Checked 25 September 2026. From OMSB's OEN-BSN and OEN-Diploma booklets (April 2026), its Occupational Classification page and Pearson VUE's OMSB page. Earlier booklets did not publish a pass mark.
Oman licenses nurses through two bodies that are easy to confuse. The Oman Medical Specialty Board (OMSB) runs the exam; the Ministry of Health (MOH) issues the licence. The exam itself comes in two papers — one for nurses with a bachelor's degree and one for diploma holders — and since 2023 it has been delivered by Pearson VUE, not Prometric. OMSB's April 2026 booklets publish the pass marks for the first time. This guide is built from them.
OMSB OEN-BSN and OEN-Diploma booklets (April 2026); OMSB registration guide.
The two papers
| Feature | OEN – BSN | OEN – Diploma |
|---|---|---|
| Official name | Omani Examination for Nurses – BSN | Omani Examination for Nursing Diploma |
| Who sits it | Bachelor's degree in nursing from a recognised college | Diploma in Nursing Science from a recognised college |
| Pearson VUE code | OMSB_OEN (Pearson VUE voucher page) | Not published on the pages we read |
| Questions | 100 MCQs, four options, one best answer | 100 MCQs, four options, one best answer |
| Duration | 2 hours 30 minutes | 2 hours 30 minutes |
| Pass mark | 60% | 50% |
| Fee | USD 200 | USD 200 |
| Result | Emailed within 24 hours | Emailed within 24 hours |
| Where (booklet) | "For those residing in Oman", at OMSB; for those outside Oman, Pearson VUE centres | Same |
From OMSB's April 2026 booklets. At 150 minutes for 100 questions you have 90 seconds a question — more than most Gulf nursing exams give. OMSB lists no midwifery, practical-nurse or assistant-nurse paper.
Where other pages get this wrong
Oman's nursing exam is run through Pearson VUE, is 100 questions, and publishes its pass marks.
Commonly published instead: "OMSB Prometric exam, 70 MCQs in 2 hours" and "the pass mark is not published — generally 50% for RN".
Under a multi-year agreement announced by Pearson VUE in February 2023, Pearson VUE exclusively administers OMSB's occupational-classification examination for nurses. The April 2026 booklets give 100 questions in 2 hours 30 minutes, and pass marks of 60% for the BSN paper and 50% for the Diploma paper. The 70-question, 2-hour figure was a generic Prometric-era format for some OMSB exams.
The BSN blueprint
OMSB OEN-BSN booklet (April 2026); each domain may vary by ±5%. Question counts are our arithmetic on 100 items.
| Domain | Covers (booklet) |
|---|---|
| Principles of Care (20%) | Standards of care, legal and ethical practice, leadership and management |
| Evidence-Based Practice (5%) | Research and epidemiology |
| Adult Health (30%) | Care of adults across body systems |
| Maternal, Child and Mental Health (10% each) | Maternity, paediatric and psychiatric nursing |
| Community Health & Gerontology (15%) | Community and public-health nursing and care of older people |
The booklet says the questions cover seven domains; Pearson VUE's 2023 announcement counted eight because it listed community health and gerontology separately. Use the booklet.
The Diploma blueprint
OMSB April 2026 booklets. The Diploma paper has Fundamental of Nursing where the BSN paper has Principles of Care, and no evidence-based-practice domain.
The Diploma paper puts 35% on Adult Health, replaces Principles of Care with Fundamental of Nursing, drops evidence-based practice, and lists Community Health without gerontology. Its competencies are the BSN list minus legal and ethical practice, leadership and management, and evidence-based practice. In short: the Diploma paper is more clinical and more basic; the BSN paper asks for professional, managerial and research knowledge on top. Each domain may vary by up to five percentage points from its stated weight, so treat the numbers as a guide to proportion rather than an exact count.
Who has to sit it
OMSB's occupational-classification page is direct: "The Ministry of Health and other governmental and private institutions use OMSB Occupational Classification examinations for licensing purposes. Therefore, to be able to work for the MOH and other Health Institutions, the candidates must sit the OMSB OC examinations." The BSN booklet adds that the paper is "proposed for all nurses who graduated with a Bachelor's Degree in Nursing" in Oman or abroad, and serves as an eligibility criterion for employment. In short, an Indian nurse heading to Oman — government or private — should expect to sit one of the two papers.
What the papers test besides clinical knowledge
| Competency (booklets) | In both papers? |
|---|---|
| Professional practice | Yes |
| Infection prevention and control | Yes |
| Patient safety | Yes |
| Health promotion and disease prevention | Yes |
| Nursing care; critical thinking and problem solving | Yes |
| Communication and interdisciplinary collaboration | Yes |
| Legal and ethical practice; culturally congruent care | BSN only |
| Leadership and management | BSN only |
| Evidence-based practice | BSN only |
The booklets list these competencies across every domain, so they appear inside clinical questions rather than as separate sections — an infection-control or patient-safety angle can turn up in a maternity or paediatric question.
The official book lists
| Area | BSN list | Diploma list |
|---|---|---|
| Fundamentals and assessment | Kozier & Erb's Fundamentals (10th); Weber, Health Assessment in Nursing (4th) | The same two |
| Adult health | Brunner & Suddarth (14th); Sole, Introduction to Critical Care Nursing (7th) | Brunner & Suddarth (14th) |
| Maternal and child | Pillitteri, Maternal and Child Health Nursing (7th); Wong's Essentials of Pediatric Nursing (10th, 9th) | Pillitteri (7th); Wong's Essentials (10th) |
| Mental health | Townsend, Essentials (6th) and Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing (9th); Gorman & Sultan, Psychosocial Nursing (3rd) | Townsend & Morgan (9th); Gorman & Sultan (3rd) |
| Community and gerontology | Allender, Community & Public Health Nursing (8th); Eliopoulos, Gerontological Nursing (9th); Savage (2020) | Allender (8th); Savage (2020) |
| Leadership and research | Marquis & Huston (8th); Polit & Beck, Nursing Research (7th); Webb & Bain, Essential Epidemiology (2nd) | — |
Grouped by us from the booklets' reference lists: sixteen titles for BSN, nine for Diploma. The BSN booklet also carries seven sample questions with an answer key — on topics such as opioid overdose, positioning a newborn with myelomeningocele and counselling in end-stage renal disease — which are worth doing once to see the style.
What the sample questions show
| Sample question topic (BSN booklet) | Likely domain (our reading) | What it tests |
|---|---|---|
| Naloxone for morphine overdose | Adult Health | Recognising a drug emergency and its antidote |
| Prone positioning for a newborn with myelomeningocele | Child Health | Safe positioning to protect a lesion |
| Hand-foot-and-mouth disease in an occupational-health setting | Community Health | Communicable-disease control |
| Calcium for leg cramps in pregnancy | Maternal Health | Common antenatal complaints and advice |
| Involuntary commitment and suicidal ideation | Mental Health | Legal and safety decisions in psychiatry |
| Counselling in end-stage renal disease | Adult Health | Patient education and communication |
| Assessment as the first step in a research focus | Evidence-Based Practice | The research process |
The seven sample topics are OMSB's; the domain and "what it tests" columns are ours. They are scenario questions that ask what the nurse should do, not recall of definitions — a useful guide to the style of the other 100.
Booking and the day
| Rule | What Pearson VUE / OMSB say |
|---|---|
| Booking | At pearsonvue.com/omsb; each attempt is a new booking and payment |
| ID | Non-Omanis: a valid passport; first, middle and last names must match the Pearson profile exactly |
| Rescheduling | Free at least 48 hours before; full refund if cancelled 48 hours or more ahead |
| Arrival | 30 minutes early; more than 15 minutes late may forfeit the fee |
| Result | Score report emailed within 24 hours |
From Pearson VUE's OMSB page and the booklets. Online payment is unavailable in a few countries; India is not among them. Candidates resident in Oman sit at OMSB's own test centre in Muscat; everyone else books a Pearson VUE centre, which for most Indian candidates means a centre in India.
Practise it, don't just read it
Adult Health is 30–35% of either paper. The medical-surgical quizzes are the place to start.
The ProSyllabus Oman nursing library has topic quizzes for Fundamentals of Nursing, Medical-Surgical Nursing: Cardiovascular and Respiratory, Medical-Surgical Nursing: Renal, Endocrine and Gastrointestinal, Pharmacology for Nurses, Maternal and Child Health Nursing, Critical Care and Emergency Nursing, Infection Prevention and Control and Professional Practice, Ethics and Oman Health Regulations. Each question comes with an explanation.
What is the OMSB nursing exam pass mark?
60% for the OEN-BSN paper and 50% for the OEN-Diploma paper, according to OMSB's April 2026 booklets.
How many questions are in the Oman nursing exam?
100 single-best-answer questions in 2 hours 30 minutes, for both the BSN and the Diploma paper.
Is the Oman nursing exam Prometric or Pearson VUE?
Pearson VUE. Under an agreement Pearson VUE announced in February 2023, it exclusively administers OMSB's nursing occupational-classification exam; older Prometric FAQs are out of date.
What is the OMSB nursing exam fee?
USD 200 for either paper.
When do OMSB exam results come?
The score report is emailed within 24 hours of finishing the exam.
What is the Pearson VUE code for the Oman nursing exam?
OMSB_OEN for the BSN paper. The Diploma paper's code is not published on the pages we read; it is assigned when OMSB registers you.
In which language is the OMSB nursing exam?
The booklets do not state a language. The reference books OMSB lists are all English-language nursing texts.
Is the Oman nursing exam hard?
OMSB publishes no pass rates. It is 100 questions in 150 minutes — 90 seconds each, more time than most Gulf nursing exams — with a 60% (BSN) or 50% (Diploma) pass mark.
Does the Oman nursing exam have a pharmacology section?
No. Neither blueprint has a pharmacology domain; drug questions appear inside the clinical domains, as the naloxone sample question shows.
Is there an Oman exam for midwives?
OMSB's list of occupational-classification exams has no midwifery, practical-nurse or assistant-nurse paper.
More in this series
- Oman nursing for GNM, B.Sc and Post-Basic nurses
- Oman nurse licence: DataFlow, viva, licence, renewal
- Oman nursing exam: attempts, results, myths
- Oman nursing exam: 6-week study plan
- Oman OMSB nursing notice board — official updates
- Gulf nursing licences compared: Saudi, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain
- Indian nurses and emigration clearance: the 2025 rule change
Sources
- official — OMSB — Omani Examination for Nurses (OEN-BSN) booklet, April 2026
- official — OMSB — Omani Examination for Nursing Diploma booklet, April 2026
- official — OMSB — occupational-classification exam registration guide (April 2026)
- official — OMSB — Occupational Classification testing
- official — Pearson VUE — Oman Medical Specialty Board
- official — Pearson VUE — OMSB partners exclusively with Pearson VUE (15 Feb 2023)
official = a document published by the conducting body. reported = a news or coaching site we could not check against an original. Where sources disagree this page says so rather than picking one.
