Egypt is closing another USD pricing channel. Students living in Egypt will now have to authenticate international diplomas and transcripts through locally licensed offices instead of paying overseas institutions directly in USD, a senior government official tells EnterpriseAM.

Why it matters: This is the latest step in a wider Education Ministry push to tighten oversight of private and international schools, and follows its April move to bring foreign-certificate accreditation under state control and replace USD-denominated fees with flat EGP tiers.

REMEMBER- We reported back in April that the ministry barred international accreditation bodies from dealing directly with schools or parents and replaced USD-denominated fees — which had climbed as high as USD 800-1.1k — with flat EGP tiers, part of the same push to bring foreign-certificate accreditation under state control.

How authentication now works: Students at accredited international schools in Egypt will first get documents verified and authenticated by Amideast Egypt, before submitting them to the Education Ministry for authentication and then the Foreign Ministry for final legalization — with all fees now collected in EGP rather than USD. International organizations are limited to verifying academic documents — authentication and legalization remain state functions. Egyptian students studying abroad are exempt from the new track — they’ll continue authenticating credentials directly through institutions in their country of study.

Amideast Egypt confirmed to EnterpriseAM that authentication services are now available through its offices in Cairo and Alexandria. The nonprofit verifies and authenticates the documents, but the College Board remains the body that issues and owns SAT scores and certificates. The service costs EGP 5.2k per document, after which students still need to complete authentication with the Education Ministry and legalization with the Foreign Ministry.

The Cognia precedent: The ministry canceled Cognia’s accreditation of American GPA certificates last March, taking over that certification entirely for a flat EGP 6k paid directly to the ministry — a step aimed at easing the currency burden on families and formalizing fee collection.

The SAT context: The move follows the return of the SAT to Egypt after a four-year hiatus, with 1,797 students sitting the first official administration and a 100% attendance rate, according to the ministry. Egypt has no official count of total American Diploma enrollment, but our sources put the sector at 200-220 schools serving roughly 40k-50k students.

Amideast’s role wasn’t cut — it was repriced. The SAT itself is administered by the College Board and its local representative, Amideast. Following discussions with the ministry, the nonprofit retained the right to certify the exams, our source tells us. What changed is the currency: certification fees are now collected in EGP rather than USD. An additional Ministry of Education certification step has been added on top of that at a nominal fee of roughly EGP 100 per document.

Schools will lose USD-denominated income. USD 500-800 was collected from students for credential authentication, of which roughly USD 250 went to the accrediting organization — leaving schools with a margin that functioned as additional revenue, Al Omran Language Schools Chairman Saber Omran tells us. That income stream disappears under the new system, though the shift is ultimately fairer to parents and could be offset by stronger demand for international education in a more transparent, better-regulated market, he says.

Some parents are seeing faster turnarounds already. Almost twenty parents of American Diploma students surveyed by EnterpriseAM say the new process has cut wait times for authenticated documents significantly, letting students complete Egyptian university applications faster. Paying fees in EGP instead of USD has also eased pressure to source foreign currency, they say.

OUR TAKE- The mechanism is a repriced authentication chain — foreign credentialing bodies keep market access, priced in EGP, with a Ministry certification layer added on top. International accreditation was one of the last pockets still running on USD terms set by schools and intermediaries, not the state. Centralizing authentication through Amideast and the ministry shuts that down, and schools absorb the near-term cost as SAT demand climbs again. The next credentialing pathways worth watching are the ones the ministry hasn’t touched yet. IB, IGCSE, and French Baccalaureate diplomas still route through their own overseas authentication chains, largely in hard currency. If April’s accreditation overhaul and this authentication shift are the template, the same pattern applied to those systems is the natural next step.

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