DHA Exam Eligibility ID: How to Get It Before You Can Book Prometric

“Book my Prometric” is not step one of the DHA exam, and treating it as step one is how nurses lose a month. You cannot open the Prometric booking site and pick a date whenever you like. Before Prometric will schedule you, you have to come away from the DHA's Sheryan portal holding an Eligibility ID — sometimes described as an exam eligibility number — because that ID is the thing the booking system asks for. No Eligibility ID, no booking.

This is not folklore or a forum tip. The DHA writes it down twice, in two documents that answer different halves of the question. Its Manual for Professional Assessment (Oral/CBT) gives the Prometric computer-based test a section of its own, and clause 7.2.2 states that Sheryan allocates the Eligibility ID after you apply and create an account, and that it is required to complete the Prometric online scheduling process. That is the rule. The DHA CBT assessment guideline— the document the manual itself points to in clause 7.2.12, published free on Sheryan — carries the procedure, and it is the one that corrects the commonest mistake on this page's subject.

This guide is logistics only — where the ID comes from, what has to happen before you can generate it, and what to check before you use it. It teaches no exam content.

What the Eligibility ID actually is

The Eligibility ID is the DHA telling Prometric, in effect, this candidate is cleared to sit our exam. Prometric is the test-delivery vendor, not the regulator — it runs the room and puts the questions on the screen, but it does not decide who is allowed to sit. The Eligibility ID is how that decision, made inside Sheryan, reaches the booking system. Per clause 7.2.2 it is allocated after you apply and create an account, and it is what unlocks scheduling.

The DHA's own five steps, in its own order

The guideline does not describe the process in prose. It prints a numbered panel, and it is worth reading in the DHA's own words because two of the five steps are missing from almost every account of this online:

• 1. Check your Mode of Exam per Specialty. Not every licensed title is tested by computer. The guideline says plainly that specialties not listed in it are assessed through an oral assessment instead — a different exam with different rules, which is why the manual covers both. All four DHA nursing and midwifery titles arelisted (Registered Nurse, Assistant Nurse, Registered Midwife, and Assistant Midwife, which the guideline marks “In-active”), so a nurse is normally in the CBT track — but the DHA publishes a Mode of Exam per Specialty page on Sheryan and that page, not a forum, is where you confirm it. It is also where the current guideline PDF is linked.
• 2. Apply for an account in Sheryan. Covered in the Sheryan guide.
• 3. Copy your DHA Unique ID. This is the step that catches people, because it means there are two numbers, not one. The DHA Unique ID is your permanent identifier as a professional in the DHA's system — it is the same number the DHA's public licence-check service asks for, as covered in the public-registers guide. The Eligibility ID is a separate, exam-specific reference. Confusing the two, or pasting one where the other belongs, is a wasted evening.
• 4. Generate the Eligibility ID. The action, not the wait. See the callout above.
• 5. Schedule the exam.On Prometric's site, with the Eligibility ID in hand — covered below.

What has to happen before you can generate the ID

Step 4 is an action, but it is not an action you can take on day one. The Eligibility ID sits near the end of a sequence, and the DHA decides when you reach it. In outline, and confirm the current steps on Sheryan:

• Register on Sheryan. You create your professional account and submit your application against the title you want. See the Sheryan guide.
• DataFlow Primary Source Verification. Your credentials go to the DataFlow Group to be verified at source — the step that usually dominates the timeline. See the DataFlow guide.
• Eligibility assessment. The DHA assesses your file against the Unified PQR. Only once you are eligible to sit the exam does generating the ID become possible — which is why the wait that decides your exam date is verification and assessment, not seat availability. The practical consequence: do not treat silence as progress. Check the portal, because the step that ends the wait is one you perform.

If you are exempt from the exam altogether, none of this applies — the exemption guide covers who does not sit at all. For how the whole application fits together, see the step-by-step process guide, and for the realistic clock, how long it takes.

Using the Eligibility ID to book

Once Sheryan has issued the ID, you schedule the exam yourself:

• Go to the right site. You book through prometric.com/DHA — the manual names this exact site in clause 7.2.3 — and select the DHA testing programme. Booking under the wrong programme is a real error people make with more than one Gulf application open.
• Enter the Eligibility ID. It is what the scheduling process requires (clause 7.2.2); without it you cannot complete a booking.
• Pay by credit card. Clause 7.2.4 lists the accepted methods as American Express, MasterCard and Visa credit cards. If you only hold a debit card, sort that out before you reach the booking screen.
• Pick a slot. There are no fixed nationwide exam dates; you choose from available slots, and Prometric operates centres in many countries, so you can usually sit the exam at home rather than travelling to Dubai.

Check your name before you schedule, not after

Clause 7.2.1 puts this first for a reason: the applicant must ensure the name is correct before scheduling, and the passport used at the centre must match the details given during registration (clause 7.2.10). If the passport name does not match the name registered in Sheryan, clause 7.2.11 says to contact the DHA no less than five days before the exam date — and states that the DHA is not responsible for any additional charges for new or rescheduled exams caused by the mismatch. That turns a paperwork slip into a lost seat fee. If your documents disagree with each other, fix it first: the name-mismatch guide covers how.

The bottom line

The Eligibility ID is the gate between your application and a booked exam. It comes from Sheryan, not Prometric; it becomes available only after registration, DataFlow verification and the DHA's eligibility assessment; and it is entered at prometric.com/DHA to schedule. Two things follow. Build your study timeline around reaching that point rather than around a date you have not been given yet — and when you do reach it, go and generate the ID rather than waiting to be handed it, then check your name and choose your slot with the fee in mind. For what the test-centre day itself looks like, see the DHA exam-format guide, which reads the same manual section in full.

Sources

• DHA — Manual for Professional Assessment (Oral/CBT), version 1.1 — section 7.2: clause 7.2.2 (Sheryan allocates the Eligibility ID, required for Prometric scheduling), 7.2.1 and 7.2.10–7.2.11 (name match), 7.2.3 (the prometric.com/DHA booking site), 7.2.4 (credit-card payment) and 7.2.12 (which points at the CBT guideline below).
• DHA — Healthcare Professional Licensing Assessment Guideline (CBT) — the document clause 7.2.12 points to, stamped “Updated — Sep 2026”. Its How to Applypanel is the five-step sequence quoted above, including “Copy DHA Unique ID” and “Generate Eligibility ID”; its preview page carries the nursing and midwifery title list and the caveat that the DHA may change the assessment without updating the document. The same guideline is the per-title blueprint read in the syllabus guide.
• DHA Sheryan — Mode of Exam per Specialty— step 1 of the guideline's own sequence, and the Sheryan page that links the current CBT guideline PDF.
• DHA Sheryan portal — where you register and where the Eligibility ID is issued. Walked through in the Sheryan guide.
• Prometric — DHA testing programme — the booking site the manual names, where the Eligibility ID is entered.