The Medical Council of Canada has not yet published the NAC OSCE exam dates 2027. It will, most likely, in the weeks after the September 19–20, 2026 sitting — and when it does, the May 2027 application window will open within days and close three weeks later. This post sets out what the MCC has published for 2026, what the 2027 calendar will almost certainly look like based on the last three years, the deadlines that flow from it for the 2028 CaRMS match, and how to use the waiting time. We will update the table the day the MCC posts the dates.
What the MCC has published: the 2026 sessions
| Session | Application window | Exam | Results |
|---|---|---|---|
| May 2026 | November 19 – December 10, 2025 | May 2, 2026 (limited centres) | End of June 2026 |
| September 2026 | March 4 – 25, 2026; reopened May 11 – 15 to meet CaRMS timelines | September 19–20, 2026 | Late November 2026 |
MCC NAC OSCE Examination scheduling page, September 2026. Centres for September 2026: Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Hamilton, London, Ottawa (French), Toronto, Windsor and Saskatoon. The MCC states that “specific session dates are not guaranteed” and “all dates are subject to change”.
NAC OSCE exam dates 2027: what to expect
The NAC calendar has followed the same shape for several years: a smaller May sitting with applications in the second half of November, and a large September sitting — 73% of the year’s candidates in the MCC’s 2025–26 report — with applications in March and a short reopening in May tied to the CaRMS timeline. On that pattern, expect a May 2027 exam on the first weekend of May with applications opening in mid-November 2026 and closing in early December, and a September 2027 exam on a mid-to-late September weekend with applications in the first three weeks of March 2027. Treat these as planning assumptions, not dates; the MCC’s page is the only authority, and application windows are short enough that missing one by a week means waiting a session.
Three practical rules follow. Create your physiciansapply.ca account and complete source verification now, because you cannot apply to the NAC without them and verification takes weeks. Decide which session you want before the window opens, because the seats in the centre nearest you go first. And if you are aiming at the 2028 match, September 2027 is the sitting that matters: its results arrive in late November, in time for the provincial NAC deadlines that fell around November 20 in the 2026–27 cycle, whereas May 2027 results in late June give you a margin and, if needed, a second attempt in September — the NAC cannot be taken in consecutive sessions, so May and September of the same year is the fastest possible pair.
The rules that shape your 2027 plan
The NAC Examination is a one-day OSCE of ten scored stations and two pilot stations, eleven minutes each, in English or French, assessing history-taking, physical examination, communication and management with standardised patients. The fee is $3,320, with a $538 withdrawal fee before the deadline, a $130 charge for scheduling requests and a $1,660 administration fee for an absence with extenuating circumstances. You may sit it a maximum of three times in your life, never in consecutive sessions, and only your most recent result counts — the one rule that should make anyone hesitate before sitting a session they are not ready for. Every province requires it for IMGs in the CaRMS match except Quebec, where the universities still ask for it even though the Collège des médecins no longer does; most Practice-Ready Assessment programs require it as well.
NAC OSCE results: when and what
Results for the September 2026 sitting are due in late November 2026, posted to physiciansapply.ca. You receive a pass/fail decision, a total score and a supplemental feedback report showing your performance against the pass standard by competency. In 2025, 85.0% of September candidates passed and 75.8% of May candidates did; overall first-time pass rates were 81–82% in 2023 and 2024, with repeat candidates passing at about 79–80%. That is a much higher pass rate than the MCCQE’s, and it misleads people: the NAC is failed by candidates who knew the medicine but had never practised an eleven-minute station with a clock running, and a fail costs a year and a third of your attempts. If you sat in September 2026, our post on reading NAC scores explains the report; if the result is not what you hoped, the earliest re-sit is May 2027.
How to use the time before the dates are posted
Candidates who pass the NAC comfortably have usually done three things that do not depend on the calendar. They have rehearsed the station format until the timing is automatic: two minutes reading the door, focused history or exam, a closing summary and plan, all inside eleven minutes, with a partner playing the patient and holding the stopwatch. They have covered the breadth — the NAC samples across every system, so a candidate strong in medicine and weak in paediatrics, obstetrics or psychiatry will meet a station they cannot handle. And they have practised Canadian communication norms: consent before an examination, plain language, checking understanding, and the ethics scenarios that appear as stations rather than questions.
OSCE-R, mccQbank’s NAC OSCE preparation tool, has 112 timed history and physical-examination stations across 16 systems, in English and French, built to be run solo or with a partner exactly as the exam runs them. Ninety days of it fits the gap between an application window and an exam date. See how OSCE-R works, sign up free, or book a call with our faculty to plan a 2027 sitting.
Sources: MCC — NAC Examination scheduling page (2026 sessions, centres, results timing), NAC eligibility and application page (attempts, validity), fee schedule; MCC Annual Report 2025–26; NAC Examination Annual Technical Reports 2024 and 2025; CaRMS R-1 Summary of MCC Examination Requirements; AIMG NAC result deadline for the 2026–27 cycle. 2027 dates are projections from the 2024–2026 pattern and will be replaced with the MCC’s published dates as soon as they appear.
