TL;DR: The nurse licensure examination is five parts over two days, and RA 9173 sets the pass mark at a 75 percent general average with no subject below 60 percent — with a removal examination for a single failed subject, which the LET does not have. PRC set the 2026 sittings for 26-27 February and 29-30 August. Recent results: 90 percent passed in November 2025 (40,692 of 45,192) against 44 percent in February 2026 (3,611 of 8,162). No agency accredits review centres, so judge them on coverage you can read, not on claims you cannot check.
Introduction
The Philippine nurse licensure examination — the NLE, sometimes written PNLE — is administered by the Professional Regulation Commission through the Professional Regulatory Board of Nursing. It is the gateway to practising as a registered nurse here, and usually a prerequisite for working abroad.
It is also an examination whose rules are widely misreported. The passing requirement circulating in most review guides is wrong, the day-by-day subject list is usually a paraphrase of a syllabus rather than PRC published programme, and the review centres selling preparation for it operate in a market no government body regulates.
This guide works from PRC own examination programme and the Philippine Nursing Act.
The examination, as PRC publishes it
Five parts, two days
PRC exam programme states plainly that the examination consists of five parts:
| Part | Coverage |
|---|---|
| Nursing Practice I | Care of individuals, families, population groups and community (community health nursing) |
| Nursing Practice II | Part 1 — care of mother and adolescent, well clients, at risk or with acute and chronic problems; Part 2 — human growth and development |
| Nursing Practice III | Clients with problems in surgery, oxygenation, fluid and electrolytes, infectious, inflammatory and immunologic response, and cellular aberrations |
| Nursing Practice IV | Clients with problems in nutrition and gastro-intestinal, metabolism and endocrine, perception and coordination |
| Nursing Practice V | Clients with maladaptive patterns of behaviour; clients with life-threatening conditions, acutely ill and multi-organ problems, high acuity and emergency situations |
The schedule for the August 2026 sitting shows how the load is split: three parts on day one and two on day two, each a two-hour block, with a 7:00-7:45 a.m. instruction period before the first.
What the tests draw on
PRC states the tests draw on the major subject areas of fundamentals of nursing including professional adjustments, maternal and child nursing, community health and communicable disease nursing, nursing of adolescents, adults and the aged, and mental health and psychiatric nursing.
Integrated into each of those, rather than tested separately: anatomy and physiology, pathophysiology, pharmacology and therapeutics, nutrition and diet therapy, and parasitology and microbiology.
This matters for review planning. Pharmacology is not a part you can skip and make up elsewhere — it runs through all five.
Passing, and the removal examination
Section 15 of RA 9173, the Philippine Nursing Act of 2002, sets the rule: an examinee must obtain a general average of at least 75 percent with a rating of not below 60 percent in any subject.
And the part most guides omit entirely: an examinee who reaches the 75 percent general average but falls below 60 percent in one or more subjects sits a removal examination on those subjects only, and must score at least 75 percent in each repeated subject to pass.
That is a materially different regime from the LET, where a failure means retaking the whole examination. If you are comparing notes with friends taking other boards, do not import their rules.
Exam-day rules
From PRC published general instructions:
- Report before 6:30 a.m. on day one to verify your room and seat. Late examinees are not admitted.
- Attire: clinical uniform with white shoes and white socks or stockings, without nameplate, school insignia or pin — or the school uniform. Pregnant examinees wear a white clinical scrub suit.
- Bring: notice of admission, two or more No. 2 pencils, black-ink ballpens, one long brown envelope, one transparent envelope for valuables, and packed meals, snacks, medication and hygiene items in transparent containers with enough drinking water for the day. No one may deliver food to you during the examination, and you may not leave the room except for restroom necessities.
- Prohibited: books, notes and review materials; all kinds of calculators; smart watches, phones, Bluetooth devices, earplugs, transmitters, portable computers and USBs; and bags of any kind.
Recent results
| Administration | Passed | Testing centres | Release |
|---|---|---|---|
| November 2025 | 40,692 of 45,192 (90.04%) | 21 | 15 working days |
| February 2026 | 3,611 of 8,162 (44.24%) | 21 | 5 working days |
The gap between those two rows is the single most misused statistic in nursing review marketing. It is not evidence that the February examination was harder. November drew a large cohort of fresh graduates sitting for the first time; February drew a small off-cycle cohort weighted towards repeaters. A review centre quoting either figure as the national benchmark is choosing the one that suits its pitch.
Judge your own odds from the more useful public data: PRC publishes Performance of Schools for each administration, by school of graduation. That is where your nursing programme own track record lives.
The 2026 schedule
PRC issued the 2026 calendar as Resolution No. 2113, s. 2025:
| Sitting | Dates |
|---|---|
| First | Thursday and Friday, 26-27 February 2026 |
| Second | Saturday and Sunday, 29-30 August 2026 |
A Special Professional Licensure Examination for nurses was also scheduled for 28-29 May 2026.
Note the shift: in 2025 the NLE ran in May and November; the 2026 calendar moved it to February and August. PRC sets the calendar year by year and amends it during the year, including testing-centre changes, so confirm on prc.gov.ph rather than assuming the pattern holds. Filing deadlines fall weeks ahead of each sitting and are published in the same resolution — our 2026 board exam schedule tracks both.
Choosing a review centre nobody regulates
The Supreme Court settled the regulatory question in Review Center Association of the Philippines v. Ermita, G.R. No. 180046, 2 April 2009. Executive Order No. 566, issued in 2006 after the nursing board leakage and directing CHED to supervise review centres, and CHED Memorandum Order No. 30, s. 2007 implementing it, were both declared void for being unconstitutional — the President had expanded CHED jurisdiction beyond RA 7722 without enabling legislation.
The result is that review centres are ordinary businesses. No agency inspects them, accredits them, or verifies a single claim they make. Topnotcher counts, "number one" titles, branch tallies and guaranteed-passing rates are all self-reported.
So evaluate them on things you can actually verify:
- A coverage map to the five parts. Ask for a written syllabus keyed to Nursing Practice I-V and see whether pharmacology, pathophysiology and microbiology are integrated across parts, as PRC says they are, rather than bolted on as one lecture.
- Mock exams in real blocks. Two-hour parts, three on the first day, marked and returned with an item analysis. Stamina is a testable skill.
- SATA and prioritisation items. Select-all-that-apply and prioritisation questions are what separate a passing score from a comfortable one.
- The failure policy, in the contract. Free repeat, discounted repeat, or nothing — get it in writing before you pay.
- Itemised total cost. Tuition, materials, mock exams, and whether the quoted price is a promotional rate.
- Instructor availability. Whether you can actually ask a question, and how fast you get an answer.
Where to look
SchoolFinderPH lists 221 review centres across 110 locations. Established nursing review brands with directory listings include:
- TopRank Review Academy — a large network with classroom and online programmes
- Ray A. Gapuz Review System — long-running, classroom and online
- St. Louis Review Center — multiple branches, with an online learning portal
- Merge Review Center — healthcare-focused, classroom-based
- Online-only providers, which suit provincial and working reviewees
Compare by location and format in our guides to the best NLE review centres, nursing review centres in Manila and nursing review centres in Cebu. We deliberately do not publish price ranges for individual centres, because advertised rates change between promotional cycles and are only meaningful as a current quote from the centre itself.
When to enrol
- Four to six months before your target sitting. For the August sitting, that means starting review by March or April.
- Earlier for early-bird pricing and schedule choice, which is the one advantage of enrolling ahead that is genuinely reliable.
- Do not let the filing deadline pass while you shop for a review programme. Enrolling in a review centre does not file your PRC application.
See how long to review for a board exam and review centre costs.
What a review programme should give you
- Handouts covering all five parts, not a generic nursing summary
- Weekly quizzes and periodic diagnostic tests
- Timed mock board exams in the real block structure
- Subject specialists rather than one generalist lecturer
- Item analysis after every mock, so you know where the 60 percent floor is at risk
- A peer group, which matters more than most people expect over four months
Bring a notebook, your own clinical references if you want them, and identification for enrolment.
Study strategy
- Protect the 60 percent floor first. Because RA 9173 fails you on any subject below 60 even with a strong average, your weakest part is your real risk. Diagnose early and spend disproportionate time there.
- Treat pharmacology as cross-cutting. It is integrated into all five parts, so drug classes, mechanisms and nursing implications pay off everywhere.
- Drill SATA and prioritisation items. They resist memorisation and reward reasoning.
- Take mock exams in the real block length. Two hours, no phone, no snack break mid-test.
- Work the nursing process as a framework, which is how PRC describes the examination construction — assessment, diagnosis, planning, implementation, evaluation applied across settings.
- Sleep. Memory consolidation is not a motivational slogan; it is the mechanism you are relying on for four months.
Sources
- PRC, Professional Regulatory Board of Nursing, Programme of the Nurses Licensure Examination for 29-30 August 2026 — parts, schedule, integrated subject areas and examination rules
- Republic Act No. 9173, Philippine Nursing Act of 2002, Section 15, on ratings and the removal examination
- PRC Resolution No. 2113, s. 2025, Schedule of Licensure Examinations for the Year 2026
- PRC results releases for the November 2025 and February 2026 nurse licensure examinations
- Review Center Association of the Philippines v. Ermita, G.R. No. 180046, 2 April 2009
Explore NLE review centres on SchoolFinderPH and filter by location — Manila, Cebu City, Davao City, Baguio and more than a hundred other places nationwide.
