Illinois licensure requirements for the foreign trained RN

Licensure and immigration are two very different items. Even if you possess a green card or a US passport, but have trained out of the US, you will have to meet these requirements for licensure. Nothing is waived for you.

1. You must have the CES report completed by CGFNS, their website is www.cgfns.org. They may take a little longer than some of the others, but their report is then accepted by all of the universities here as well as all of the states that require a credentials eval. Please get this done before submitting any actual application to Illinois for licensure. The CGFNS exam is no longer needed so no reason to want to write it for them. It will not get you a license and you are still required to write the NCLEX-RN for the license to practice in the US.

2. You are going to be applying for licensure as an RN in the state of Illinois, there is no such thing as applying for the NCLEX exam. The exam is only one step in the licensing process and you need to have permission to even sit for the exam.

3. When you send in your application, please make sure that all of the required information and documentation is submitted at the same time, or closely related. This means that the CES has been sent already or is ready to be sent in, as well as fingerprints are submitted at the same time as well. They are unable to do a thing without the CES report as well as the fingerprints and it should not be there responsibility to hold onto a file that is not complete. Many states are starting to return applications if all of the documentation asked for is not received in a very timely fashion.

4. If your nursing program was 100% in English and is documented as such on your transcripts, then you are exempt from the English requirement for Illinois. However, this does not waive the requirements for immigration and obtaining the Visa Screen Certificate.

All of the specifics for licensure and what gets sent where can be found directly on their website including contact numbers for them if you need additional information from them.

Thank you.