Booking the Saudi SVP (Takamol) Test From India: The 57 Centres, the USD 85 Fee and the Cities With None

If you are in India and your Saudi visa occupation needs the Skills Verification Program test - the Takamol test - the booking is the same as everywhere outside the Kingdom, but the map is not. From the portal's own public data:

• Fee: USD 85 per test since 9 September 2026, paid by Visa or Mastercard on svp-international.qiwa.sa. No official rupee figure exists; at mid-market rates it is roughly INR 8,100 before your bank's margin.
• Centres: 57 test centres in India on the portal's public list on 5 November 2026, in 34 cities - but heavily concentrated in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Delhi NCR, Rajasthan and Mumbai.
• Occupations: 855 were switched on ("activated") for India on 13 October 2026, out of 1,250 in the catalogue.
• Certificate: 2 years for a computer-only test or RPL, 5 years with a practical - the portal's India settings match the official FAQ.
• Pass mark 50%, three attempts, the full fee each time.

What India does not have is what Pakistan has: a government page publishing the fee in local currency, the centre count and a helpline. India's partner is the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), but it publishes far less than Pakistan's NAVTTC, so this guide works mostly from the Saudi portal's own data. The full rules of the test itself are in the SVP exam guide; this page is about booking it from India and getting through test day.

We pulled the portal's public centre list on 5 November 2026. One entry, a "System Test Center" at "123 System St", New Delhi, is plainly a placeholder and is excluded. The remaining 57, by city:

Three things follow from that map.

The south is thin. Tamil Nadu has one centre (Madurai). There is none in Chennai, Bengaluru, Coimbatore or Thiruvananthapuram on the list. A candidate from Chennai choosing "Madurai" or "Hyderabad" is choosing a journey.

The north is dense. Lucknow alone has six centres, and Uttar Pradesh and Bihar together have 24 - roughly where Saudi construction and driving recruitment is heaviest.

Most centres are private companies. Twelve carry the Houston Testing and Skill Upgradation Academy name, eight Arabtech BSL and six ASMACS Skill Development. A handful are institutes - Agnel ITI in Mumbai, St Aloysius ITI in Mangaluru, a centre inside the government ITI at Karaundi, Varanasi, and culinary schools in Pune, Delhi and Khatima for cooks and bakers.

The portal's centre list changes. The Pakistan guide recorded 60 Indian centres on 13 October 2026; three weeks later there were 57. Check the city filter on the day you book, not a list on any website, this one included.

The official user guide (version 7, November 2025) says the time and location "will be assigned automatically and randomly" once you pick the method, city and language. That matters more in India than almost anywhere else, because the centres in one city are often run by competing private companies that also sell training.

So an agent or a coaching centre telling you it can book you into its own test centre, or an "easy" one, is not describing the official process. Pick the city you can actually reach on the date, and look up the address on your ticket the day it arrives. If you cannot get there, you can reschedule once, at least 72 hours before. Missing the test loses the fee.

The portal charges USD 85 to every candidate outside Saudi Arabia, by Visa or Mastercard. Indian debit cards that are enabled for international online payments work in principle; RuPay-only cards are not named as accepted, and Mada is not accepted on the international portal.

The booking screen itself makes you confirm that your employer should refund the fee for one test in the occupation on your work visa. That is the portal's wording, not a law we could find, but it is worth raising with your recruiting agent in writing before you pay.

There is an Indian rule on this too. Migrant-Rights.org reported in October 2024 that the Emigration (Amendment) Rules 2017 bar recruiting agents from charging workers "trade test fees", and that of the old USD 50 fee roughly USD 15-17 went to NSDC. We have not read the rule's text ourselves, so treat it as reported - but if a recruiter is billing you for the test inside a large lump sum, ask for the answer in writing, and for the USD 85 card receipt.

The Saudi side is Takamol, running the test for the Ministry of Human Resources. The Indian side is the National Skill Development Corporation. NSDC's own skill-verification page says its memorandum of understanding with Takamol was signed in 2019 - we could read that only in a cached copy of the page, not the live one - and the programme started as a pilot announced by the Saudi ministry in December 2022, in New Delhi and Mumbai, for plumbers, electricians, welders, HVAC technicians and auto electricians (Arab News, 29 December 2022).

It has grown since. In August 2026 NSDC and Takamol signed a new MoU covering vocational training and assessment; the reports (PSU Connect and Indian Masterminds, 26-27 August 2026) said the programme had assessed nearly 3 lakh candidates across 83 occupations since the 2023 pilot. NSDC International separately signed a skills agreement with Takamol in May 2025 (PTI).

What none of these sources does is publish a rupee fee, a helpline, a live centre list or a pass rate for India. For those, the Saudi portal is the only official source, and it is the one this guide uses.

Not every Saudi visa needs the test. On the PACC site, pacc.sa (the old pacc.qiwa.sa address redirects there), search the occupation exactly as written on your visa and select India. If it shows as "activated", expect to need the test. If it does not, the official FAQ says the test is not required. On 13 October 2026, 855 of 1,250 catalogue occupations were activated for India - the same number as for Pakistan.

Two groups are routinely told they need it when they do not: engineers, who register with the Saudi Council of Engineers instead (SCE accreditation for expat engineers), and professionals with degrees, whose check is the separate Qualification Verification Program. If your visa says engineer and someone is booking you an SVP test, stop and ask why.

1. Register on svp-international.qiwa.sa (the old svp-international.pacc.sa redirects there). Upload your passport and enter your name and passport number - not the file number, and exactly as printed. It cannot be changed later.
2. Complete the profile: photo, ID number, education level, password; confirm the one-time code by email or SMS.
3. Start Verification and choose the occupation that is on your visa. MOFA checks the code; a wrong choice cannot be changed.
4. Choose the method offered for your occupation: in person, online with remote proctoring, or RPL (a document review).
5. Choose the city and language. Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, Urdu and English are among the nine offered - but only those available for your trade appear.
6. Accept the centre and slot assigned, pay USD 85 by card, and print the ticket that arrives by email or SMS.

If your name on the passport is long, has an initial expanded, or a surname only on the second page, enter it exactly as the machine-readable zone shows. Name mismatches are the commonest reason a paid ticket becomes useless at the door. Pakistani candidates' version of this same process, with NAVTTC's own figures, is the Pakistan booking guide.

Arrive 30 minutes early (the FAQ figure; the user guide says 15 - use the stricter one). You do not need an eMigrate document, a recruiting-agent letter or a coaching-centre receipt to sit the test. Those belong to other stages of the visa. If you are going the RPL route, getting the certificate through attestation for Saudi Arabia before uploading it is the safer order, because RPL documents suspected of forgery are rejected.

The test is computer-based, or computer plus a practical marked by an assessor, depending on the occupation. It runs up to 120 minutes; the number of questions is not published and varies between candidates. The two parts count together - pass the practical and fail the computer test and you retake both.

The result usually appears at once, occasionally up to five days later. Then the certificate sits on your dashboard, and the embassy and MOFA pick it up electronically when your visa is processed. How to read the result, download the certificate and check it is genuine is in the SVP result and certificate guide; if it goes the other way, the attempt rules and their visa consequences are in the guide to failing the SVP test.

Lucknow has a centre that is specifically a driving assessment site, and driving is one of the highest-volume SVP sectors. Drivers may be offered RPL using their Indian driving licence instead of a test. Either way, the SVP certificate is not a Saudi driving licence: once in the Kingdom, converting means a separate theory test under a different authority, at a 75% pass mark.

We found no Saudi warning specific to India. What we did find is structural: the same private companies that run test centres also sell training, and agents bundle the booking into recruitment packages. None of that is illegal. What is worth knowing:

• Book only on svp-international.qiwa.sa. On 13 October 2026, search results also showed svp-internationalpaccsa.com - no dot before "pacc" - which is not the official site.
• Pay only by card on the portal. No cash, UPI or bank-deposit route is described anywhere.
• Nobody can choose your centre or guarantee a pass. The computer test is machine-marked.
• Anyone can check a certificate on the portal's public check-certificate page, with the passport number and certificate serial. If an agent hands you one, check it yourself.

Migrant-Rights.org reported in October 2024 that agents in India were offering certificates "without testing" for around Rs 12,000. A certificate that does not appear on the portal's verification page is worthless at the embassy, whatever was paid for it.

Paying for training is a reasonable choice. Paying for a "guaranteed" result is paying for something that does not exist.

No syllabus or question bank is published - the official FAQ says the test "is based on the general information for the test taker occupation" and that there are no resources to review. What you can practise is the format: multiple choice, on a computer, in the language you choose, against the clock, on the safety and method questions every trade paper leans on.

Start with the free SVP practice test - no sign-up, each question with its answer and the rule behind it, marked at the real 50%. If you already know your trade, go straight to the short sets for electricians, plumbers, HVAC/AC technicians or welders.

For timed practice at full length, the SVP practice bank has original questions for those four trades and timed mocks, for one payment. The questions are ours, written to general trade knowledge - not from Takamol, PACC or any "leaked" pool, because none exists. Hindi and Tamil speakers should still practise in the language they will choose on the day - reading speed in a second language is its own skill.

If you are moving workers in volume, the costs that hurt are avoidable ones: occupations chosen wrongly at booking, names typed differently from passports, and candidates who never saw a computer-based multiple-choice test before. A fifteen-minute check of each worker's visa occupation against pacc.qiwa.sa, and one practice session, prevent most of them. Exam prep for agencies and employers sets up practice access for a batch of candidates, and the Saudi work permit service covers the employer's side.

• The detail of NSDC's role. NSDC's 2019 MoU appears only on a cached copy of its page; the August 2026 MoU is reported in the press without a date or signatories.
• The Emigration (Amendment) Rules 2017 wording on trade test fees, which we have only as reported by Migrant-Rights.org.
• Any link between the SVP and eMigrate or ECR clearance. We found no MEA notice; the order of SVP and visa stamping comes only from agency pages.
• An official fee in rupees. None is published; the INR figure is our arithmetic.
• Which centres are taking appointments this week. The public list is not an availability list.
• Whether RuPay cards work on the portal. Only Visa and Mastercard are named.
• Refunds for a voided booking beyond the account-credit rules for cancelling 72 hours ahead.
• Which trades require the practical - decided per occupation at booking.

The rules of the test: the SVP exam guide. Practice: the free practice test. After the result: checking the result and certificate.

Want the paperwork handled? Wathim does not sell SVP bookings or results - you book on the portal for USD 85, and nobody can promise a pass. What the desk runs is the paperwork around it: attestation, the Saudi work visa and the iqama after arrival. Brief the desk with your visa occupation and we will tell you what it means for you.