Document Attestation & Legalisation Services
Attestation is the single most common cause of a visa or recruitment file stalling, and almost always for a procedural reason: a step skipped, a translation not certified, a document attested in the wrong order. The chain has to run correctly the first time, because restarting it costs weeks.
In short
Documents issued outside Saudi Arabia must be attested through a chain — typically the issuing authority, the origin country's foreign ministry, the Saudi mission there, and the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs — before they are accepted locally. SCPL coordinates that chain for educational, commercial and legal documents.
What's included
What SCPL handles under Document attestation
Companies recruiting from overseas, employees regularising qualifications, and businesses needing commercial documents recognised in Saudi Arabia.
- Educational certificates
- Degrees and professional qualifications, as required for work visa and profession classification.
- Commercial documents
- Company registrations, board resolutions, agreements and certificates of origin.
- Powers of attorney
- Drafting support and legalisation for use before Saudi authorities.
- Certified translation
- Arabic translation to the standard the receiving authority will accept.
- Chain coordination
- Managing each step in the correct sequence, including the Saudi mission and Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Common questions
Why was our employee's degree certificate rejected?
Most often because a step in the attestation chain was missed or taken out of order, the translation was not certified to the required standard, or the name on the certificate does not exactly match the passport. All three are procedural and all three are avoidable with a pre-check.
How long does attestation take?
It depends almost entirely on the origin country and the responsiveness of the authorities in that chain, which is outside anyone's control. What is controllable is submitting complete and correctly ordered documents, so no step has to be repeated.
Talk to someone who does document attestation every day
Tell us the situation and we'll tell you what it actually takes to fix it — including when the answer is that you don't need us.