($1,857 in NSW). These are our sums from the Board’s schedule effective 1 October 2026.
Every Board and ASMIRT fee, and what else you pay for: the full section in our registration guide
Two proposals are not decided: a registration standard for experienced internationally qualified health practitioners (consultation closed 9 February 2026) and revised recency of practice and CPD standards (consultation closed 17 July 2026). As at 7 November 2026 no decision on either had been published, so the current pathways and standards apply.
What each proposal would change: the full section in our registration guide
Licensing to use radiation is up to each state and territory’s radiation authority: the Board says most states and territories require a radiation use licence, so check with the authority where you will practise before you start work.
We don’t give migration advice, and we don’t name visa types or processing times: check with the Australian Government Department of Home Affairs. The Board doesn’t give migration advice either.
It depends on where and what you qualified, not where you work. No qualification from India, the Philippines, Egypt, Nepal, Singapore or a Middle East country is on the Board’s recognised list (reviewed 13 March 2026). If you qualified in one of those countries, expect the Qualification Assessment Pathway. If you completed an HCPC- or CORU-approved diagnostic radiography or radiation therapy qualification within the Board’s date ranges, or your qualification matches an entry on the Board’s list from Hong Kong, the Netherlands, South Africa, the UK or the USA, a quicker pathway may apply; so may Trans-Tasman mutual recognition, if you hold current New Zealand registration and a practising certificate. The Board decides which pathway applies to you from the information in your application. Nothing on this site can tell you for certain which one it will be.
No. ASMIRT says its assessment is “not a registration process” and is “not mandatory” for registration with the Board. It says you need it if you require a skills assessment for immigration, or eligibility for ASMIRT membership; which visas require a skills assessment is a question for the Department of Home Affairs. Registration and a visa are separate applications. The Board says they are “entirely separate” and that success in one “does not automatically guarantee success in the other”.
Sat 16 – Sun 24 January 2027 (registration Mon 7 – Thu 24 December 2026); Sat 10 – Sun 18 April 2027 (registration Mon 1 – Fri 19 March 2027); Sat 10 – Sun 18 July 2027 (registration Mon 31 May – Fri 18 June 2027); Sat 16 – Sun 24 October 2027 (registration Mon 6 – Fri 24 September 2027). You sit it only if the Board sends you to it. First set up an account on the Board’s examination portal (you need your Ahpra user ID). The Board says accounts are reviewed and activated within five working days, and you need an active account before you can register for a sitting. The exam guidelines also say: “Candidates must not attempt the exam within three months of their last attempt.” Check this against the dates before you plan a resit.
Not as a qualification. ASMIRT and ANZSNM can take your work experience into account; the Board looks only at your formal qualifications when it decides whether you are qualified. The Board says this is why some people are approved for skilled migration but don’t meet its registration requirements. The licence matters in two other ways: you arrange for each regulator you are or have been registered with to send Ahpra a Certificate of Good Standing or Registration Status, and your work there can count for ASMIRT’s experience requirement.
You need an international criminal history check, through an Ahpra-approved supplier, for every country you have lived in for six consecutive months or more as an adult. That can mean your home country and each country you have worked in. Ahpra suggests applying at least three months before you intend to start work, and accepts applications up to six months before; good-standing certificates and criminal history check results are valid for only three months.
Kryterion, the Board’s current exam provider, has exam centres across Australia and in other countries; the Board describes the Australian centres as “predominantly in capital cities”. Some candidates are offered an online proctored exam, by preference or where there’s no suitable centre, with strict webcam and room rules. You choose an exam centre when you book and pay for a sitting, and the Board says to ask its National Exam Coordinator about centre availability.
It can, if it is clinical experience in medical imaging or radiation therapy after you qualified: ASMIRT asks for at least two years of clinical experience after you qualified, in medical imaging or radiation therapy. Clinical time inside your degree doesn’t count, and neither does an internship you had to complete for the degree to be conferred. ASMIRT also asks for at least two years in the last five and evidence of clinical experience within the last three years. If you apply short of two years, ASMIRT holds the application until you reach it; without it, you are “ineligible for a skills assessment letter”. ASMIRT’s July 2026 form asks for letters from your past and present employers describing your work (with a percentage breakdown of the modalities you performed), your duties and whether you worked full or part time, signed and dated by the Head of Department on hospital or departmental letterhead. Employer letters need wet (not electronic) signatures, and letters signed by Human Resources aren’t accepted.
Board and Ahpra pages checked on 7 November 2026; ASMIRT facts from ASMIRT’s guidelines of June 2026 and its October 2026 guide. Rules and fees change, so confirm with the source before you act. GdayRadiographer is an independent preparation provider. We are not affiliated with, or endorsed by, the Medical Radiation Practice Board of Australia, Ahpra or ASMIRT.
Every source we used: the full list in our registration guide
Our paid plans prepare you for the National MRP Exam: lessons, practice questions and timed mock exams for Part A (the common capabilities) and for the diagnostic radiography Part B. We have no Part B practice for radiation therapy or nuclear medicine technology. We don’t prepare ASMIRT or Ahpra applications or give migration advice, and nothing we sell affects a decision by the Board, Ahpra or ASMIRT.
Each needs a free account. No credit card required.
Lessons, practice questions and timed mock exams for Part A and the diagnostic radiography Part B.