Fees and steps checked on
UAE employers and regulators ask for an attested degree before they file a skilled work permit, a licence or a Certificate of Recognition. If your bachelor's or master's comes from a Saudi university, the attestation has three layers: the university, the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the UAE Embassy in Riyadh. The embassy now works digitally and adds MOFA attestation itself, so there is no queue at a MOFA centre in Dubai.
About us: DubaiCertificateAttestation.com is a private document service, not MOFA, an embassy or a government office. We send someone to collect your degree free of charge anywhere in Dubai, and the finished document comes back to you the same way.
Price: There is no fixed price for Saudi Arabia. Send a copy on WhatsApp and you get the total price plus VAT, all official fees included, before any work starts. See attestation fees.
Three layers of stamps
Layer one, the university. King Saud, King Abdulaziz, KFUPM or a private college: whichever issued the degree confirms it so the foreign ministry will accept it. If your file also needs the Saudi Ministry of Education, we flag it when we see a copy.
Layer two, the Saudi foreign ministry. The UAE Embassy in Riyadh states plainly that Saudi documents must carry Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs attestation before it acts. An apostille certificate stapled to the degree does not replace that for UAE use.
Layer three, Riyadh embassy plus MOFA. The request goes in on the UAE MOFA website using UAE PASS, with Saudi Arabia selected as issuing country. A MOFA-approved courier picks up the original. You then get an email with the degree attested by both the embassy and MOFA. Verification is open to employers at verify.mofa.gov.ae.
Who usually asks for it
| Your situation | Who wants the attested degree |
|---|---|
| New skilled job in Dubai or Abu Dhabi | Your employer, for the work permit. See attestation for an employment visa |
| Degree recognition | The UAE Ministry of Higher Education. See equivalency certificate in the UAE |
| Health, teaching or engineering licence | The relevant UAE regulator |
Before the courier comes
Gather these:
- The original degree. The embassy cannot work from a scan, and laminated certificates are refused.
- Your transcript, if the employer or regulator listed it. See transcript attestation.
- Passport copy.
- An old iqama copy, since the English spelling Saudi Arabia used for your name may differ from your passport.
Every official fee and the courier sit inside the one price we quote.
The order of steps and how long each takes
- Photograph the degree and transcript and send them to us on WhatsApp, with the name of the university and what the degree is for.
- We confirm the route and flag any extra education step before anything is posted or collected.
- University confirmation, then the Saudi foreign ministry. Our partners in the Kingdom handle both visits, so you do not travel.
- Request on the UAE MOFA website with UAE PASS. Saudi Arabia is selected as the issuing country.
- Courier collection. The embassy says its courier collects within 24 hours of a complete request, and most digital requests finish in 2 to 3 business days. The original comes back 24 to 48 hours after release, or 48 to 72 hours for remote areas.
- Check the result. Open verify.mofa.gov.ae and confirm the attestation record before you hand the degree to your employer. See how to verify MOFA attestation.
The university and foreign ministry stages take longer than the embassy stage, and their timing depends on the university, so we give you a realistic range once we see a copy.
What you can do yourself and what you cannot
You cannot skip the Saudi foreign ministry, and you cannot replace the embassy stamp with an apostille. If the original was lost, ask the university for a replacement before you start, because the embassy works from the original only.
Recognition comes after attestation
An attested degree is enough for many work permits. A Certificate of Recognition goes one step further, because the UAE Ministry of Higher Education also checks the degree directly with the university, often through Dataflow verification. Get the attestation done first, as recognition builds on it.
Where Saudi degree files go wrong
- Relying on the apostille. The single most common mistake since 2022.
- Name spelled three ways. Arabic degree, iqama and passport rarely match exactly. We compare them before the file leaves Dubai.
- Distance or online study. The recognition stage asks more questions about how the course was delivered. Mention it in your first message.
You do not need to fly back to Saudi Arabia for any of this. Our partners handle the university and foreign ministry visits there, and the embassy courier does the rest. Marriage contracts and company papers from the Kingdom are covered on Saudi Arabia certificate attestation, and the rules that apply to every country's degrees are on degree certificate attestation.
