Saudi Apostille for Indian Engineers & Construction Workers

NEOM, the giga-project being built across 26,500 square kilometres of north-western Saudi Arabia, is the single largest construction programme in modern history. The committed spend through 2030 is reported at roughly USD 500 billion, and NEOM's own contractor base of Bechtel, Hill International, AECOM, WSP, Parsons, Saudi Binladin Group, Almabani and Al Bawani is building it with a workforce that is meaningfully Indian. Welders and fabricators from ITI Hyderabad, ITI Pune, ITI Coimbatore, ITI Surat, ITI Ludhiana. Site engineers from College of Engineering Pune (COEP), Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute (VJTI) Mumbai, the IITs at Bombay, Madras and Hyderabad, the NITs at Trichy, Warangal and Surathkal, BITS Pilani, Manipal, Vellore Institute of Technology, PSG Coimbatore. Project managers from Larsen & Toubro Mumbai, Shapoorji Pallonji Mumbai, Afcons Mumbai, Tata Projects Hyderabad and KEC International.

NEOM is one of several. The Red Sea Project, AMAALA, Qiddiya, Diriyah, the King Salman Park in Riyadh, the Jeddah Tower restart, the Saudi Arabia Railway (SAR) expansion, the Riyadh Metro completion and the Jeddah airport terminal redesign together add up to roughly USD 1.3 trillion in committed Saudi spend through 2030. Saudi labour cannot fill that demand. Indian engineering and trade staff carry a significant share of it, and the visa paperwork to get them there is what this page walks through.

SiZA Global Solutions Private Limited, a Noida-based documentation services firm at C-25, C Block, Sector 8, handles the authentication in India on Saudi engineering and construction visa applications. The work breaks into a few clear stages:

• HRD attestation on engineering degrees, done at the state Human Resource Development directorate
• State Directorate of Technical Education (DTE) attestation on polytechnic diplomas
• State Council for Vocational Training (SCVT) attestation on ITI certificates
• MEA apostille in Delhi at the Ministry of External Affairs
• Certified Arabic translation by a Saudi-listed translator
• Saudi Embassy attestation where the white-collar category still needs Qualification Verification Programme (QVP) or Mosaddaqa verification on top

Saudi Arabia accepted MEA apostille on Indian documents from 7 December 2022, confirmed by the Hague Conference status table, so the older Saudi Cultural Attaché step is no longer the standard apostille attestation route on personal and educational documents.

Who handles the Saudi work visa: the contractor, the PRO or you?

Saudi mega-project work in 2026 hires through three stages, and knowing which one owns each step tells you who is responsible for what in your visa file. The main contractor (Bechtel, Hill International, AECOM, WSP, Parsons, Saudi Binladin Group, Saudi Oger successors, Almabani, Al Bawani, El Seif and similar) wins the package from the project owner (NEOM Company, the Public Investment Fund PIF, the Royal Commission for AlUla, the Red Sea Global, Diriyah Gate Development Authority and so on). The main contractor subcontracts trade packages to specialist firms (Larsen & Toubro, Shapoorji Pallonji, Afcons, Tata Projects, KEC International, L&T Saudi Arabia, JGC, Saipem Saudi, Petrofac and others). The subcontractors hire Indian engineering and trade staff either directly from India through their own recruitment teams or through licensed Indian recruitment agencies registered with the Ministry of External Affairs.

For documentation, this matters because the offer letter you hold will be in the subcontractor's name. The visa application in Saudi Arabia will go through that subcontractor's Public Relations Officer (PRO) in Riyadh, Jeddah or Dammam. The Saudi Embassy in Delhi attests the papers under the same subcontractor's invitation. None of the authentication done in India changes based on which contractor it is, but you should know who owns each step.

Is Saudi attestation now MEA apostille after the Hague treaty?

Saudi Arabia joined the Hague Apostille Convention, and the treaty entered into force for the country on 7 December 2022. Since then, MEA apostille has been the recognised apostille attestation for Indian personal and educational documents going to Saudi Arabia. In plain terms, apostille in India has replaced the old embassy stamp for most engineering and construction files. Because Saudi is now a Hague country, this is an apostille, not embassy attestation.

For an Indian engineer or construction worker, this means three things.

The older Saudi Cultural Attaché stamp on personal and educational documents is no longer the standard route. The Saudi Embassy in Delhi still operates an attestation counter, and for some specialised employment categories (white-collar work visas at Specialist or Consultant level) the Saudi Embassy still asks for Qualification Verification Programme (QVP) or Mosaddaqa verification on top of the apostille. For most blue-collar and mid-level engineering applications, MEA apostille is the last attestation step done in India.

State HRD attestation before MEA remains mandatory for educational certificate attestation from Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and several other states. For polytechnic diplomas, the State Directorate of Technical Education attestation runs instead of HRD. For ITI trade certificates, the issuing State Council for Vocational Training attestation runs first.

Certified Arabic translation of the apostilled documents is prepared in India by a translator listed for Saudi Embassy use. The translation is added after apostille, not before, so the translator is working on the fully attested set. If your role needs it, the same set can be prepared as a sworn translation that names and signs off the translator. Degree attestation, MEA apostille and certified Arabic translation together are what the Saudi PRO expects to receive.

Why does the Saudi PRO hold an engineering visa application?

A Saudi subcontractor's PRO does not approve every visa application that lands on the desk. The PRO is matching your documented experience against the trade or role mentioned in the Saudi block visa quota the contractor was issued. If the contractor was granted a block visa for "Site Engineer Civil" and your experience letters say "Site Engineer" without the civil specialisation, the application gets held for clarification.

The pattern repeats across trades. A welder's experience letter that says "Welder" without trade certification (TIG, MIG, SMAW, FCAW, structural, pipeline) is weaker than one that names the welding type, the equipment, the project type (oil and gas, structural steel, building services, marine) and the supervisor sign-off. An electrician's experience letter that says "Wireman" or "Electrician" without site type (residential, commercial, industrial, EHV substation, oil and gas, building services) and equipment exposure is weaker than one with all of those.

We help you draft a re-issue request the previous employer can accept. A usable letter carries:

• Company letterhead
• Candidate name exactly as on the passport
• Employee ID
• Exact joining and exit dates
• Role title with the trade qualifier (for example "Senior Welder, TIG/SMAW, Structural Steel")
• Site or project name
• Supervisor name and contact
• An HR stamp with a verifiable email domain

Which documents to apostille and attest for a Saudi engineering visa?

The steps in order.

Step	What happens	Where	Applies to
1	State HRD attestation	Relevant state directorate	Engineering degrees and post-graduate degrees
1	State Directorate of Technical Education (DTE) attestation	Relevant state DTE	Polytechnic diplomas
1	State Council for Vocational Training (SCVT) attestation	Issuing SCVT	ITI trade certificates
1	SDM or Home Department (HRD alternative on some routes)	State office	Personal documents: PCC, marriage, birth certificate
2	MEA apostille	Ministry of External Affairs counter, New Delhi	All documents
3	Certified Arabic translation by a Saudi-listed translator, prepared after the apostille	In India	All documents
4	Saudi Embassy verification (QVP, Mosaddaqa, Saudi Culture Attestation)	Saudi Embassy, Chanakyapuri, Delhi	White-collar Specialist or Consultant applications only

The Saudi Embassy attestation in Delhi (Chanakyapuri) is no longer the standard step for most personal and educational documents now that Saudi is a Hague country, but it is still used for some category-specific verifications (QVP, Mosaddaqa, Saudi Culture Attestation) on white-collar applications. You can confirm a current Saudi work visa category on the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs site before you start.

The GAMCA medical and the personal documents

A General Authority for Health Affairs (GAMCA) medical fitness check is done at a GAMCA-authorised centre in India (Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bengaluru, Kochi, Trivandrum, Lucknow, Chandigarh and others). The GAMCA medical is valid for three months, so schedule it to land in the last three weeks before the flight, not earlier.

Personal documents that ride alongside the trade certificate:

• Passport with at least eight months of validity
• A recent Police Clearance Certificate from the Passport Seva Kendra (PSK)
• Recent passport-size photos against a white background
• The Saudi employer's offer letter or block visa copy

Where do Saudi attestation and apostille applications get delayed?

Across the Saudi engineering and construction work visa applications SiZA Global has carried, three issues account for the bulk of the delays in degree attestation, MEA apostille and certified Arabic translation. We name them so you can clear them before any original leaves your home city.

Experience letter ambiguity

Covered above. The single highest-return preparation step is to get the experience letters re-issued with trade specifics, equipment names and supervisor sign-off before the application leaves India.

State HRD or DTE backlog

The Maharashtra Mantralaya HRD desk, the Lucknow Directorate of Technical Education, the Hyderabad State HRD office and others sometimes carry a 7 to 14 working day backlog during peak season (April to May, October to November). HRD attestation across states runs anywhere from about 7 to 45 working days depending on the state and university, so applications that arrive without buffer get delayed here. We track the live backlog and send applications to faster directorates where your home state is flexible.

Police Clearance Certificate confusion

This is the third recurring delay. A local-police PCC (issued by the city or district commissionerate) is technically valid, but the Saudi Embassy in Delhi often asks for a PSK-issued PCC. The PSK PCC moves through MEA apostille without an additional state Home Department step; a local-police PCC needs the extra Home Department attestation. For Saudi engineering applications, the PSK route is always faster.

What does SiZA do in India and what does the contractor PRO do in Saudi Arabia?

The split is simple, and it is geographic. Our work happens in India: in Mumbai (Mantralaya HRD desk for Maharashtra-issued engineering degrees from COEP, VJTI, IIT Bombay), Bengaluru (Karnataka HRD for degrees from IISc, BMS, MSRIT, RVCE), Chennai (Tamil Nadu HRD for IIT Madras, College of Engineering Guindy, SSN), Hyderabad (Telangana HRD for IIT Hyderabad, JNTUH, BITS Pilani Hyderabad), Pune (for COEP and BJMC), Coimbatore (PSG Tech), Trichy (NIT Trichy), Warangal (NIT Warangal); at the issuing State Council for Vocational Training for ITI certificates from Pune, Hyderabad, Coimbatore, Surat, Ahmedabad, Ludhiana, Lucknow, Patna or Kolkata; at the State Directorate of Technical Education for polytechnic diplomas; and at the Ministry of External Affairs counter in Delhi for the apostille. From our Noida office, named SiZA Global staff carry the originals to each office in Delhi NCR. No bike-aggregator courier touches your ITI certificate or your degree.

The contractor PRO's work happens in Saudi Arabia: in Riyadh, Jeddah or Dammam, at the General Directorate of Passports (Jawazat) for the visa-quota filing, at the Saudi consulate for the visa stamping, at the GAMCA-authorised centre for the medical, at the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Riyadh for any post-arrival document ratification, and at the project site (NEOM, the Red Sea Project, AMAALA, Qiddiya, Diriyah, the King Salman Park, the SAR rail line, the Riyadh Metro line, the Jeddah airport terminal) for the trade test and onboarding.

The two halves do not overlap, and that is the honest line. We are not the contractor's PRO, not a recruitment agency, not the Saudi consulate, not GAMCA. We do not file the visa, sit the trade test, or set foot at the Saudi project site. What we do is get your degree, diploma, ITI certificate and experience letters out of your home city in Mumbai, Pune, Coimbatore, Hyderabad, Trichy, Warangal, Surat, Ahmedabad, Ludhiana or wherever you live, through state attestation, MEA apostille and certified Arabic translation, into a form the contractor's PRO can take to the Saudi consulate without rework. WhatsApp +91 9220161774 with photos of your papers and the Saudi offer letter before any original moves. See the Saudi Arabia documentation guide for the country-level picture.