How to apostille academic documents?
Apostille documents is essential when it comes to traveling abroad, especially for a university student, whose future depends on this important decision.
If you are thinking of making your way abroad, we explain what steps you must follow so that your papers have legal validity in the country of destination.
Apostille your documents in your country of origin
The first thing to do is to know the institutions that take part of your academic document (generally it is a chain of signatures and stamps of different officials). On the other hand, also the embassies or consulates of the country to which you intend to travel.
Keep in mind that it is usually necessary to request an appointment to be able to do all these procedures, making the apostille mechanism a slow and expensive process, so we advise you to do it well in advance.
The papers that usually have to be apostilled are the following:
- Academic documents
- FBI background checks
- Job letters or job references
- Health certificate
What process to follow so that the documents are apostilled correctly?
There are basically two processes. The one you choose will be determined by the countries of departure and destination and whether (or not) these are part of the Hague Apostille Convention.
The Hague Apostille is an Agreement entered into on October 5th, 1961 by means of which numerous countries reached an agreement to, among other issues, simplify the process of validation and authenticity of documents that need to be used in a country other than where they were issued.
That is, if the country of origin and the country of destination are part of these member countries of the Convention, you can choose to legalize your documents through the Hague Apostille, where only the issuance of a certificate is required, that is, the apostille. , by the country in which the university document was issued.
Diplomatic via
In the event that the countries are not part of this Agreement, the legalization of the documents must be managed with each of the competent authorities of the state. They, individually, must validate each of the documents.
Important fact: if the document is issued by a private authority in the country, you must go to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the State and the consular institution. On the other hand, if it is a document granted by a public authority, only validation is required before the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of that country.
It is essential to do this process in advance
Apostille is a process that requires a lot of planning. Therefore, we advise you to take into account the following points:
- Begins to carry out the procedures several months before making the trip.
- Know in depth the institutions authorized to perform this type of procedure.
- Avoid leaving this process to the last minute: losing the opportunity to go abroad for lack of a document would be very frustrating and unnecessary.
- If you wish, you can leave this task in our hands so that we can take care of apostille your documents. We have two apostille companies: Apostille Net and FBI Apostille Services. With more than 20 years of experience, we are specialized in all types of apostilles. If you don’t have the time or knowledge, trust us!
