Attestation

Attestation is the process of getting your educational documents non-educational and commercial documents certified for authenticity for use in foreign countries.

The Common documents that require Attestation/Legalization/Apostille are:

Educational Documents

Attestation of Educational certificates is vital to pursue higher education in a foreign country or to receive an employment visa. Every single educational certificate must be verified from the place of issuance and attested by the State designated Authority (Human Resource/ Higher Education / Home Dept.) followed by the Attestation/ Apostille from Ministry of External Affairs. Based on the country of travel, legalization from the foreign Mission in India may be needed.

Non-Educational Documents

All Non-Educational or personal documents like Birth/Marriage/Divorce Certificates, Medical Certificates, Police Clearance Certificate, NOC, Affidavit etc must be verified from the place of issuance and attested by the State designated Authority (State Home / Public / Foreigner's Dept.) followed by the Attestation/ Apostille from Ministry of External Affairs. Based on the country of travel, legalization from the foreign Mission in India may be needed.

Commercial Documents

This refers to the documents from the business firms such as, Power of Attorney, Board Resolutions, Certificate of Incorporation, MOA, AOA, Stockholder Agreement etc., which have to be verified and attested by the respective Chamber of Commerce, followed by the Attestation/ Apostille from Ministry of External Affairs. Based on the country of travel, legalization from the foreign Mission may be needed.

Apostille Services

An apostille is a certificate that authenticates the origin of personal, educational, or business documents. Apostille can only be issued for documents issued in one country party to the Apostille convention and which are to be used in a foreign country which is also a party to the convention. It is acceptable in countries who follow the Hague convention. Essentially, apostille is a global attestation that is suitable in about 101 countries, and most of the western world recognizes Apostille.

Attestation process

1^st Level/State Attestation

This is also called the Home Attestation or GAD Attestation (General Administrative Department). Depending on the type of documents. This is the 1 st Level of attestation from the respective state where the document was originally issued from.

2^nd Level/MEA Attestation

Post the attestation done by the General Administrative Department of the State, the document is submitted with the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) for the next level of attestation. MEA does 2 types of attestations i.e. Normal/Regular Attestation and Apostille. Normal Attestation is does from countries who are not part of the Hague Convention.

An Apostille is done for countries which are a part of the Hague convention. Currently there are 101 countries which are a part of the Hague convention like Saudi Arabia, France, Canada, Georgia, Denmark, South Africa etc.

Once the document is Apostilled by MEA, it does not require any further attestation by the Embassy/High Commission of the country where the document needs to be submitted.

3^rd Level/Embassy Attestation

This is the final level of Attestation. Documents and Certificates for Non-Hague Member countries are submitted to the respective Embassy/High Commission for final authentication. The Embassy/High Commission authenticates the document post the attestation by the MEA.