An Apostille Certificate, an accredited certificate, is give out to ‘official papers’ or documents to ensure that they are acknowledged in member states devoid of additional Legalisation. Usually, an Apostille Certificate is give out by the state where the document has originated and once a document has an attached Apostille Certificate, confirming the legitimacy of seals and signatures, the document can be presented at all the places where Apostille is recognised. An Apostille Certificate has a set format and must comprise of the below mentioned information:

An individual, in the UK, can get some authorised or ‘official papers’ legalised by receiving consent from the Legalisation Office to make certain that the seal, stamp, or signature on the documents is from a United Kingdom public official. This might be required if an official from another country has asked an individual to produce certain documents from the United Kingdom which must be legalised. The Legalisation Office will verify the official papers, comprising of seal, stamp or signature to assure if the official papers are genuine or not. Once they are sure about the authentication of the document(s), a stamped authorised certificate, known as an Apostille, will be attached to the official papers in order to legalise the document. An individual can’t get official papers give outside the UK legalised through this service, however, he/she can get the documents official in the nation state they were give out. For an individual to use this service, the following things will be required:
In order to get a document legalised, an individual can opt for two services – Standard service or Premium service (details are as follows). If an individual does not provide any information or details for a period in excess of 30 minutes, i.e. the window is idle for more than 30 minutes, then in such a scenario the request will be timed out and the individual will be required to begin the process all over again.
Standard service
Details of a standard service are as follows:
Also, if an individual requires this service regularly, he/she can create an online account to speed up the application. Though it is optional to have an online account, however, an online account is imperative for superior business service. Below points state the advantage of having an online account for regular customers:
Below mentioned details are required to create an account online:
Start a standard application
Here, an individual can check if his/her ‘official papers’ are legalised. To get a United Kingdom authorised, an individual will be required to send the document in a specific format such as all original document and no photocopy. An individual will be required to select all the relevant documents which he/she wants to legalise. Below is the list of certain documents:
Premium service
Details of a premium service are as follows:
Other related information
An individual can receive a printed copy of other electronic documents or a PDF if it either:
As mentioned earlier, the standard service cost is £30 per document, additional charges apply for postage or courier fees. Courier charges are as follows:
Country | Price |
---|---|
United Kingdom (comprising of British Forces Post Office) | £5.50 for every 1.5kg |
European countries (this does not cover Albania, Ukraine, Turkey, Serbia, Russia, Montenegro, Moldova, Macedonia, Liechtenstein, Kazakhstan, Georgia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Belarus, Azerbaijan, and Armenia) | £14.50 for every 1.5kg |
Rest of the world | £25.00 for every 1.5kg |
In case an individual does not wish to pay courier fees, the documents will be give back by courier, however, if an individual is in the United Kingdom he/she can get them returned through post. An individual must take account of an A4-sized envelope providing details of the return address. He/she must attach sufficient United Kingdom postage stamps to protect the return postage.
Contact details
Legalisation Office E-mail address: legalisationenquiries@fco.gsi.gov.uk Telephone number: 03700 00 22 44 Availability: Five days a week from Monday to Friday, between 10:00AM and 4:00PMAny questions? Schedule a call with one of our experts.