Apostilles and legalisation for degree certificates: UK, India and the Hague Convention

What an apostille does

The Hague Conference on Private International Law says the 1961 Apostille Convention abolishes the traditional requirement of legalisation and replaces it with one Apostille certificate issued by a Competent Authority where the document originates ¹.

The HCCH Permanent Bureau does not issue or verify Apostilles. Only the Competent Authorities designated by each Contracting Party do ¹. An e-Apostille is issued under the same rules as a paper one and cannot be refused for the sole reason that it is electronic ¹.

An apostille is about the document's signature and seal. India's Ministry of External Affairs says it legalises documents on the basis of the signature of designated state signing authorities and does not take responsibility for their contents ⁴. A degree should still be checked with the awarding university.

When the convention took effect in selected countries

United Kingdom: the Legalisation Office

The FCDO Legalisation Office checks signatures, stamps or seals against its records and attaches an apostille if they match ³. A qualification certificate can be legalised once it has been certified by a UK public official such as a notary or solicitor ³. Documents issued outside the UK cannot be legalised through this service ³.

• Standard paper apostille: £45 plus courier or postage, usually up to 25 working days ³.
• e-Apostille: £35, up to 2 working days, for PDFs electronically signed by a UK notary or solicitor ³.
• Next-Day service for registered businesses: £40 ³.
• Restricted Urgent service for registered businesses: £100 ³.
• Return courier: £6 per 1.5kg in the UK, £32 to most of Europe and £42 to the rest of the world ³.

India: MEA attestation and apostille

India has been a member of the convention since 2005 ⁴. The MEA says it apostilles educational documents such as degrees, diplomas, matriculation and secondary level certificates ⁴. For countries that are not parties, it offers normal attestation free of cost ⁴.

Documents first go through authentication by the state government, and the e-Sanad service handles online verification for some documents ⁴. Since July 2012 the MEA does not accept documents directly from individuals, and since 1 January 2019 the service runs from Branch Secretariats and Regional Passport Offices in 16 cities ⁴. Outsourced agencies charge Rs 84 per document and Rs 3 per page for scanning, on top of the Rs 50 MEA fee ⁴.

What the treaty text says

The convention defines legalisation as the formality by which diplomatic or consular agents of the receiving country certify the authenticity of a signature, the capacity of the signer and any seal or stamp ⁵. Under Article 3 the only formality that may be required instead is the apostille issued by the competent authority of the state where the document comes from ⁵.

The certificate is placed on the document itself or on an attached allonge, and its title must be in French ⁵. Each issuing authority keeps a register of the certificates it issues, and at the request of any interested person it checks whether a certificate matches that register ⁵.

For countries that are not parties, India's MEA offers normal attestation instead ⁴. The HCCH status table marks accessions that drew an objection as A** ².