Provided is a continuous process for the oxidative cleavage of derivatives of unsaturated carboxylic acids for the production of saturated carboxylic acids and their derivatives which comprises the steps of: a) feeding to a first reactor at least a derivative of an unsaturated carboxylic acid, an oxidizing compound and a catalyst capable of catalyzing the oxidation reaction of the olefinic double bond to obtain an intermediate compound containing vicinal diols, and of b) feeding to a second reactor said intermediate compound, a compound containing oxygen and a catalyst capable of catalyzing the oxidation reaction of the vicinal diols to carboxylic groups, to obtain saturated monocarboxylic acids (i) and derivatives of saturated carboxylic acids with more than one acid function (ii); c) separating the saturated monocarboxylic acids (i) from the derivatives of carboxylic acids having more than one acid function (ii).