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Purpose: It is essential to regulate nursing to protect the population's health. As regulation constantly changes in response to societal trends, periodic reviews of nursing regulations become imperative. Therefore, we developed a legal framework by extracting essential elements for nursing regulation and explored its potential application., Methods: This study consisted of two parts. First, the legal framework for nursing regulation was developed through reviewing literature that mentions the content that can be included in nursing regulations, and through a content validity assessment by five experts. Second, this legal framework was applied to the nursing laws of China, Hong Kong, Japan, and Taiwan to confirm the suitability of the framework., Results: In the first part of the study, the legal framework for nursing regulation consists of seven categories (purpose, definitions, standards for practice, license acquisition and registration to practice, regulatory body, protection of the legal authority of nurses, offenses/penalties, and disciplinary procedures) and 17 items was developed. As a result of applying this framework to nursing laws in four countries, the average utilization rate for all 17 items was 68.4%. The matching scores between the framework and the law were over 60% for all four laws., Conclusion: Regulations, especially in the form of legislation, must be carefully considered because laws involve enforcement and potential penalties. This study is significant for identifying essential nursing regulation elements and offering a practical reference tool, expected to be widely utilized in future nursing policy and regulatory research., Competing Interests: Conflict of interest The Authors declare that there is no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2024. Published by Elsevier B.V.)