If you are moving to Guyana with a Dutch diploma, two things are true at once, and most guides get both of them wrong. There is a named authority with a published procedure, a published fee and a published processing time. And there is no published table telling you what a Dutch diploma is worth in Guyanese terms. This article gives you the first and refuses to invent the second.
Who actually decides: the National Accreditation Council
The body is the National Accreditation Council of Guyana, usually written NAC-G. It was, in its own words, established by an Act of Parliament Act number 12 of 2004. Its published functions include determining equivalence and facilitating the recognition of foreign qualifications under the Caribbean Community framework, and promoting the free movement of skills within that community.
The Council separates two services that people routinely confuse:
- A Statement on Recognition addresses the accreditation or recognition status of an institution and the qualifications it awards, foreign or local.
- A Statement on Equivalency addresses the foreign qualification itself, compared with national qualifications. The Council describes equivalence as a qualification being considered comparable to a specific qualification officially issued in another country, in this case, Guyana.
Those are different products with different purposes. Decide which one your employer or your university is actually asking for before you pay for either.
The published procedure: one qualification, one application, one fee
The figures below are what the Council publishes, read on 24 October 2026. Treat them as a starting point and confirm them before you transfer money.
- Fee for an individual: a processing fee of GYD$5,000 for a Statement on Recognition, or for Recognition and Equivalency.
- Fee for an institution or organization: a processing fee of GYD $60,000 for a Statement on Recognition.
- Processing time: NAC will process the application in a minimum of three weeks or fifteen (15) working days, counted from the point at which all required documents and information have been received, not from the day you walked in.
- One award per application. The Council states that one qualification is processed as one application, and that Multiple applications on one form shall not be entertained.
That last rule has a direct cost consequence that nobody warns Dutch applicants about. A Dutch career often produces a stack of separate awards. Each one you want assessed is its own application and its own fee. Work out which single award your employer actually needs assessed before you submit the lot.
The documents the Council asks for
The Council asks for original documents and notarised/certified copies (where applicable). Its published list is:
- A valid form of identification for the applicant, and for a proxy if one is used.
- The original certificate or award.
- An official academic transcript, which the applicant must request from the institution that awarded the qualification.
- A deed poll or marriage certificate where a change of name applies.
- The deposit slip from the payment transaction.
- An official English translation of any document written in a foreign language, from a translating agency the Council recognizes.
Two of these are the ones that delay Dutch applicants. The transcript has to come from your Dutch institution, which may take weeks on its own schedule, and a Dutch-language diploma supplement needs a translation the Council will accept. Start both before you leave, and ask the Council which translators it recognizes rather than guessing.
What is not published: there is no MBO, HBO or WO equivalence table
This is the honest finding, and it is the whole reason this article exists. On the Council's pages we could read, no country and no foreign education system is named. There is no published statement that an MBO award corresponds to one Guyanese level, an HBO award to another and a WO degree to a third. The comparison is made per application, on your documents, by the Council.
So we are not printing a mapping. Any guide that tells you a Dutch bachelor's degree is equivalent to a named Guyanese qualification is telling you something the Council has not published. The only way to find out what your specific award is held to be comparable to is to apply and read the statement you get back.
What to ask instead of looking for a table: ask the Council, in writing, whether your award is assessed against the national qualifications framework and at which level, and ask your prospective employer whether it wants Recognition, Equivalency, or both.
Nuffic answers the opposite question
Dutch readers reach for Nuffic here, and it is worth being precise about why that does not help. Nuffic and IDW evaluate a foreign diploma for use in the Netherlands. That is the reverse of what you need. Nuffic publishes an overview of education systems describing which Dutch diplomas foreign qualifications are compared to; it does not and cannot state what a Dutch diploma is worth in Guyana, because that is the Guyanese authority's call.
A Nuffic credential evaluation is still useful in one narrow way: it is a document, in English, from a national body, describing a qualification. If the Council or an employer wants corroboration of what your Dutch award is, it is something to hand over. It is not a substitute for a Guyanese statement, and Nuffic itself notes that a credential evaluation is not legally binding.
What a statement gets you, and what it does not
The Council is careful here and so should you be.
- It does not guarantee credit transfer. An equivalency assessment may allow credit transfers, but the Council states that the institution receiving the credits will make the final decision on their acceptability.
- It is not a professional license. The Council lists access to employment opportunities and professional certification among the possible benefits of an assessment. A possible benefit is not a registration. If your field is licensed, the licensing council is a separate application you still have to make.
- It is not a work permit. Recognition of a qualification and permission to work are decided by different bodies on different grounds.
The Council's own framing of why recognition matters is the useful one: most employers, and some public and private authorities such as scholarship providers, require that the institution and the program are recognized. Recognition is the gate you have to pass, not the prize.
What expats should know
- The authority has a name: the National Accreditation Council of Guyana, under Act number 12 of 2004. Any guide that says only "the relevant authorities" has not checked.
- GYD$5,000 for an individual, GYD $60,000 for an institution, as published on 24 October 2026.
- A minimum of three weeks or fifteen (15) working days, and the clock starts when your file is complete.
- One award, one application, one fee. Multiple qualifications on one form are refused.
- There is no published equivalence table for Dutch qualifications. Treat any MBO, HBO or WO mapping you are shown as unsourced.
- Get the transcript and the certified English translation started early. These are the two items that run on someone else's timetable.
- Nuffic evaluates diplomas for use in the Netherlands, which is the opposite direction. It cannot answer the Guyanese question.
- Equivalency is not credit transfer and not a license. The receiving institution and the licensing body each decide for themselves.
Where to check
The service, the fees, the processing time, the document list and the one-application rule are from the Council's own equivalency and recognition pages, with its statement of functions for the statutory basis and the Caribbean Community framework, and its frequently asked questions for what an assessment may and may not achieve. All read on 24 October 2026. The Council's office is at 109 Barima Avenue, Bel-Air Park, Georgetown, and it publishes telephone numbers on those pages. For the Dutch side of the question only, see Nuffic on credential evaluation. Confirm the fee and the processing time with the Council before you apply; a published fee is a fee on the day it was read.
AI-Generated Content: This article was created with AI assistance and may contain inaccuracies. Please verify important information with official sources.
