Consular legalization and apostille

Documents of citizens for use abroad must undergo the procedure of legalization, except the cases when there is an agreement abolishing the requirement of legalization between the state where these documents will be used and the state where they have been issued. Only after this legalization procedure can your document be recognized as valid by all the authorities of the country where you are going. The original legal record of a document is always held on the territory of the country where it was issued.

There are two types of document legalization: consular legalization and document apostille. The choice of the type of legalization depends on the regulations of the country where a document will be presented.

The Apostille is put on the originals or notarized copies of documents. Then it is necessary to translate this document into a foreign language.

Apostille stamping (apostillization) is a simplified form of certification for public and private documents for the countries participating in the Hague Convention of October, 5, 1961, when the requirement of consular legalization was abolished. According to this Convention, documents issued by one of the participating countries are valid on the territory of another member state, if they have the apostille stamp on them. Linguisticus can provide both written translation and apostillization for documents issued by - and presented to - any of the nations participating in the Hague Convention.

Consular legalization is required if documents will be used in the territory of a nation, which is not a member of the Hague Convention. Linguisticus can assist you with all five stages of consular legalization required to present and validate a document to a country that is not a member of the Hague Convention:

1. Translation of the document into the destination country’s language;

2. Notarization of the translation;

3. Authentication of the document in the Ministry of Justice;

4. Authentication of the document in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs;

5. Authentication of the document at the consulate of the destination country.

Please note that between some nations that are not Hague Convention signatories there may exist separate agreements on the mutual recognition of official documents. In some countries only a certified translation of the document is needed. Usually consular legalization of a document is carried out after its translation into a foreign language and notarization of the translation.