How to Check NMC and WDOMS Recognition of a University

NMC and WDOMS recognition are two different things. WDOMS is a directory that confirms a medical school exists. The NMC is India's regulator, and it publishes no approved list of foreign universities at all. To check NMC and WDOMS recognition properly, search WDOMS, check the country's accrediting agency on the WFME list, then test the course against the NMC licentiate regulations.

Getting this wrong is expensive. In the FMGE December 2025 session, 42,868 foreign medical graduates appeared and 10,264 passed, a rate of 23.94 per cent, and a graduate whose degree fails the NMC conditions never reaches that exam at all.

Key Takeaways

• The NMC states plainly that it does not endorse any list of foreign medical institutions or universities for MBBS or an equivalent course.

• A WDOMS listing confirms that the school exists. It does not denote recognition, accreditation or endorsement by anyone.

• The stronger signal is whether the country's accrediting agency holds recognition status with the World Federation for Medical Education, which publishes that list with expiry dates.

• Registration in India is decided by the Foreign Medical Graduate Licentiate Regulations, 2021, not by any directory listing.

• The NMC's College and Course Search covers Indian colleges only, so it cannot be used to verify a foreign university.

Does the NMC publish a list of approved foreign universities?

No. The NMC's information desk for students going abroad states that the National Medical Commission does not endorse any list of foreign medical institutions or universities for MBBS or an equivalent course.

The erstwhile Medical Council of India did publish such a list, built from information supplied by Indian missions abroad. That list is superseded. Since the 2018 notification to the screening test regulations, every Indian citizen and overseas citizen of India holding a primary medical qualification from outside India has to qualify the screening test, whatever the institution.

The NMC instead tells students to obtain the fee structure and the course details, meaning content, duration and internship, directly from the institution concerned. That instruction is the method. The rest of this page is how to carry it out.

One correction is worth making, because it sends people down a dead end. The NMC website has a College and Course Search, and its university dropdown carries a handful of foreign-sounding names. That tool covers Indian medical colleges only, and the university field there records the Indian college's affiliating university. It is not a foreign recognition checker and should not be read as one.

How to check NMC and WDOMS recognition, step by step

Six steps, in this order. The first three take about twenty minutes. The last three are the ones that actually decide whether a degree will register in India.

1. Search the university on the World Directory of Medical Schools at search.wdoms.org. Enter the country and the school name. Tick the option to include non-UN member states if the country needs it, and set operational to yes so that closed schools are excluded.

2. Open the listing and read what it holds: contact information, known affiliations, and curriculum and enrolment details. Confirm the campus and the city match the offer you have, because branch campuses are listed separately.

3. Check the Sponsor Notes tab on that listing. A note from the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates matters only if the student may later take the United States licensing route, and it states the graduation years it applies to.

4. Look up the country's accrediting agency on the WFME list of agencies with recognition status, and note the date its recognition runs until. This tells you whether anyone with standing is auditing medical schools in that country at all.

5. Write to the admissions office and get five things in writing: course duration in months, the medium of instruction for every year, the syllabus, how clinical training is delivered, and where the internship is done.

6. Test those answers against the conditions in the licentiate regulations below. If a single one fails, the degree will not register in India, whatever the directory says.

What does a WDOMS listing actually mean?

Less than most agents suggest. The World Directory of Medical Schools is a joint venture of the World Federation for Medical Education and FAIMER, a division of Intealth. It is a directory.

The World Federation for Medical Education puts it in one sentence: a listing in the World Directory confirms that the medical school exists, but it does not denote recognition, accreditation, or endorsement by the World Directory, WFME, FAIMER or any of the sponsoring organisations unless expressly stated.

The directory carries the same caution on its own search page. So a WDOMS entry is a necessary starting point and nothing more. A university that is not listed is a serious problem. A university that is listed has cleared a very low bar.

It is worth clearing up where the directory came from, because the phrase WHO listed is still used in marketing. The World Health Organization published the first World Directory of Medical Schools in 1953 and transferred responsibility for it in 2007. The current directory has been run by WFME and FAIMER since 2014. The WHO does not accredit medical schools, and no university is approved by the WHO.

What does WFME recognition mean?

This is the signal worth spending time on, and it works one level above the school.

WFME does not accredit individual medical schools. Its recognition programme evaluates the accrediting agency in a country: its legal standing, its accreditation process, its post-accreditation monitoring and its decision making. Agencies that meet the criteria receive recognition status for a fixed term, and the list of agencies with recognition status is public, with the country and the expiry date on it.

From the WFME list of accrediting agencies with recognition status. Several countries have more than one recognised agency, so check the agency that accredited the specific university rather than the country alone.

Read this carefully. Recognition of an agency is not recognition of every school it accredits, and it is certainly not NMC recognition. It tells you that a credible body is auditing medical education in that country, which is a reasonable thing to want and a poor substitute for the checks below.

What are the NMC conditions the degree must satisfy?

Registration in India is decided by the National Medical Commission (Foreign Medical Graduate Licentiate) Regulations, 2021, notified on 18 November 2021. No foreign medical graduate may practise in India without permanent registration under these rules.

• A course of at least fifty-four months leading to the foreign medical degree.

• An internship of at least twelve months at the same foreign medical institution.

• English as the medium of instruction, and the mandatory subjects in Schedule I studied.

• Registration with the professional regulatory body of that country, with a licence at par with that given to its own citizens.

• A further supervised internship in India of at least twelve months, applied for through the Commission.

• A pass in the National Exit Test or the other test the Commission mandates, which today means FMGE.

Schedule I adds two more. The entire course, training and internship must be completed outside India at the same foreign institution, with no part of it in India or in a third country. And the whole degree must be completed within ten years of joining the course.

What if the university is on WDOMS but fails the NMC conditions?

Then the degree does not register in India, and the directory listing changes nothing. This is the single most expensive misunderstanding in the whole process.

A WDOMS listing is silent on every one of the conditions above. It does not record whether the course runs fifty-four months, whether teaching is in English in the later clinical years, whether the internship is at the same institution, or whether the degree licenses the holder to practise in that country on the same terms as its own citizens.

The NMC said so in its own words in the alert note of 1 April 2026: failure to meet these requirements may result in ineligibility for registration to practise medicine in India after completion of the course.

What do the NMC's own alerts tell students to do?

On 1 April 2026 the NMC issued an alert note on universities in Uzbekistan, following a communication from the Embassy of India in Tashkent. It is the clearest statement of method the Commission has published.

It names five points, deviation from any of which may disqualify a graduate: duration of the course, medium of instruction, syllabus and curriculum, clinical training, and internship or clerkship arrangements. It then gives six instructions, and they are worth following whatever the destination.

• Do not fall for fraudulent offers, because no institution can guarantee admission outside the prescribed process, including qualifying in NEET.

• Verify before making any payment, rather than after a deposit has been paid.

• Check recognition and compliance against the licentiate regulations, not against a brochure.

• Avoid unverified agents.

• Seek official guidance from the National Medical Commission and from Indian diplomatic missions abroad.

• Report suspicious activity.

The note also flagged an offshore campus arrangement, where a branch of a foreign university operated from a campus in India. That model fails the same-institution rule outright, and no directory listing protects a student who enrols in one.

Where does the Eligibility Certificate fit?

The Eligibility Certificate is the NMC's own gate, and it sits before admission rather than after it.

Under the 2002 eligibility regulations, a candidate who took admission abroad on or after 15 March 2002 cannot sit the screening test without one. For admissions on or after May 2018 the position is simpler: NEET is compulsory, and the NMC treats the NEET result as the Eligibility Certificate, valid for three years from the date the result is declared, provided the candidate meets the graduate medical education eligibility criteria.

Applications now run through the NMC registration portal. The public notice of 28 August 2026 opened a window from 1 September to 30 September 2026 and stated that candidates required to hold the certificate are not permitted to apply for the screening test without it. Candidates who applied in an earlier round need not apply again.

What to read next

• Is MBBS abroad worth it sets the FMGE pass data against these rules.

• New NMC rules for MBBS 2026 lists every notice issued this year.

• NMC approved medical colleges abroad covers what recognition means in practice.

• Eligibility for MBBS abroad sets out the NEET requirement in full.

• NExT or FMGE in 2026 explains which exam the graduate sits.

Sources

• National Medical Commission, information desk for students seeking to study abroad

• National Medical Commission (Foreign Medical Graduate Licentiate) Regulations, 2021, notified 18 November 2021

• Eligibility Requirement for taking admission in an undergraduate medical course in a Foreign Medical Institution Regulations, 2002

• National Medical Commission, public notice on online application for the Eligibility Certificate, 28 August 2026

• National Medical Commission, alert note for Indian students seeking admission in Uzbekistan, 1 April 2026

• World Federation for Medical Education, the World Directory of Medical Schools

• World Federation for Medical Education, list of accrediting agencies with recognition status

• World Directory of Medical Schools, about the directory

If you want a university checked against all of this before you pay a deposit, we do that check as a matter of course. Talk to us with the offer letter in hand.