Registration

Can I work there?

It is the question almost everyone asks first, and the one people put off answering — because it looks like paperwork and feels like judgement on a career you have already built. We understand that. The shape of it: a Board looks at your qualification and your practice and decides whether they count. That answer shapes the visa, and the visa shapes when you could realistically fly. Which means the rest of the move is waiting on this, and getting it answered early is a kindness to yourself.

Two minutes, and your route has a name

The checker asks what the Board asks — where you trained, what you are registered as now, how recently you have practised — and then tells you which pathway you would most likely be assessed under, what it costs and roughly how long it tends to take. Nothing is submitted. No fee is paid to find out. If the answer is not what you hoped, you will at least know that today rather than in four months.

Check my pathway

Not everyone wants to answer questions before they have had a look around, and that is fair. If you would rather read first, the registration guide for your country walks the same ground in order: registration in New Zealand or registration in Australia.

Your Board

Find your Board, and what we have written for it

There is no single system to learn. Registration is profession by profession, and each Board sets its own rules, which is why advice from a colleague in another discipline so often turns out not to apply to you. Where we have written a guide, it explains the pathways and what that Board really looks at; the checklist beside it lists every document in the order it is worth gathering them, and remembers where you got to. Where we have not written one yet, we say so rather than pointing you at something vague.

Radiographers, radiation therapists, nuclear medicine and MRI

Medical Radiation Technologists Board (NZ) · Medical Radiation Practice Board of Australia

MRTB guide NZ checklist MRPBA guide

Physiotherapists

Physiotherapy Board of New Zealand · Physiotherapy Board of Australia

PBNZ guide ChecklistAustralia in preparation

Occupational therapists

Occupational Therapy Board of New Zealand · Occupational Therapy Board of Australia

OTBNZ guide ChecklistAustralia in preparation

Psychologists

New Zealand Psychologists Board · Psychology Board of Australia

NZPB guide ChecklistAustralia in preparation

Anaesthetic technicians

Medical Sciences Council of New Zealand · state-based in Australia

MSCNZ guide Checklist

Doctors, including consultant radiologists

Medical Council of New Zealand · Medical Board of Australia and RANZCR

MCNZ guide NZ checklist Australian radiologist guide

Nurses, midwives and other professions

Nursing Council of New Zealand · Midwifery Council · Ahpra Boards in Australia

Check your pathway How NZ registration worksBoard guides in preparation

If you apply through Ethicare, we read your registration application before the Board does — it has saved people months. Apply and send your CV.

Where people get stuck

Registration is more than your qualification

It is rarely the assessment of your training that holds people up. Every regulator also has to satisfy itself about your standing, your English, your character and your health — and it is these, the slow ordinary ones, that decide whether registration takes four months or nine. None is difficult. They simply take longer than anyone expects, so it helps to know now.

Certificates of good standing

You will need one from every regulator you have practised under — in New Zealand, from the last five years or since you last practised there, whichever is shorter. The authority sends it directly to the Council rather than to you, and it expires: the Medical Council wants every certificate dated within three months of the day you start work. Ask too early and it lapses; too late and everything else waits on it. There is a window, and your checklist marks it.

The English-language rule

This one surprises people who have practised in English for twenty years. It turns on where you trained and were assessed rather than on nationality, and each Board decides for itself what counts as evidence and for how long. In Australia it is one of the five registration standards every Board applies, with nursing and midwifery the exception. Worth settling before any fee is paid.

Character, and a criminal-history check

Ahpra requires an international criminal history check from one of two approved suppliers if you have been primarily based outside Australia for six consecutive months or longer as an adult. You pay for it, the supplier sends the result to Ahpra directly, and it is valid for three months. New Zealand works by declaration instead: any conviction carrying three months’ imprisonment or more, and any investigation or disciplinary proceeding anywhere in the world, current or past.

Health, and fitness to practise

Both countries ask whether anything about your physical or mental health could affect your ability to practise. It is a declaration, not an examination, and a condition that is managed is not a bar — what causes trouble is a gap between what you declare and what a referee or a previous regulator says. Declaring something early is almost always easier than explaining it later.

Recency, CPD and indemnity

Australia’s other three registration standards, set Board by Board rather than nationally: enough recent practice, continuing professional development you can evidence, and professional indemnity insurance in place. If you have had a career break, recency is the one to check first, because it is the one with no quick fix.

References that answer the question

A thin reference is the most common reason a Board comes back with questions, and it is almost never the referee’s fault — they simply were not told what was being looked for. A short conversation with them beforehand changes what they write.

And one your employer asks, not the regulator

Immunity and a pre-employment health declaration — measles, hepatitis B, the rest — are a condition of the job rather than of registration, handled by the employer’s occupational health service after an offer. People routinely confuse the two and chase records they do not yet need. Worth gathering anyway, because they are far easier to obtain before you leave than afterwards.

Which of these bites, and how hard, is our experience rather than a rule, and we try to keep the two clearly apart. The Board’s own document list, linked from every guide and checklist, is what governs your application. The specifics above were checked against the Medical Council of New Zealand and Ahpra on 28 September 2026 — both change them, so check the date before you rely on it.

Alongside registration

Worth a look before you commit to anything

Registration answers whether you can work. It says nothing about whether you would want to, or whether the move makes sense for the people coming with you. These three are where that starts to become clear.

Your profession

What changes about the job itself

The title, what your scope covers, how pay is set, and where you would be needed. Different enough from home to be worth twenty minutes.

Every profession → Still deciding

Australia or New Zealand?

If you are weighing the two, this is the comparison. Registration, pay, housing and visas differ more than most people expect, and this choice shapes everything after it.

Compare the two → Your plan

Somewhere to keep all this

A plan built around your household and your dates. It remembers where you got to, and shows you one next step rather than twelve.

Build my journey →

What next?

If the answer is yes, money is usually the next question

Two halves to it: what you would earn once you are there, and what the move asks of you before you earn anything. Both have real numbers behind them, which is unusual in this industry — pay in the public systems is set by collective agreement and published, and every fee in our calculator is one you could look up yourself. What could I earn? puts both halves together.

New Zealand