Document Legalisation Info & Articles #Embassy Legalisation

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.

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.

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 South-African document for use in their country. It is a tricky and sometimes costly exercise to conduct on your own.