Saudi Arabia Licensing

SCFHS: the one regulator for Saudi Arabia

There is no choice of regulator to make in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Commission for Health Specialties, shortened to SCFHS, licenses every clinical role in the country. The single regulator for every healthcare professional in Saudi Arabia - from student registration to consultant classification.

What a SCFHS licence does not do is travel. Take a job elsewhere in the Gulf and you open a new file with that country's regulator, even though most of the evidence in it will be the same.

• SCFHS (Saudi Commission for Health Specialties): Kingdom-wide. Exam via Prometric; Dataflow needed; about 12-24 weeks end to end.

The SCFHS route, step by step

SCFHS works through an application in a fixed order, and an exam slot only opens once the earlier steps are done.

• Step 1, Mumaris+ registration: Create your professional profile on Mumaris+ (SCFHS's unified system) and upload documents.
• Step 2, Classification & Dataflow: SCFHS classifies your title tier; Dataflow PSV runs in parallel.
• Step 3, Eligibility ID: Once classification + PSV clear, SCFHS issues an Eligibility ID to book Prometric.
• Step 4, Prometric Saudi exam: Sit the SCFHS Prometric assessment (Riyadh, Jeddah, home country or Dubai).
• Step 5, Professional registration: After passing, your Mumaris+ profile flips to 'Registered' - required for any Saudi employer's iqama.

The grade Saudi Arabia will register you at

No one practises clinically in Saudi Arabia without a licence in hand: doctors, dentists, nurses, midwives, pharmacists and the allied professions such as laboratory, radiography, physiotherapy and respiratory therapy are all covered.

Your job title at home does not carry over. The regulator reads your qualification and counts the years of practice you can prove after it, then places you in a grade of its own. That grade fixes which paper you sit and which salary band an employer can offer, so it is the first thing to establish, not the last.

• General Practitioner: 1 year post-internship
• Specialist: 4 years post-qualification (2 in specialty)
• Senior Registrar: between Specialist and Consultant
• Consultant: 5+ years post-specialty

What the Saudi Arabia licensing exam looks like

SCFHS examines through Prometric. All of these are computer-based multiple-choice papers taken at an approved test centre, and centres operate in most candidates' home countries, so the exam itself rarely needs a flight.

For SCFHS the published format is 150 – 200 MCQs, sat over 3 hours, with 60% (classification-specific) as the pass mark and an exam fee of $200 – $320. Holders of certain higher qualifications are excused the paper altogether, so check the exemption list for your grade before you book a seat.

Papers to gather for a Saudi Arabia file

You build one set of documents and it feeds every later stage: the regulator's portal, verification, and eventually your employer's onboarding. Gaps in it are what hold up Saudi Arabia applications far more often than the exam does. A letter missing a date or a signature comes back, and the review does not move while you replace it.

• Identity: Passport (bio page + valid Saudi entry visa or iqama if in-Kingdom)
• Identity: Recent passport-size photograph (white background, no glasses)
• Qualifications: Primary degree certificate (MBBS / BDS / BScN / equivalent)
• Qualifications: Full transcripts covering all years of study
• Qualifications: Internship completion certificate
• Experience: Continuous experience letters covering every month since qualification
• Experience: Each letter must state role, exact dates, full-time / part-time, and HR contact
• Experience: Log-book excerpts (for surgical and procedural specialties)
• Professional standing: Good Standing Certificate from your current licensing body (must be within 6 months at SCFHS review)
• Professional standing: Home-country practice licence (current, un-expired)
• Professional standing: BLS + ACLS / PALS / ATLS as applicable to your specialty
• Attestations: Degree attested by home country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• Attestations: Saudi Cultural Attaché or Saudi Embassy attestation of the degree
• Attestations: Culture office endorsement (for degrees from certain countries)

Dataflow checks for Saudi Arabia

SCFHS asks for a Dataflow primary source verification report. Dataflow contacts the institutions behind your file, meaning the university, the licensing council and each employer named, and asks them to confirm that what you submitted is real.

The pace here is set by other people. A university registry that answers in days gives you a fast report, and an employer that has closed or changed its contact details gives you a slow one. Tell your referees to expect the request. A finished report can normally be put towards a later application to another Gulf regulator, which shortens a second licence.

How long and how much: planning a Saudi Arabia licence

From a complete file to an issued licence, plan on roughly 12-24 weeks. That figure assumes nothing is returned for correction and the paper is passed at the first sitting. Revision and document collection are in your hands. Referee response times and the regulator's review queue are not, so run the two in parallel instead of finishing one before starting the other.

On cost, expect separate payments to separate bodies: the regulator's application and registration charges, the $200 – $320 exam fee, the verification report where one is required, and attestation if your documents need it. These are paid whether or not the application succeeds, which is one more reason to confirm your grade and regulator first.

• Mumaris+ registration: Free
• Classification & evaluation: $100 – $270 (Tier-dependent - Consultant is highest)
• Dataflow PSV report: $220 – $340 (SCFHS-specific package)
• SCFHS Prometric exam: $200 – $320 (Higher for Specialist and Consultant tiers)
• Registration certificate issuance: $130 – $270
• Total out-of-pocket (indicative): $650 – $1,200 (Excludes attestation courier, translations and any re-exam fees)