Intealth ECFMG

Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates

ERAS Support Services

Eligibility


ERAS® Eligibility

To participate in ERAS, you must have a USMLE/ECFMG Identification Number. You may purchase a residency Token and apply to programs before you complete the examinations required for ECFMG Certification.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Individual programs set their own eligibility criteria and application deadlines. It is up to applicants to research their programs of interest prior to applying.

NRMP® (The Match®) Eligibility

To participate in The Match, NRMP requires that you meet the examination requirements for ECFMG Certification and that your passing results/satisfactory completion of these requirements are available by the NRMP Rank Order List (ROL) Certification deadline. To maximize the chances that you meet these requirements in time for you to participate in The Match, you should become familiar with them, including applicable deadlines and turnaround times. Please consider the following:

  • To participate in The Match, and for ECFMG to be able to verify that you have met the examination requirements for ECFMG Certification, you must register with NRMP by the NRMP Late Registration deadline.
  • To review the examination requirements for ECFMG Certification, see Examination Requirements on the ECFMG Certification Overview page.
  • The time required to process your applications for the medical science examinations may take several weeks.
  • To review score reporting turnaround times for the medical science examinations, refer to the USMLE Bulletin of Information.
  • For deadlines and turnaround times to meet the clinical and communication skills requirements for ECFMG Certification through a Pathway, see Requirements for ECFMG Certification for 2024 Match.

Please note that the number of applicants seeking to complete the required medical science exams may exceed the spaces available in time for all applicants to meet deadlines imposed by NRMP and/or graduate medical education (GME) programs.

U.S. State Medical Licensure Requirements

In the United States, a license to practice medicine is granted by individual state medical licensing authorities. Each state sets its own requirements for licensure. Depending on the state, a training or restricted license may be required to participate in GME programs. Participants in GME may also be required to obtain an unrestricted medical license by a certain point in their training in order to progress in the program.

Some states have established additional criteria with respect to international medical schools for the purpose of eligibility for licensure. When you plan to apply to residency programs, consult the state’s medical licensing board to determine if graduates of your medical school are eligible for licensure in that state.

Additionally, if you were certified by ECFMG based on former medical science exams (such as the Visa Qualifying Examination [VQE] or the Foreign Medical Graduate Examination in the Medical Sciences [FMGEMS]), you should be aware that these exams may not be acceptable for the purpose of eligibility for a training license. Of the states that require a training license for participants in GME, most do not accept these exams for this purpose.

ECFMG does not create or control the medical licensure requirements for any jurisdiction and does not create or control the eligibility requirements for any GME program. Additionally, ERAS does not preclude any students/graduates from participating in ERAS, based on their eligibility for licensure. Before applying to residency programs in a given state, it is your responsibility to become familiar with that state’s licensure requirements and to ensure that you meet any licensure requirements to enter and complete residency training in that state.

For a directory of U.S. state medical licensing authorities, visit the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) website.

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Important Dates

  • March 11: Applicant matched and unmatched information and filled and unfilled results posted to the NRMP website at 10:00 a.m. Locations of all unfilled positions are released at 10:00 a.m. only to participants eligible for the Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program (SOAP).
  • March 12: Programs with unfilled positions may start entering their Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program (SOAP) preference lists at 11:30 a.m.
  • March 14: Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program (SOAP) offer rounds begin at 9:00 a.m.
  • March 14: Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program (SOAP) concludes at 9:00 p.m.
  • March 15: Match Day. Applicants learn if they matched through the NRMP R3 system and email at 12:00 p.m.

All times shown are Eastern Time in the United States.

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[Last update: May 17, 2023]

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