Nursing is the largest skills shortage on earth. The World Health Organization puts the global gap at 5.8 million nurses as of 2023, down from 6.2 million in 2020 and projected to fall to 4.1 million by 2030. That improvement is real, and it is also why the countries doing the recruiting are getting more selective rather than less.
This is a guide to the countries that need nurses in 2026 and, more usefully, to which visa route each one actually uses. It also clears up the single most damaging piece of misinformation in this field, which is that the UK has stopped hiring nurses from abroad. It has not.
The UK: care workers closed, nurses did not
On 22 July 2025 the UK closed its care worker and senior care worker route to new applicants from overseas. Care providers can no longer sponsor a care worker from abroad, and people already in the UK on that visa have until 22 July 2028 to extend or switch.
That closure applies to two occupation codes: care worker and senior care worker. It does not apply to nurses. The Health and Care Worker visa remains open in 2026 to registered nurses, doctors and allied health professionals, with its reduced fee and its exemption from the immigration health surcharge intact.
So if you are a registered nurse, the UK is still recruiting you. If you were planning to enter as a care worker and qualify later, that path is closed. The distinction is the whole story, and conflating the two is how people abandon a route that was open to them. Our guides to the Health and Care Worker visa and UK employers hiring nurses cover the mechanics.
Where else is hiring, and on what route
Nursing appears on the shortage list of almost every wealthy country, but the route differs enormously, and so does the amount of work you have to do before you can practise:
| Country | Route | The part that decides it |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | Health and Care Worker visa | NMC registration and an English test. Still open to nurses. |
| Germany | EU Blue Card or the skilled worker route | Recognition is handled by the individual federal state, and approval in one does not carry to another. Nursing is a bottleneck occupation, so the Blue Card threshold drops to EUR 45,934.20. |
| Ireland | Critical Skills Employment Permit | Nursing sits on the critical skills list, which is the faster permit with a route to residency. |
| Canada | Express Entry, health care and social services category | Invited through a category draw rather than a general one. Provincial nomination is worth more than anything else. |
| Austria | Red White Red Card, shortage occupation | Graduate nurses and nursing assistants are both on the 2026 list, so no labour market test. You still need 55 points of 90. |
| Japan | Specified Skilled Worker, nursing care | Three exams, not two: the skills test, JFT-Basic or JLPT N4, and a separate Nursing Care Japanese Test. |
| Lithuania | Shortage occupations list | Nurses are listed, which removes the work permit and the labour market test. You still need the visa and the residence permit. |
| Gulf states | Company sponsored work visa | Fastest to arrange and the least portable. Your status is tied to the employer. |
Registration is the real barrier, not the visa
Almost everyone plans this the wrong way round. They research visas first and registration second, when registration is what takes the year.
Nursing is a regulated profession everywhere. Before you can work, a national or state body has to accept that your qualification and experience are equivalent to the local standard, and that usually means submitting verified transcripts, proving supervised practice hours, sitting an exam, and passing a language test set at a higher level than the visa itself asks for.
Two practical consequences. Start the registration process before you have a job offer, because employers in every one of these countries prefer candidates who are already in the queue. And check whether the country registers nationally or by region, because Germany’s state by state system catches people who assumed one approval would do.
Something the recruitment industry will not tell you
The WHO figures carry an uncomfortable detail. About 70 per cent of the projected global shortage sits in the African and Eastern Mediterranean regions, which is to say in the countries many internationally mobile nurses come from. The shortage is not evenly spread, and the countries doing the recruiting are largely the ones that already have relatively more nurses per head.
That is why the WHO maintains a list of countries facing the most pressing health workforce problems, and why several destination countries have codes of practice restricting active recruitment from them. It rarely stops an individual applying on their own initiative, which remains your right, but it does explain why an agency may tell you they cannot recruit from your country while the visa route itself is open to you.
If an agency says a route is closed, check the rule yourself. “We cannot actively recruit here” and “you cannot apply” are different sentences.
How to choose between them
- Decide what you want at the end. If it is settlement, the UK, Ireland, Canada, Germany and Austria all lead to residency. The Gulf does not.
- Then look at language. This eliminates more options than any other factor. English speaking destinations need a test you can probably pass now; Germany and Japan need a year or two of study on top of registration.
- Then check registration, not the visa. Work out what the regulator wants and how long it takes, because that is your real timeline.
- Then find the employer. Not before. Every one of these routes needs a job offer, and an offer you cannot act on for eighteen months is not much use to either side.
Country by country detail is in our guides to Germany’s bottleneck occupations, the Austrian shortage occupation list, the Lithuanian shortage list, Japan’s Specified Skilled Worker visa, Canada’s category based draws and Ireland’s Critical Skills permit.
When you are ready to look at posts rather than policy, browse nursing and healthcare roles with visa sponsorship on our board.
Last checked September 2026. Shortage lists, salary thresholds and registration requirements all change on announced dates, and the UK care worker closure has transitional rules running to 22 July 2028. WHO nursing and midwifery data is the source for the global figures.