Apostille - The Complete Guide

You might have heard of the term called apostille while you were seeking a visa for planning for your long term stay, it could be higher education, employment or work, temporary or permanent residency. Or perhaps, you are planning for your business growth opportunities in a foreign country. The document legalization is a mandatory procedure to be followed for such scenarios. Certificate Apostille and document apostille are terms that simply mean legalization of your documents and certificates. Although, it has a characteristic that there are several levels of verification and validation before final legalization by the central government. In this guide, you will know everything about the process, cost and how much time does it take to get it done in India.

What is Apostille?

Dictionary explanation for apostille meaning just implicates as a French word that means ‘certification’, and in a formal context, an apostille is basically a formality of proving the authenticity and credibility of the document.

When you apostille a document, an apostille sticker and/or an apostille stamp is obtained from the authority. It is a computer generated with a unique identification number and is applied to the back of the document. This maintains a record online and allows the concerned authorities to check the authenticity in a more convenient manner. After this application of the sticker from the MEA, there usually is no need for any added certification from the embassy.

What is Apostille Attestation?

Apostille attestation is a way of attesting the required documents so that they can be made admissible in any country that belongs to the Hague Convention. Document apostille is an attestation of the global level that is legally acceptable in more than 116 countries, most of the European & American countries accept the format. In India, a sticker from Ministry of External Affairs stuck on the back of the document, and again a stamp is rendered on the sticker in a way that it is partially on the sticker and partially on the document.

When is Apostille Required?

Document apostille is required when there is need to eradicate the necessity of document legalization when going to the foreign countries for all sorts of reasons, for instance, obtaining employment visa or work visa, applying for temporary or permanent residency, or for pursuing education on student visa, carrying out deals for business expansion e.g. importing or exporting products. This requirement is mandatory for the countries which are part of the Hague convention.

Hague Convention

The Hague Convention , also called Apostille Hague Convention or Apostille Convention, was signed on 5th of October, 1961 in the town of Luxembourg. However, it only became effective from 14th of January, 1965. The convention was brought into action in order to abolish the necessity of legalization of documents and certificates to make the liberalization among the countries more convenient. When one obtains an apostille on documents, there is no need of same on the documents again for another signatory country. Barriers in trading and other areas have been reduced and there is better accessibility through the nations.