Apostille and consular legalisation of documents in Ukraine

An apostille is the simplified route for parties to the Hague Convention of 1961: a 10 × 10 cm stamp certifying the authenticity of a signature and a seal. For countries outside the convention, full consular legalisation is required, and that is four stages.

No. Where a legal assistance treaty is in force with the destination country, the document is accepted without an apostille and without legalisation. So we start with the country, not the document.

It depends on the authority that apostilles it. We establish that from the type of document and file it ourselves — you provide the original and a power of attorney.

Official ones: issued by justice authorities and courts, notarised documents, and educational documents. Each group is apostilled by its own authority — Justice, Education or Foreign Affairs.

Four. That is why it is longer and more expensive than an apostille — and why we start by checking whether it is needed at all.

The same logic applies to the country that issued it: Hague Convention countries — an apostille; countries with a legal-assistance treaty — nothing; everyone else — consular legalisation. Name the country and we will tell you the route.