We specialise in legalising all Australian public, company, commercial, and educational documents at Embassies and Consulates of foreign countries represented or located in Australia and elsewhere.
If the foreign country in which you require your Australian public, commercial or educational document to operate is not a country which is a signatory to The Hague Convention, only its Embassy, Consulate, diplomatic or trade representative in Australia can legalise your document. Apostille Certificates are unacceptable in countries which have not ratified the Hague Convention.
In most cases, your Australian public document needs first to be authenticated by the Australian Government before acceptance for legalisation by an Embassy or Consulate, and this is achieved by the issue of an Authentication Certificate stamped or attached to it.
Embassy or Consulate legalisation is a complex, difficult and sometimes expensive legal process. Each Embassy or Consulate has its peculiar opening hours, rules, procedures, guidelines, and fees payable, all of which you must deal with to legalise your Australian document for use in their country. It is a tricky and sometimes costly exercise to conduct on your own.
As of 4th July, 2016, the following countries have not agreed to participate in “The Hague Convention abolishing the requirement of legalisation for foreign public documents”
Click the arrows to view more countries.
Countries not appearing on the above list require documents to be legalised by their embassies or consulates in australia and do not accept apostille certificates.
Another complicating factor is that there are approximately thirty (30) foreign countries that do not have embassies or consualtes located in Australia.
Most of these countries however, have arrangements in place with other countries represented here to assist them with the legalisation of australian public documents; otherwise, their embassies or consulates located in nearby countries assist.
