This is the question almost every parent asks before any other: will this degree actually let my child practise medicine in India? The answer is yes, subject to the same licensing exam every foreign medical graduate must clear — but the regulatory mechanism behind that "yes" is misunderstood often enough that it's worth explaining properly.
What changed in 2021
Since 2021, the National Medical Commission (NMC) does not pre-approve or "recognise" individual foreign universities the way older regulations once implied. Instead, it issues the Foreign Medical Graduate Regulations (FMGR 2021) — a set of eligibility criteria a foreign degree must satisfy, rather than a list of pre-approved institutions.
This is why the correct phrase is that a university is "NMC compliant" or "satisfies NMC guidelines" — not "NMC recognised." That distinction isn't pedantic; claiming formal "recognition" implies a status the current regulation doesn't actually grant to any foreign university, Vietnamese or otherwise.
The two things that actually matter
For a foreign MBBS degree to be usable in India, two things need to be true:
- The university must be listed in the WHO World Directory of Medical Schools (WDOMS). This is an independently, publicly searchable directory at search.wdoms.org — a family can verify this themselves for any university, not just take a consultant's word for it.
- The university must be recognised by the host country's own education authority — in Vietnam's case, the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET), which governs degree validity domestically.
All seven partner universities on this site satisfy both conditions.
What happens after graduation
Passing FMGR 2021's criteria does not exempt a graduate from India's licensing exam. Every graduate of a foreign medical degree — from any country — must sit and pass the NExT exam (which is progressively replacing FMGE) to receive a licence to practise in India, exactly as an Indian medical graduate would need to for their own licence.
This is a separate step from NEET. For six of the seven partner universities, NEET plays no role in admission at all — it matters only if the student later needs it as a prerequisite to sit NExT. See our eligibility guide for the one university where NEET is required earlier, at admission.
The honest caveat
Vietnam's first Indian MBBS cohorts under this partner network graduate around 2027. That means there isn't yet a multi-year track record of NExT/FMGE pass rates to point to, the way there might be for a country with a longer history of sending Indian graduates through the exam. Families should weigh this explicitly rather than assume an established pass-rate track record exists yet.
For a full breakdown of where each partner university stands, see MBBS in Vietnam: the complete guide, or speak to a counsellor about your specific situation.
