Most of this site is written for Pakistani students, but a meaningful share of our readers are Indian students weighing the same countries: China, Georgia, Russia, and the CIS destinations. India's regulatory framework for foreign medical graduates is genuinely different from Pakistan's, uses different terminology, and gets confused with it constantly in generic articles. This is specifically about India's system.
NEET Comes First, Before You Even Leave
Since a 2018 government notice, Indian students must qualify NEET-UG before enrolling in an MBBS program abroad. Your NEET result functions as your eligibility certificate for this purpose and is valid for three years. If you enroll abroad without a qualifying NEET score, you will not be eligible for registration in India after graduating, no matter how strong your foreign degree otherwise is. This is worth stating plainly because it occasionally gets skipped in the excitement of an admission offer: NEET is not optional groundwork, it is a hard prerequisite for the entire pathway back into Indian practice.
FMGE Is Still the Exam, for Now
The Foreign Medical Graduate Examination remains the operative qualifying exam for foreign medical graduates as of the most recent 2025 and 2026 sessions. India's National Medical Commission has floated NExT, the National Exit Test, as an eventual replacement, and some reporting points to FMGs transitioning onto NExT around 2027, but this has not been confirmed through an official gazetted NMC notification as of this writing. If you are planning several years ahead, keep checking NMC's own announcements rather than assuming either exam will be the one you sit when the time comes.
The Pass Rate, Stated Plainly
FMGE's pass rate has been consistently low across every recent session: roughly 20 percent for 2024 overall, about 18.6 percent in June 2025, and around 23.4 percent in December 2025, meaning more than three-quarters of foreign graduates failed to qualify in that sitting. Country-by-country pass rate figures circulate widely in consultant marketing, often citing very high rates for some countries and very low single digits for others including Russia and China, but these breakdowns are not published by NMC itself and come from third-party aggregation of publicly released results. Treat any specific country-comparison statistic you encounter, including anywhere it might appear on this site, as a claim to verify rather than an official NMC figure.
The passing threshold itself is 50 percent, 150 out of 300 marks.
What Determines Whether Your University Even Counts
Unlike Pakistan's PMDC, which maintains its own list of recognized foreign institutions, NMC does not publish or endorse any official approved-university list for Indian students studying abroad. There is no name-check portal equivalent to what Pakistani students can use. Instead, the Foreign Medical Graduates Licentiate Regulations, in force since November 2021, set structural requirements a foreign program itself must meet: a minimum of 54 months of education at a single institution, English as the medium of instruction, clinical training that is not split across multiple countries or institutions, and a 12-month internship built into that same foreign program.
This puts more verification burden on the student than Pakistan's system does. You are checking whether a program's structure meets these specific requirements, not looking up a university's name on an approved list.
Graduating Does Not End the Process
Passing FMGE does not put you straight into practice. India requires a separate 12-month Compulsory Rotatory Medical Internship at an NMC-approved Indian institution, generally to be completed within a set window after qualifying FMGE, in addition to whatever internship was already part of your foreign degree. Budget for this stage as a real, additional year, not a formality tacked onto the end.
What This Means for Choosing a University
- Confirm your target program runs at least 54 months at a single institution, with clinical training that stays at that institution rather than splitting across partner sites in different countries
- Confirm the medium of instruction is genuinely English throughout, not just for the pre-clinical years
- Confirm the program includes its own built-in internship rather than assuming you can add one on separately later
- Plan for FMGE preparation as seriously as you would any other high-stakes exam, given how low recent pass rates have run, and budget time and cost for the additional Indian internship afterward
Frequently Asked Questions
Is FMGE the same thing as Pakistan's NRE?
No, though they serve a similar overall purpose. They are separate exams administered by separate regulators, India's NMC and Pakistan's PMDC, with different structural requirements around program length, internship placement, and eligibility. Do not assume information about one applies to the other.
Does a low FMGE pass rate mean my specific university is a bad choice?
Not necessarily on its own. Overall pass rates reflect exam difficulty across all foreign graduates broadly, not a verified, official measure of any single university's quality. Focus on whether your specific program meets FMGL 2021's structural requirements rather than reading too much into an aggregate national statistic.
Can I go abroad for MBBS without having taken NEET?
Not without real consequences. Without a qualifying NEET score, you generally will not be eligible for registration in India after graduating, regardless of the strength of your foreign degree.
Applying from India and want to confirm a program meets FMGL 2021's requirements? Titans Abroad checks a university's structure against India's specific rules before you commit, not just Pakistan's. Contact us on WhatsApp.