Article 17 of the Saudi Engineering Professions Law

This is the effective-date article, and it sets the time at which the provisions of the law become enforceable. The law does not take effect on the day it is published, but 60 days after the date of its publication in the Official Gazette.

This period gives engineers, engineering offices and companies, and the bodies concerned time to prepare for the law's provisions and obligations, such as professional accreditation with the Saudi Authority for Engineers and the license the Ministry grants to engineering offices and companies, as defined in Article 1.

This date ties in with Article 16, which requires the Minister to issue the Implementing Regulations in coordination with the Board of Directors within 90 days of the date the law takes effect set in this article, not from the date of its publication, and the Regulations are then published in the Official Gazette. The date the law takes effect is therefore worked out first, and the period for the Regulations is counted from it.

The article does not state the publication date itself, so learning the actual date the law begins to apply requires referring to the date of its publication in the Official Gazette.