WMS announces fee reductions for membership and Congress registration for 2026

The WMS is committed to making access to its membership and its Congresses as accessible as possible to people around the world working in the field of neuromuscular disorders. Early in 2026, the WMS Executive Board reviewed the membership and Congress registration fees to consider whether price reductions in some categories might help the Society improve access, particularly to those who find the cost a barrier to participating.

The WMS Executive Board is proud to announce updated membership and Congress registration fees for 2026. The changes include:

• Reducing the Congress registration fees for both in-person and virtual attendance for WMS members
• Increasing the Congress registration fees for both in-person and virtual attendance for non-members
• Reducing WMS membership fees for academic/patient advocate members
• Reducing WMS membership fees for retired members
• Increasing Congress registration and WMS membership fees for industry attendees/members

The aim of the new pricing structure is that those best able to pay the higher fees will do so, while those less able to do so can still access this valuable professional network.

Announcing the changes, WMS Treasurer, Ichizo Nishino said: “The “WMS supports professionals worldwide by sharing the latest developments in neuromuscular research and care and by fostering networks across our community. We do not want cost to be a barrier to engaging with WMS or attending our Congresses. These 2026 fee updates reflect our commitment to encouraging participation, including for colleagues working in settings where resources for neuromuscular care and research are more limited.”

Alongside these changes, the WMS Executive Board has agreed to provide a 100% discount on Congress registration for people working in the field of neuromuscular disorders in low- and middle-income countries who are also in receipt of a membership grant. The discount will also require these delegates to submit an abstract and have it accepted for presentation and apply for a WMS 2026 travel fellowship. More details will be available soon.

At the same time as introducing these price changes, the WMS is also moving to publishing prices in GBP rather than EUR. Previously, Congress registration fees were in EUR and membership fees were in GBP. We wanted to move to a single currency and as the WMS is a UK-registered charity and pays tax in the UK, it made sense to work in GBP across all payments. Another behind the scenes change is that we have moved from Barclaycard to Stripe for payment processing. WMS members shouldn’t notice a difference apart from the organisation your payments go through to reach us. We are not expecting this change to cause any disruption.