Taiwan's health professional exams: the Examination Yuan system and the move to CBT

Medical and health education in Taiwan

Medicine and dentistry in Taiwan are six-year undergraduate programmes, a shortened version of the older seven-year model. Pharmacy and nursing are mostly degree-level programmes of four years or longer, and a small number of professions have extra practical training. Teaching is in Traditional Chinese, with English-language textbooks and many terms kept in English. Around a dozen universities run medical schools, and the Taiwan Medical Accreditation Council (TMAC) evaluates them, working with the Ministry of Education.

Graduation links to licensing through the Ministry of Examination (考選部), which runs the national exam, and the Ministry of Health and Welfare, which issues the licence. Doctors sit the exam in two stages, and the timing of each stage relative to graduation is set by the Ministry of Examination, so check the current rules for your cohort. After licensing, doctors complete postgraduate general medicine training (PGY) before entering specialty programmes; the length of that training has been revised over time, so confirm it with the Ministry of Health and Welfare. A distinctive feature is that the whole licensing system sits in the civil-service examination framework, not with a profession-run board.

A civil-service model for clinical exams

Taiwan's licensing exams belong to the same constitutional branch as its civil-service exams. The Examination Yuan sets and marks them through MoEX, and the Ministry of Health and Welfare registers the successful candidates. The practical effect is a published, regular calendar and a long archive of released papers, which is unusual in this region.

The formal name of each exam is "Senior Professional and Technical Examination" (專門職業及技術人員高等考試) followed by the profession. That wording matters when you search for the notice for your sitting.

Who needs a licensing exam in Taiwan

• Taiwanese graduates: sit the exam for their profession. Doctors, pharmacists and dentists take it in two steps, sometimes while still in training.
• Foreign-trained doctors: must pass a qualifications screening by the Ministry of Education (學歷甄試) and complete a clinical internship before they can sit the licensing steps.
• Foreign-trained dentists: go through the same MOE screening.
• Nurses, midwives, physiotherapists: sit the exam as graduates of the relevant programmes. We could not confirm a dedicated foreign-graduate rule for these, so ask MoEX before applying.

Doctors: the two-step physician exam

Local name: 醫師 第一階段 / 第二階段.

Step 1 tests basic medicine in two papers of 100 items each. Step 2 tests clinical medicine in four papers of 80 items each. An OSCE run by the Taiwan Medical Accreditation Council (TMAC) is a prerequisite for Step 2, so the practical assessment comes before the final written stage, not after it. All items are MCQs and the exam is computer-based.

Step 1 may be taken after the basic-science years. Step 2 follows graduation or internship. This structure lets students clear the first step before clinical training is finished.

1. Pass Step 1 after the basic-science years.
2. Complete the TMAC OSCE.
3. Sit Step 2 at graduation or after internship.
4. Apply to the Ministry of Health and Welfare for the licence.

Nurses: 護理師

The registered nurse exam has five subjects of 80 MCQ items each, held twice a year. It is one of the largest cohorts in the Taiwanese system, and past papers are available on MoEX. Candidates are graduates of nursing junior colleges and universities.

With five subjects of equal size, give each one its own block in your timetable instead of leaning on your strongest area.

Midwives: 助產師

Midwives sit an MCQ exam across several subjects. The cohort is small, and we have not verified the number of subjects or items. Check the MoEX notice for the current structure. Graduates of midwifery programmes are eligible.

Pharmacists: 藥師

The pharmacist exam has been two-stage since 2019 and is computer-based MCQ. It is included in the January 2027 computer-based session. Pharmacy students and graduates are eligible. We do not have verified item counts for each stage, so rely on the MoEX examination announcement.

Dentists: 牙醫師

The dentist exam is a two-stage computer-based MCQ. Dental students and graduates sit it, and foreign graduates enter through the MOE screening. It is in the January 2027 computer-based session.

Physiotherapists: 物理治療師

The physical therapist exam is a computer-based MCQ with six subjects. It is included in the January 2027 computer-based session alongside the medical laboratory scientist and radiation technologist exams.

Exams in Taiwan compared

The move to computer-based testing

A September 2026 report from the Central News Agency states that the January 2027 session will run 11 medical categories entirely on computer, including doctors, pharmacists, dentists, physiotherapists, medical laboratory scientists and radiation technologists. If you are preparing for a sitting from that date on, treat the screen as part of the exam.

• Practise reading long case stems on a monitor, not on paper.
• Learn to flag a question and return to it. Step 2 alone has four papers of 80 items, so a steady pace matters.
• Check the MoEX notice for the exact categories and any transition rules, since details can change before the sitting.

Choosing between the February and July sittings

With two sittings a year, the decision is about readiness and about your training calendar. Students who finish their final term in June usually aim for July. Candidates who failed to clear a step can use the next sitting to retry, so build a six-month plan with a mock-exam checkpoint at the halfway point, and book the sitting only when your mock scores are stable.

Language and recognition

The papers are in Traditional Chinese. Medical terms are largely written in English, which makes the clinical papers easier for a candidate trained abroad in English than a fully Chinese-term exam would be. That helps with vocabulary only: question stems, case descriptions and the instructions are still in Chinese. Foreign-trained doctors must clear the MOE screening and an internship before any of this applies.

There is no regional recognition scheme that replaces the exam. Candidates comparing Taiwan with the mainland should note that the mainland exam is entirely in Chinese terms, while the Taiwan papers keep English terminology.

Using the past-paper archive well

MoEX publishes released papers (考畢試題). They are the best way to learn item style and difficulty. Use them to calibrate, and use a separate question bank for volume so you do not burn through the archive before the mock stage. Remember that a CBT format changes how you move through questions and mark them for review, so practise on a screen in the final weeks.

Last reviewed October 2026