What is Apostille?

The Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement for Legalization for Foreign Public Documents, Convention #12 of the Hague Conference on Private International Law entered into force on May 14, 2007 in Georgia. The original signatories signed the Convention on October 5, 1961.

In order to facilitate international turnover of official documents the Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement for Legalization for Foreign Public Documents was signed. It specifies the modalities through which a document issued in one of the signatory countries can be certified for legal purposes in all the other signatory states. Such a certification is called an apostille “a”.

The documents entitled for “a”:
 

• Documents issued by the justice authorities of Georgia and documents registered in the State Registry of Normative acts; the “a” certificate is issued by the Ministry of Justice of Georgia (Department of International Public Law);
• Documents issued by the educational institutions, diplomas or other educational certificates; the “a” certificate is issued by the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia (Licensing Division);
• Documents issued by the judiciary; the “a” certificate is issued by the Supreme Court of Georgia;
• Documents issued by healthcare and social security authorities; the “a” certificate is issued by the Ministry of Labor, Healthcare and Social Security of Georgia (Regulation Department);
• Documents issued by the Office of Prosecutor General and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia; the “a” certificate is issued by the Ministry of Justice of Georgia (Department of International Public Law);

The documents not entitled for “a”:

• Documents issued by the diplomatic representatives or consulate in foreign country;
• Documents issued by the bank or other commercial organization;
• Identification documentation or copy or photocopy of the ID;
• Military card;
• Arms bearing permission;
• Vehicle registration document (technical passport)

Necessary Documents:

• A document which must be signed with Apostille;
• A payment receipt from the bank; the tariff for the Apostille in Georgia is GEL 20.

The term estimated for the procedure is 5 days; in case of additional information the eligible authorities could use 10-day period

The authority can reject certification with Apostille if:
• A document is for submission to the non member state of the Hague Convention;
• A document cannot be read;
• A document signed with pencil or received by fax;
• A document is corrected and the correction is not certified appropriately;
• An appropriate signature or seal could not be found in the document

There are 92 signatory countries of the Hague Convention.