NHRA exam 2026: format, booking and attempts

Most professionals applying for a Bahrain licence sit an NHRA exam, delivered by Prometric, unless an exemption applies. NHRA publishes examination references for around forty professions - medical, dental, nursing, midwifery, pharmacy and a long list of allied health titles from ambulance nurse and EMT to radiologic, laboratory, respiratory and optometry technicians and technologists.

You apply to NHRA first; the exam comes only after your application is approved and NHRA issues an eligibility code. Our NHRA licensing guide for every profession and NHRA licence requirements cover the rest of the process.

Submit a complete licence application through NHRA's online system, wait for approval, then use the eligibility code NHRA sends you to register with Prometric. You cannot book first.

NHRA's Licensure Exams page links Prometric and a video guide on applying. Documents are verified from the original source (primary source verification), including qualifications, experience certificates, professional licence and certificate of good standing; see our DataFlow guide for how that check works across the GCC.

NHRA publishes no fee schedule on this page and directs fee questions to +973 17 113 333. Treat any fee table you see elsewhere as unconfirmed. Our GCC licensing timeline and timeline calculator show how the steps stack up, though NHRA publishes no end-to-end timeline.

For doctors, NHRA's Physicians Qualification Requirements (PQR, version 3.2) define two exams. The Bahrain Medical Licensure Examination (BLE) is the general licensure exam that all physicians must pass. The NHRA Specialist Examination (NSE) applies to specialist licensure for holders of Tier 3 qualifications trained outside Bahrain.

The PQR says the NSE may be delivered electronically or by other means, including written exams, short cases or interviews. It does not give a question count, duration or pass mark for either exam. Interns from local universities may apply for the BLE after six months of their internship year, but are not licensed until they prove they completed it.

The PQR groups postgraduate qualifications into three tiers by country and qualification type. All Tier 1 and Tier 2 qualifications are exempt from the NSE; Tier 3 holders must pass it if they trained outside Bahrain. Tier 3 specialty certificates must follow a full-time structured residency of at least three years, or an equivalent clinical Master's (two years) or clinical PhD (four years) with 70-75% supervised clinical training.

As we read the PQR table, the post-qualification experience required is none, one or three years for a specialist at Tier 1, 2 and 3, and two or four years for a consultant at Tier 1 and 2, with no consultant title at Tier 3. Which tier your certificate sits in depends on the country table in the PQR, which also lists the Saudi Board, Arab Board and US, UK, Canadian and Irish certificates. Check the table against your certificate; countries not listed are reviewed individually.

Use our professional title classifier and licence eligibility checker for a first pass.

Under the PQR, only Bahraini or GCC nationals holding a valid GCC licence are exempt from the BLE. That is narrower than many consultancy pages suggest.

Some sites say doctors trained and registered in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand or Ireland are exempt, or that five years of experience waives the exam. We could not find either in the PQR. A Tier 1 or Tier 2 certificate exempts you from the specialist exam (NSE), not from the BLE. The five-year route in the PQR (Bahraini doctors with five years of continuous government hospital experience) is for Bahrainis only. Read our GCC exemption guide, and confirm your case with NHRA or an eligibility assessment.

For pharmacy, NHRA's pharmacy requirements (March 2023, v3) state the same rule: all pharmacy professionals must pass the Bahrain Pharmacy Licensure Examination, except Bahraini or GCC nationals holding a valid GCC licence.

Physicians have four consecutive attempts at the BLE, or at the NSE, within three years of the first attempt. A BLE pass is valid for five years.

Only Bahraini physicians who fail the fourth attempt can retrain (at least six months in a licensed facility, covering medicine, surgery, paediatrics and obstetrics and gynaecology for the BLE) and then get two more consecutive attempts within two years of finishing. For the NSE, training must be in the specialty, under a consultant of the same specialty, with NHRA approval. The PQR does not set a retraining route for non-Bahrainis. Pharmacy applies the same four-in-three-years rule. NHRA has not published an equivalent for other professions in documents we found.

If you have failed more than once, see our comeback guide.

For Bahrainis, a break of three years or more means passing the NHRA licensure assessment first, then working under supervision for a year. A failed first attempt requires six months of full-time clinical training and 100 CME/CPD credits before re-sitting.

The PQR adds that non-Bahrainis with a clinical gap of three years or more cannot apply for a new licence. Administrative, academic and other non-clinical staff are not licensed unless they prove continuity of clinical practice.

NHRA's Pharmacy Qualification Requirements (March 2023) set out the Bahrain Pharmacy Licensure Examination rules in full. All pharmacy professionals must pass it; only Bahraini or GCC nationals holding a valid GCC licence are exempt. A pass is valid for five years - if you do not practise within five years you repeat the exam. You get four consecutive attempts within three years of the first, and Bahraini applicants who fail the fourth must complete training before two further attempts within two years.

The PQR is explicit about what NHRA checks. A certificate of good standing must be valid and not older than six months at application, and must come from the regulator in your country of last employment. Experience must be relevant, in a licensed setting, and salaried; volunteering, observerships, clinical attachments and electives do not count.

Non-Bahraini physicians must be no more than 65 years old unless the Supreme Council of Health makes an exception. All physicians need a one-year internship covering internal medicine, general surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology and paediatrics. Medical schools must be in the World Directory of Medical Schools, and online or distance qualifications are not counted. See common licence rejection mistakes.

NHRA publishes a reference list per profession, 38 in all, from medical and nursing to audiology and nuclear medicine. NHRA states the lists were extracted from the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties website and are a study guide, not an endorsement; questions may not come only from them.

NHRA publishes no pass mark, question count or duration in the documents we could verify, and its Prometric exam instructions link currently returns a web page instead of the PDF. So prepare to the reference list for your profession, and practise under timed conditions. Our free timed mock tests show your weakest domains, and the question banks and exam prep library give full-length papers with a rationale for every answer. Because NHRA's lists track SCFHS content, our SCFHS exam pages are a useful cross-check.