Saudi Council of Engineers (SCE) Exam: FE and PE Format, Fees and Who Must Sit It

Who has to sit it

• Anyone practising engineering in Saudi Arabia, Saudi or expat, must hold SCE professional accreditation. That means registration. It does not by itself mean passing an exam.
• Graduates whose engineering bachelor's programme is not accredited locally or internationally, and who have no professional engineering accreditation from their home country's council or union. Under the October 2024 guide they must meet SCE's course-hour standards and pass the FE to register as Engineer.
• Engineering Technologists who want to move up to Engineer. They need an engineering degree that meets SCE's course-hour table, plus the FE.
• Engineers applying for a grade: the FE (or FA for architects) for Associate, and the PE (or PA) for Professional and Consultant.
• Holders of an engineer-titled iqama, and of more than 100 technician job titles such as draftsman, surveyor and HVAC technician, must keep SCE registration valid to renew the iqama. Again, that is registration, not necessarily an exam.

The exam at a glance

Which exams

FE (Fundamentals of Engineering) or FA (architecture) for Associate. PE (Principles and Practice of Engineering) or PA (architecture) for Professional and Consultant. SCE also accepts the US NCEES FE and PE.

SCE Professional Examination page, captured February 2026

FE structure

Two sessions of 3 hours: General Engineering, 90 multiple-choice questions, then Discipline, 50 questions. You must pass both.

FE General Engineering Study Guide, 2014; SCE FAQ, captured January 2026

FE disciplines

Electrical, Mechanical, Civil, Chemical, Industrial, and 'Other' for everything else. Architects sit the FA: 110 questions in 3 hours.

SCE exams page, captured February 2026; SCE FAQ

FE pass mark

Not published in any SCE source we could read

FE study guide and SCE FAQ

PE structure

One day. Common Part, 2.5 hours: 30 multiple-choice questions and 2 essays. Discipline Part, 4 hours: 30 multiple-choice questions and essays. A 1-hour break between them.

PE Common Part Study Guide, May 2019

PE marking

Each part is marked out of 100: multiple choice 60%, essays 40%. Pass mark 60% in each part. 4 options per question and no negative marking.

PE Common Part Study Guide, May 2019

PE disciplines

Structural, Geotechnical, Transportation, Water Resources and Environmental, Power (Electrical), HVAC and Refrigeration, Thermal and Fluids Systems, Chemical, Architecture, Fire Protection

SCE PE exam page, captured February 2026

Language

FE in English. The PE language is not stated, but the study guides are in English.

SCE FAQ; PE study guides, 2019

Where and how

Computer-based at Qiyas centres (2022 notice). The PE at Qiyas sites in Riyadh, Dammam or Jeddah. Prometric now has an SCE page; whether it has replaced Qiyas is not confirmed.

SCE PE page, captured February 2026; Prometric SCE page, read 13 October 2026

Sittings

2025: 28 April, 1 September and 8 December, through Qiyas. No 2026 dates found.

SCE news, 6 February 2025

What it costs

Verification (once only)

SAR 500

Not refundable.

Membership: Engineer or Specialist

SAR 250 a year

You choose 1 to 3 years.

Membership: Technician

SAR 200 a year

Classification: Associate

SAR 450

Classification: Professional

SAR 1,050

Classification: Consultant

SAR 1,550

Promotion from Engineering Technologist to Engineer

SAR 500

Updating your iqama link with Jawazat (Yakeen)

SAR 100

FE through Qiyas

SAR 400 + SAR 400

General part and specialised part. The FA is SAR 400. From an undated FAQ answer, so it may be out of date.

PE through Qiyas

SAR 1,000 + SAR 1,000

SAR 1,000 to SCE, plus SAR 500 per part to Qiyas. SAR 2,000 in total.

NCEES FE (US exam)

SAR 1,500 + USD 250

SAR 1,500 to SCE, USD 250 to NCEES. SCE's FAQ is unclear on whether the SAR 1,500 is charged again on each attempt.

NCEES PE (US exam)

SAR 2,500 + USD 425

USD 425 is the fee on NCEES's own Saudi Arabia page (checked October 2026). SCE's FAQ still says USD 375.

SCE exam through Prometric

Not published

Prometric's SCE page gives no fee.

SCE fees are from SCE's fees pages as captured on 12 and 13 February 2026. saudieng.sa cannot be opened from outside Saudi Arabia, so we read archived copies. A first-time Engineer pays SAR 500 plus SAR 250 for each year chosen: SAR 750 for one year, SAR 1,250 for three (our arithmetic). You pay SCE through SADAD, biller number 123. Every exam retake is paid again.

How to register and book

1. 1

   Work out your category

   An engineering bachelor's of at least 4 years puts you in the Engineer category. A technology degree may put you in Engineering Technologist, and a diploma in Technician. Check whether your programme is accredited, because that decides whether you need the FE to register.

2. 2

   Register on SCE e-services

   Apply on saudieng.sa. You can register from outside Saudi Arabia. Indian and Pakistani applicants are asked for the full transcript and an employer letter certified by the Chamber of Commerce. Filipinos also need a CHED CAV or Board certification.

3. 3

   Pay verification and membership

   Pay SAR 500 verification and SAR 250 a year for Engineer membership through SADAD (biller 123). The verification fee is not refunded if you are rejected.

4. 4

   Wait for verification

   SCE checks your degree with the university, through the Ministry of Education, Saudi embassy attestation or the Mousadaqa platform. From 29 January 2026 Engineer applications can be verified digitally without attaching documents. Delays usually mean missing documents or a slow university.

5. 5

   Book the FE if you need it

   You need valid SCE membership first. Up to February 2026 SCE pointed to Qiyas. Prometric now has a scheduler for SCE (proscheduler.prometric.com, programme SCENG). If unsure, write to fe-exam@saudieng.sa or call 920020820, Sunday to Thursday, 08:00 to 15:00.

6. 6

   Link your iqama to SCE

   Once accepted and paid, your status passes to Jawazat. SCE says the iqama link must be updated every year, at SAR 100. If renewal fails with a 'profession' message, this link is the first thing to check.

7. 7

   Apply for a grade when ready

   Associate needs the FE or FA. Professional needs 5 years of experience and the PE or PA. Consultant needs 5 years as Professional or 10 years in total, and the PE if you have not already passed it. Grades are renewed every 3 years with CPD points.

What the exam covers

These tables come from the official study guides: FE General and Civil (Qiyas/SCE, 2014) and PE Common Part and Structural (NCA/ETEC, May 2019). They may have been revised since, especially if Prometric now delivers the exam. Guides also exist for the other FE and PE disciplines; we did not read those. SCE's FAQ says it 'does not provide references or forms of questions for professional tests'.

Try 15 practice questions

Original questions written to the published specification, not recalled or leaked exam content. Pick an answer to see why it is right and where the rule comes from.

Is the SCE exam still compulsory for you?

Start by separating two things. SCE registration is compulsory for anyone practising engineering in Saudi Arabia, and your engineer iqama depends on it. The exam is not the same thing. The FE and PE are tied to grades, Associate and above, and since October 2024 to registering as Engineer when your programme is not accredited.

Under the October 2024 guide, a graduate of a non-accredited programme can still register as Engineer by holding a professional engineering accreditation from a council or union in the country of graduation. Otherwise they must meet SCE's course-hour standards and pass the FE. The guide does not name which foreign councils count, so whether PEC in Pakistan, the Egyptian Engineers Syndicate or a Philippine PRC licence qualifies is not confirmed.

On 28 December 2025 SCE announced that professional exams are 'optional for graduates before 2025'. The announcement does not say whether that covers expats registering for the first time in 2026, and SCE's site cannot be read from outside the Kingdom. If you graduated before 2025 and are told you must sit the FE, ask SCE in writing at fe-exam@saudieng.sa before you pay.

How SCE ties into your iqama

SCE's FAQ says that once your registration is accepted and paid, you can go to Jawazat to issue the iqama, and that renewing SCE updates Jawazat automatically. The iqama link must be updated every year. Updating it costs SAR 100 inside SCE's e-services. The same FAQ lists more than 100 technician job titles whose iqama renewal also depends on SCE registration.

Expats on forums report the renewal error 'Profession corresponds to the registered profession Saudi Council of Engineers', which they fixed by paying that SAR 100 update. If your iqama says engineer and you hold no engineering degree, SCE's FAQ says you can change the profession directly while the iqama is valid. If it has expired, you register with SCE and use a Provisional Acceptance Letter.

A third-party summary says Qiwa requires an SCE certificate to change to an engineering occupation. We found no Qiwa or Muqeem page that says so. The law itself is clear on the risk: an employer may not employ an unaccredited engineer, and in August 2024 a Riyadh court jailed an engineer for 6 months and fined his company SAR 100,000.

Qiyas or Prometric: who runs the exam now

Every SCE page we could read, up to February 2026, names Qiyas, the National Center for Assessment, as the delivery partner. The 2025 sittings were 28 April, 1 September and 8 December. By 13 October 2026, Prometric had a page titled 'Saudi Council of Engineers' with a test-centre scheduler and two SCE contact addresses, fe-exam@saudieng.sa and pe-exam@saudieng.sa.

That page gives no fees, dates, format, centre list or start date. It has no archived copy, which suggests it is new. So we cannot tell you whether Prometric has replaced Qiyas, whether it runs both the FE and PE, whether it has centres outside Saudi Arabia, or what it charges. The format figures on this page come from the 2014 and 2019 study guides.

One more trap: most 'Saudi Prometric exam' material online is for health workers licensed by the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties, not engineers. Question PDFs ranking for those searches are medical, and many are poor quality. SCE's Prometric programme code is SCENG, so look for that name before you trust a page.

The US NCEES route through Pearson VUE

SCE accepts the US NCEES FE and PE. You apply and pay SCE first, SAR 1,500 for the FE or SAR 2,500 for the PE. Once SCE approves, you register with NCEES and book a Pearson VUE centre. NCEES's own page, read on 13 October 2026, gives the Saudi FE fee as USD 250 paid to NCEES.

The NCEES FE is computer-based: 110 questions in a 6-hour appointment, of which 5 hours 20 minutes is exam time. You get one attempt per testing window and no more than three in 12 months. No certificate is issued; results appear in your MyNCEES account in about 2 weeks.

For the NCEES PE, SCE's FAQ says you must have passed the FE 'without any exceptions' and have 5 years of experience. NCEES says it runs PE exams in Saudi Arabia under an agreement with SCE. The test venues named in SCE's old FAQ are probably out of date.

What happens if you fail

For the PE, the 2019 guide is precise. You must take both parts at your first sitting. Fail one part and you retake only that part, but you must pass it within one year or retake both. Fail both and you wait one full year before trying again. Each attempt is paid again, according to SCE's FAQ.

For the SCE FE, no attempt limit, waiting time or pass mark is published in any source we could read. SCE's FAQ says only that 'the Engineer is required to pay the test fee anew' for each attempt. For the NCEES FE, the limit is one attempt per testing window and three in 12 months.

An agency website says engineers who fail three times are downgraded to Technician. No SCE source says this, and the law and 2024 guide do not mention it. Treat it as false until SCE shows otherwise, and do not pay anyone to 'protect' your grade against it.

Where SCE's own pages disagree, and what is not SCE

Experience years are the biggest conflict. The October 2024 guide and SCE's February 2025 news both say 5 years for Professional and 10 for Consultant, and Associate needs only the FE. Older SCE pages that were never updated say 4, 8 and 16 years, and the PE page itself says 5 in one place and 8 in another. Use 5 and 10; agents quoting 4, 8 and 16 are reading old pages.

Mumaris Plus is the licensing portal of the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties. It has nothing to do with engineers. DataFlow is not named on any SCE page. SCE verifies degrees through the Ministry of Education, Saudi embassy attestation, direct links to accredited universities and, since January 2026, the Mousadaqa platform. Lists that put 'Mumaris Plus, DataFlow, Prometric, SCE' together are mixing health licensing with engineering.

The 'test before entry' for expat engineers, announced around December 2020 through Pearson VUE, has no evidence of ever running: no fees, no syllabus, no results. Blogs that say every expat engineer must pass a test to renew an iqama are mixing that announcement with SVP and with the SCE grade exams.

Frequently asked

Where these figures come from

1. SCE, PE Engineering Practice Test page (official)

   Used for: PE eligibility, the 5 and 8 year wording, SAR 1,000 + SAR 500 per part, Qiyas, Riyadh, Dammam and Jeddah, 11 disciplines. Archived copy of 10 February 2026.

2. SCE, Professional Examination page (official)

   Used for: FE and FA through Qiyas, FE disciplines, NCEES alternatives. Archived copy of 13 February 2026.

3. SCE news: exam dates for 2025 (official)

   Used for: 2025 sittings, Qiyas, grade rules of 5 and 10 years. 6 February 2025.

4. SCE FAQ (official)

   Used for: Iqama and Jawazat steps, technician job titles, documents by nationality, FE fees and format, FA, NCEES process, no references provided, profession change. Archived copy of 24 January 2026; answers undated.

5. SCE fees and membership fees pages (official)

   Used for: Verification, membership, classification, promotion, NCEES SCE-side fees, Yakeen update. Archived copies of 12 and 13 February 2026.

6. SCE Professional Accreditation Guide for Engineering Categories, Version 1 (official)

   Used for: Categories, FE for non-accredited programmes, course-hour tables, grades and 5 and 10 years, CPD, IPEA and FEANI lists. Board decision of 17 October 2024.

7. SCE news: gradual implementation of professional exams (official, Arabic)

   Used for: Exams optional for graduates before 2025. 28 December 2025.

8. SCE news: applying for accreditation without documents (official, Arabic)

   Used for: Digital verification for the Engineer category. 29 January 2026.

9. SCE news: Mousadaqa integration (official)

   Used for: Degree verification through Mousadaqa. 1 January 2026.

10. PE Common Part Study Guide, NCA/ETEC with SCE (official)

    Used for: PE structure, 60% pass mark, retake rules, Common Part topic table. May 2019.

11. PE Structural Engineering Study Guide, ETEC/NCA (official)

    Used for: Structural topic table and Saudi Building Code sections. May 2019.

12. FE General Engineering Study Guide, Qiyas/SCE (official)

    Used for: FE 90 + 50 questions, 3 + 3 hours, General Engineering topic table, no negative marking, materials. 2014.

13. FE Civil Engineering Study Guide, Qiyas/SCE (official)

    Used for: Civil discipline topic table. 2014.

14. Practice of Engineering Professions Law and Executive Regulations (official)

    Used for: Royal Decree M/36 of 19/4/1438H: Arts 2 to 12, penalties, categories and grades.

15. Prometric, Saudi Council of Engineers page (official vendor)

    Used for: Prometric SCENG programme, scheduler, FE and PE contact emails, phone. Read 13 October 2026; undated.

16. NCEES FE exam page, Saudi Arabia section (official vendor)

    Used for: SCE approval first, USD 250, three attempts in 12 months, FE 110 questions on computer, PE in Saudi Arabia under agreement with SCE. Read 13 October 2026.

17. SCE, Goals and Conditions page (official, older)

    Used for: The older 4, 8 and 16 year figures. Archived copy of 8 February 2025.

18. Gulf News: engineer jailed and fined for working without accreditation

    Used for: 6 months in prison, SAR 50,000 fine, employer fined SAR 100,000. 9 August 2024.

19. Ajel English: expat engineers need to clear a test to enter Saudi Arabia

    Used for: The 2020 pre-arrival test announcement, never shown to have started. About December 2020.

20. Jobzaty: SCE opens registration for professional exams through Qiyas

    Used for: Computer-based delivery at Qiyas centres, in English. 2022 cycle.

21. Mshireb: steps to update professional accreditation certificates 2026

    Used for: Certificate titles Engineer, Specialist and Technician for pre-2025 graduates. 12 January 2026. Secondary source.

22. Al-Yaum: court ruling on titles for technical-college graduates

    Used for: Board of Grievances appeal ruling for Saudi Bachelor of Technical Engineering graduates. 24 January 2026.

23. All KSA Go: SCE Membership Saudi Arabia 2026

    Used for: The unsourced claim of a downgrade to Technician after three fails. Seen in search snippets only.

24. expat.com forum threads on SCE

    Used for: The 'Profession corresponds to the registered profession' error and the SAR 100 fix; the Qiwa claim. About 2022 to 2025.

25. OpenExamPrep: sa-sce-pe

    Used for: Third-party PE topic weights that contradict the official table.

26. Life in Saudi Arabia: expat engineers to pass SCE test for iqama renewal

    Used for: An example of a misleading claim that mixes 2015 and 2020 news. Undated.

27. Search-result observations on SCE agencies and portals

    Used for: Mumaris Plus and DataFlow listed alongside SCE; agencies selling SCE services. Seen 13 October 2026.

Last reviewed October 2026. Fees and rules change without notice; tell us if one is stale and we will check it.