Studying in Italy from Saudi Arabia
The overall application process is the same everywhere — choose a course, pre-enrol through Universitaly, get your documents legalised, apply for your visa. What genuinely differs by country is which office handles each of those steps, and this page covers exactly that for Saudi Arabia.
Which office handles your case
There's no single office covering the whole Kingdom. The Italian Embassy in Riyadh handles most of the country; the Consulate General in Jeddah has jurisdiction specifically over Mecca, Bahah, Asir, Jaizan, Najran, Medina, the Northern Region, and Qurayyat. Which office is yours depends on where you're registered, not just where you happen to be.
Apostille or full legalisation?
Saudi Arabia joined the 1961 Hague Apostille Convention, in force since 7 December 2022. In practice, that means a Saudi-issued document (diploma, transcript, birth certificate) generally only needs an apostille stamp from the relevant Saudi authority to be recognised in Italy — not the older, slower full consular legalisation chain.
Where you apply for your visa
Visa applications go through a joint visa application centre consortium (run by Almaviva and VFS Global together, operating as the Consortium for Italian Visa Services), with centres in Riyadh, Jeddah, and Dammam — not the embassy directly.
Getting your Declaration of Value
A Declaration of Value for a Saudi qualification is issued by the Italian consular office with jurisdiction over where it was issued — Riyadh or Jeddah, per the split above. Note this is a separate, embassy-issued document, not the same thing as a CIMEA Statement of Comparability, which Saudi authorities' own guidance treats as relevant mainly for regulated-profession recognition, not standard university admission.
Worth knowing
We couldn't confirm a reliable Saudi-specific Type-D visa processing time from an official source — treat any specific day-count you see elsewhere with caution, and build in buffer time rather than planning against a fixed number.