Dear All, I know how frustrated you all might be with this situation. Let me give you some good news and explain this process in detail and simple words.
There are two places you need to get a Degree attested for a job in Saudi Arabia.
1) The Embassy or the MOFA (different countries would have different names for it but this is the office that will be stamping your passport with work visa). They will attest any certificate including ACCA. However, they will only attest a degree that has been attested by the Saudi Cultural Bureau first. (that's where its impossible to get OBU Degree via ACCA route attested - please read along for reason)
2) The Saudi Arabia Cultural Bureau. They only attest degrees and not certificates (e.g. ACCA etc) and they only consider a degree VALID, if and only if, it was studied in a brick university by physically attending the classes in the university building for at least 80% of the time. They don't consider degrees as valid that are studied online or distance learning (OBU via ACCA route) and will never attest them.
Good News -
In 2022 Dec, my ACCA Membership Certificate (not affiliate or part qualified) was attested by the Saudi Embassy in the UK and was accepted as a valid educational certificate for the purpose of issuing a Financial Manager work visa.
Further, in order to get a Yellow Slip (the slip that you need to get permanent family visas for your immediate family (e.g. Wife and Children) , you will again need to translate and take the translated and the original Attested ACCA Membership Certificate to the MOFA here in Saudi Arabia and the good news is that they did issue me the Yellow Slip (Feb 2023) on the basis of Attested ACCA Membership Certificate. Once you are in the Saudi Arabia, you will also have to register with SOCPA (Saudi Organisation for Chartered Public Accountants) using your attested ACCA Membership Certificate and will need to take it with you to the MOFA here in Saudi Arabia to your Yellow Slip appointment.
I used Vital Consular - [link moderated] to get my ACCA Membership Certificate attested by the Saudi embassy. They are very professional and knows what they are doing. There are other authorised agents of Saudi Embassy in the UK who will tell you that you cannot get an ACCA Membership Certificate attested via the Saudi Arabia Embassy but I found that to be false based on my personal experience with Vital Consular. I guess they confuse the rule for a degree with ACCA Membership Certificate.
I hope the above is clear and is helpful to someone as I personally struggled a lot to get any answer from any official source and it was a big gamble that I had no option but to play.
One free Tip, Do NOT Resign from current job until you the stamped Visa in your hand from Saudi Arabia Embassy. The employers here understand the bureaucracy involved in this lengthy process and are very co-operative and will be fine if you negotiate your joining date or working remotely in the beginning. I didn't know that and was very stressed considering in the UK the employer expects you to join on short notice or are difficult to negotiate with for extending the joining date.
