Hot electron effects have been extensively studied in metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs). The importance of these effects when the dimensions are drastically reduced has so far not been thoroughly investigated. The scope of this paper is therefore to present a detailed study of the effective temperature of excess electrons in nanoscale MOSFETs by solving coupled Schrödinger and Poisson equations. It is found that the increased doping levels and reduced junction depths lead to substantially higher local Fermi levels in the source and drain regions. As a result, the temperature difference between electrons injected into the drain and local electrons is reduced. The scaling of the gate oxide thickness, as well as the drain voltage furthermore reduces the electron temperature in the drain. The detrimental effects of hot electron injection are therefore expected to be decreased by scaling the MOSFET.