When do you need an Apostille or legalisation?
When a document or signature is legalised, an authorised body checks it and declares that it is authentic.
After it has been legalised, the document or signature will also be accepted in the destination country. Documents or signatures can be legalised or authenticated in a variety of ways.
Thanks to the Hague Legalisation Convention, better known as the Apostille Convention, it has become a lot easier to legalise documents between affiliated countries.
The apostille is a standard declaration in the form of a stamp, that replaces the legalisation procedure. An apostille can only be used for translations destined for countries that are signatories to the Apostille Convention.
To authenticate documents and signatures for countries that are not signatories to the Hague Convention, you need to go through traditional ‘legalisation’ in various steps.
Many of our translators are also certified translators which means that their signature is registered at a court. When you request an Apostille, the authenticity of the signature is confirmed by the government and your translation gains its value!