At the College’s AGM on Tuesday 8 October, a new formula – an average of the inflation rate over the last three years, capped at 5% – was agreed for our membership subscriptions as part of the VP Treasurer’s report. How much each membership category will pay can be seen here and will take effect from 2025. Remember: tax relief can be claimed on membership subscriptions – for example:
www.medicsmoney.co.uk is a great resource to help you estimate how you can benefit from this and you can apply for tax relief here.
Subscriptions have been frozen for six out of the last 12 years and while the College has tried to hold its rates for as long as possible and increases are generally not desirable, we have tried to keep these to a minimum and hope that having a set formula will better aid financial planning and allow the College some certainty to the budget for the services it delivers for members.
The new fees will come into effect from 1 January 2025 and all members will be written to in advance of this.
In line with the increase in membership fees, our events fees will also increase by 5%. Members of the College still benefit from significant discounts for our events and study days, of a minimum £100. See our full list of rates for 2025.
Significant improvements have been made in the delivery of our exams over the last two years, through delivery of an ambitious Exam Transformation Plan. This work has enabled delivery of an increased number of exams for candidates, with a record 3,400 applications for the October MRCEM Primary – the College’s largest exam to date. This has been done whilst maintaining a track record of accurate results production in the past 34 examinations.
In addition to the College being able to support growth in candidate numbers, candidate experience has improved with many processes in relation to the exam lifecycle now automated and improvements made to candidate eligibility and removal of some unnecessary burden that candidates had been experiencing. Overall candidate satisfaction scores have increased from 3.5 out of 5 in 2022 to 4 out of 5 this year.
New rates and a new structure of fees for exams will also be implemented for 2025, and is in line with our approach in other areas, such as our events fee structure above, with those who are members of the College benefitting from discounts to their exam fees.
Theory examinations will be priced for UK member and non-members, and international members and non-members. For FRCEM OSCE examinations that are currently only delivered in the UK these will be priced for members and non-members. There is country specific pricing for international MRCEM OSCEs that has a member and non-member tiered pricing structure. However, we know that OSCE exams are in demand internationally and we are now in early talks with our current host sights sites of Malaysia and India about potential expansion in these areas. There will be further discussions about this in 2025.
If you would like to become a member to benefit from the discounts available you can apply today – you will need to register for an account first here, or if you already have an account, apply here.
See the full list of exam fees for 2025. In addition to member discounts, the differentiation in fees reflects the different resources needed to deliver each exam, such as the continued requirement for manual checking by staff of international exams to ensure standards are met hence tiered fees that reflect the differing administration implications for UK and international candidates.
For those who are accessing our paid for services online from India, there is a requirement from the Indian Government to pay the Online Information Database Access and Retrieval (OIDAR) tax. This means that if you are accessing any of our paid for services online – such as exams, membership, or our online events – there will be an 18% surcharge added to the cost of the service we provide in order for us to meet our obligations to the Indian Government. This rate is set by the Government and the cost, while collected by us as Royal College, is passed directly onto India and is beyond our control. If you require any further clarification or assistance, including any further information about OIDAR tax and how it applies to you or the services we provide then please do not hesitate to contact us.
This type of tax may also be mandatory for other countries outside of the UK and is currently being looked into.
You can read more about the 2024 Annual General Meeting here.
