Document Legalisation Info & Articles

To use South-African documents outside of the country, you’ll likely be asked to provide documents that have been notarised and apostilled, apostilled on the original document, authenticated or embassy attested.

Louwrens Koen Attorneys are one of the leading providers of document legalisation services in South-Africa. We legalise documents for more than a thousand individual and corporate clients every year.

If you’ve been told that in order to use a South-African document in another country, which country is not a signatory to the Hague Apostille Convention, it will need to be legalised by authentication process and not apostilled.

An Apostille is a certificate that authenticates the origin of a public document (e.g., a birth, marriage or death certificate, a judgment, an extract of a register or a notarial attestation). T

The apostille certificate is attached and sealed to another document that is required in another country. This is done as a failsafe against tampering. After a document has been checked and the signatures or stamps have been verified the apostille can be issued.

In South Africa, Apostille Certificates are issued primarily by: The Registrar of the High Court, where documents have been authenticated by a notary public; or he Department of International Relations and Cooperation's (DIRCO) ...

When a document issued in South Africa is required to be used in another country which is also a signatory to the Apostille Convention, an Apostille Certificate will be issued either by the High Court or by the Department of International Relations (DIRCO). This will be the end of the Apostille process.

A South Africa public documents must be legalised or authenticated using the Apostille Certificate if the the destination country have subscribed to the Apostille Convention. South Africa is a subscribing country to the Hague Apostille Convention

In many cases, the answer is yes. However, that depends on the type of document in question, the embassy or consulate requirements, and whether a copy is acceptable to the recipient abroad.

Some countries are not members of the Hague Apostille Convention. This means that an Apostiile will not be the appropriate process. The process used will be the Authentication process as set out in High Court Rule 63.

Apostilled South-African public documents are accepted by all countries participating in the Hague Convention. There are currently over 80 member countries of The Hague Convention recognising Apostille Certificates.

Virtually any public document can be legalised by an Apostille Certificate. Here is a list of popular South-African Public Documents... Consent letter for children to travel or visit overseas Powers of Attorney TEFL Academic Qualifications.