Care for patients in hospitals, clinics and homes. In demand everywhere in Canada.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Counsellors: send it to a student from your own email in one click.
Programs in the fields this career usually comes through. Each has its own page: what it takes to get in, the courses you need and what it costs.
The median pay is about $90,000 a year. Across everyone in the job it runs from about $62,000 at the lower end to about $113,000 at the upper end. The source is listed under Sources at the end of this page.
4 years after high school, on the usual route.
$30,000 to $44,000 all in for tuition, fees, exams and kit. Living costs are not counted.
Yes. It is a regulated job, so you need a licence or registration before you can work.
Very high demand nationally, from government outlook data. Demand varies by region, so check your area.
Or read the whole thing here
What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Median
$90,000
Lower end
$62,000
Upper end
$113,000
Job Bank's national median is $43.27 an hour, about $90,000 a year at 40 hours a week. The lower end ($30) and upper end ($54.37) are the bottom and top of the wage range for everyone in the group. Most hospital nurses are unionized and paid on a grid that rises with years of service.
$41.15 an hour
About $80,000 a year to start in an Ontario hospital
The first step of the Ontario Nurses' Association hospital grid from April 1, 2026, at 37.5 hours a week for full time. Each province's nursing union sets its own grid.
$58.00 an hour
The median in the Northwest Territories, the highest in Canada
Nunavut is close behind at $57.99. Ontario's median is $42.00 and Quebec's is the lowest, at $40.00. Nights, weekends and overtime are paid on top of the base rate.
Roughly, all in
$30,000 to $44,000
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is a four year BScN (Bachelor of Science in Nursing) at a cheaper university with books, uniforms, the licensing exam and your first registration. The high end is a more expensive program with higher clinical and equipment fees. The NCLEX (National Council Licensure Examination), the national licensing test, costs about 360 dollars now and rises to 570 in 2027, and provincial registration is a few hundred dollars every year for the rest of your career. Quebec residents pay far less than these figures, and many hospitals help with tuition in exchange for a work commitment.
Roughly $30,000 to $44,000 total before living costs. Quebec tuition is much lower for residents.
A defined-benefit pension
One that pays a set amount every month for life. HOOPP (the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan) covers Ontario hospital nurses.
Extended health and dental
Paid sick days and vacation
Typically 3 to 4 weeks to start, rising with seniority.
Shift premiums
Extra per hour for evenings, nights and weekends.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Outside Quebec there is one main road to becoming an RN (registered nurse). Quebec has its own route: tap Quebec route to add it.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Grade 12 English, biology, chemistry and a math. Strong marks matter, admission is competitive.
Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BScN)
4 years
A four-year degree with clinical placements from year two. Universities offer it, and in Ontario many colleges do too, either on their own (Algonquin, Conestoga, Fanshawe) or together with a university (Mohawk with McMaster).
Write the NCLEX-RN (the national nursing exam)
After graduation
The national licensing exam. It runs up to 5 hours, and each question it asks depends on how you answered the last ones.
Register with your provincial college
A few weeks
Each province has its own nursing regulator. Registration lets you legally use the title RN.
Biology
Required almost everywhere.
Chemistry
Required at most schools.
Math
Any Grade 12 math, functions or data management.
English
Required. Nursing involves a lot of writing.
Every province has accredited programs. A few examples:
McMaster, Western, Queen's, Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), and college degrees at Algonquin, Conestoga and Fanshawe
Ontario. The University of Toronto only takes nursing students who already have two years of university.
UBC (University of British Columbia) Okanagan, Thompson Rivers University
British Columbia
University of Calgary, MacEwan University, University of Lethbridge
Alberta
Dalhousie, Memorial, University of New Brunswick (UNB), University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI)
Atlantic Canada
You cannot call yourself a registered nurse without being registered with your provincial college, for example the College of Nurses of Ontario or the BC (British Columbia) College of Nurses and Midwives. Registration must be renewed every year and includes continuing education requirements. Moving provinces means transferring your registration, which is usually straightforward.
Quebec has a college route as well as university routes. All of them lead to the same licence through the same exam.
Finish Secondary V
Age 16 or 17
With Secondary IV Science and Technology plus Environmental Science and Technology (or the applied versions), and ideally Secondary V chemistry.
Nursing DEC (Diploma of College Studies)
3 years
A 3 year CEGEP (public college) program. In English at Dawson, Vanier, John Abbott, Champlain and Heritage. No tuition for Quebec residents.
Register as a student with the OIIQ (Ordre des infirmières et infirmiers du Québec)
Start of the program
The nurses' order. Required before your first clinical placement, $235 plus tax.
Pass the OIIQ professional exam
After graduating
Quebec's own exam, in French or English, $638.11 per try, at most 3 tries within 2 years. Until you pass you can work under supervision as a candidate nurse.
Show French, then register
A few weeks
The permit needs proof of French. A Quebec high school diploma counts, even from an English school. Otherwise you pass the provincial French exam. Then you join the order's roll.
Both lead to the same permit and the same scope of practice. The college route is the fastest, 3 years after Secondary V. A bachelor's degree lets you be hired as an infirmière clinicienne (clinical nurse), a separate title with more complex care. There are two ways to get one: a 2 year university degree after the nursing DEC (Diploma of College Studies), often done while already working as a nurse, or a 2 year science DEC followed by a 3 year bachelor's.
Secondary IV science
Science and Technology plus Environmental Science and Technology, or Applied Science and Technology plus Science and the Environment. Required for the nursing program.
Secondary V chemistry
Expected. Without it you can still get in, and the college fills the gap.
Secondary V math (Technical and Scientific, or Science)
Not required for the nursing program, though some colleges recommend it. It is required for the science program on the university route.
French
Some colleges, Vanier for one, ask for spoken French at admission, and the permit needs it.
Quebec resident rates for 2026 to 2027. Universities add their own fees on top of tuition.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Critical care or ICU (intensive care unit) certification
Extra training to care for the sickest patients.
Emergency nursing certification (ENC(C))
Canadian Nurses Association certification.
Operating room nursing
Post-grad certificate, in short supply.
Nurse Practitioner
Master's degree, 2 years. Nurse practitioners (NPs) diagnose and prescribe.
Volunteer at a hospital or long-term care home
Shows you know what the work is really like.
First aid and CPR
Required before clinical placements anyway.
A second language
French is required for the licence in Quebec, and an asset in federal jobs everywhere.
Agency and travel nursing contracts fill short-staffed units, sometimes with housing included, especially in the North and rural areas. You give up the pension and stability. Most nurses do it for a few years, not a career.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Hospital nurses usually work 12-hour shifts, rotating days and nights: three in most weeks and a fourth in some, about 36 to 40 hours a week on average. You take report at handover, assess your patients, give medications, coordinate with doctors and families, chart everything, and respond when things change fast. Clinic and community nurses work more regular daytime hours.
The good
The hard parts
Like the field but not this exact job?
Things people don't tell you.
Every province except Quebec adopted the American NCLEX-RN (nursing licensing) exam in 2015. The same test licenses nurses on both sides of the border. Quebec runs its own exam.
Since September 2025, every Ontario hospital in the provincial agreement must let a nurse reach the top of the pay grid in no more than 8 years. From April 2026 the top step is $58.98 an hour.
The UK makes every nurse trained outside it pass a two-part test: a 115-question computer test, then a 10-station practical exam taken in the UK.
Every list is built from the same numbers shown above, so you can see where this career sits next to the others.
Nursing and patient care first, then the rest of the field. See every career in health.
Last checked October 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in Canadian dollars, based on Government of Canada Job Bank wage data and published salary grids. They vary by province, employer and experience. Tuition is for domestic students. How every figure on this site is sourced and checked.
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