Moldova: no licensing exam, but a competitive residency test at USMF

Medical and health education in Moldova

Medicine in Moldova is a six-year single-cycle degree, taught almost entirely at one institution, Nicolae Testemițanu State University of Medicine and Pharmacy (USMF) in Chisinau. Programmes run in Romanian, Russian and English, and the English-medium stream draws students from India, Israel, Romania and elsewhere. Pharmacy and dentistry are five-year programmes, and nursing is taught at colleges. The national quality agency, ANACEC, accredits programmes, and the Ministry of Health oversees practice.

After graduation, doctors enter residency (rezidențiat) through the competitive USMF admission test, which is the one documented gate; residency lasts two to five years depending on the specialty, and its completion leads to the right to practise independently. We could not verify a separate national licensing exam. International graduates from English-medium programmes need their home licensing exam, for instance the FMGE in India (its planned successor NExT has been deferred) or the NRE in Pakistan. Confirm the recognition of the programme with your home regulator before enrolling.

One university sets the main exam

The unusual thing about Moldova is how much of the national picture sits with one institution. The residency admission competition is run by USMF, the main medical university in the country, rather than by a national examination centre. That is why the page for residency admission lives on the university's own site, and why the regulation is reissued each year as a university document.

For a candidate, this matters in two ways. First, the rules can change from year to year without the fanfare of a national reform. Second, the question style is set by university examiners, so a question bank that is aligned to the USMF bibliography is more useful than one built around international blueprints. The test bank and bibliography were not verified for this page.

Who needs what

• Medicine graduates: the residency admission competition, then residency. There is no separate licensing exam.
• Dentistry and pharmacy graduates: the same competition, according to USMF, though the pharmacy and stomatology tracks should be confirmed.
• Public health graduates: also listed as eligible.
• Nurses, midwives, physiotherapists: registration on qualification.
• Foreign-trained clinicians: recognition by the Ministry of Health under rules aligned with the EU.

Doctors

Exam. The concurs de admitere la rezidențiat is a multiple-choice test. The record says details are in Regulament 2026; the PDF could not be read by our tools. We therefore give no item count, duration or pass mark. Take them from the document.

Training afterwards. Residency completion leads to practice, so the competition does the work that a licensing exam does elsewhere.

English-medium students. USMF has a large English-medium programme for foreign students, notably from India and Israel. The residency test language was not confirmed. If it is Romanian only, foreign graduates who want a residency place will need strong medical Romanian.

1. Download the current Regulament from the USMF admissions site.
2. Check eligibility, including the recognition of foreign degrees.
3. Find the bibliography. The university normally publishes the reference list.
4. Register in the application window. Dates are fixed by the Regulament.
5. Sit the test and rank your choices. Places are allocated by rank.

Dentists

The record lists stomatology within the same residency competition. This is unverified; confirm whether a separate dental test or track exists.

Pharmacists

Pharmacy residency is admitted through the same USMF competition, as far as we could tell. Confirm the track and the question bibliography with USMF.

Nurses, midwives and physiotherapists

Nurses are trained in medical colleges and register on their qualification, with EU-aligned recognition for foreign diplomas. Midwives and physiotherapists appear to follow the same pattern. No licensing exam was found. Ask the Ministry of Health whether a foreign-trained applicant must complete an assessment.

At a glance

How to study for a university-set MCQ

With a university examining body and an annual regulation, the best material is the official bibliography. Build a plan around it: list each discipline in the regulation, note its weight if given, and read the specified sources before you add outside material. Practise single-best-answer questions in Romanian terminology, since the Latin-based medical vocabulary is familiar to many, but the phrasing of stems and options may not be.

Avoid relying on unofficial recalls. They go out of date as soon as the bibliography changes, and they do not teach the reasoning the examiners look for.

Reading the Regulament: what to extract

The annual regulation is the primary source for the competition, so read it as a checklist. Extract the following, and write them in your own study plan with the page reference:

• Eligibility: which degrees qualify, and whether graduates of the current year may apply before the diploma is issued.
• Test structure: the disciplines, the number of items, the time allowed, and how the score is calculated.
• Language: whether the test is available only in Romanian, and whether any other language is offered to foreign graduates.
• Application: the dates, the documents, the fee if any, and how places are distributed between budget-funded and fee-paying seats.
• Ranking: how ties are broken and how the score combines with other criteria such as the diploma average.
• Appeals: the deadline and the procedure for contesting a result.

If the PDF will not copy or search properly, ask the admissions office for an accessible version. A misread number in a regulation is expensive.

Foreign graduates and the question of recognition

A diploma from outside Moldova must be recognised before it counts for residency. The Ministry of Health handles recognition, and the process may differ for graduates of EU, non-EU and Moldovan-affiliated programmes. If you studied at USMF in English, ask whether the recognition step is treated as automatic for USMF graduates or whether you must submit documents like any other foreign graduate. The distinction can save weeks in the application window.

Many English-medium students at USMF come from India and Israel and plan to return home. For them, the residency test is optional; the home licensing exam is the main target, and USMF teaching is useful chiefly as the basic and clinical science foundation.

Language and recognition

Romanian is the official language and the working language of the test. Moldova aligns its recognition rules with the EU, but it is not an EU member state, so there is no automatic EU-directive route into or out of the country. A graduate from USMF who wants to work in the EU should check the target country's rules; some require their own assessment.

Last reviewed October 2026