Schmidt & Schmidt offers the legalization of your documents from the Azores by apostille.
The Azores are a grouping of portuguese islands in the Atlantic. Portugal has joined the Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalization for Foreign Public Documents in 1969. Therefore, no diplomatic authentication or consular legalization of documents from the Azores is required for the legal communication with other member states of the Convention. The documents only need to be attested by an apostille certificate with an "apostille" stamp on it by the issuing state's authorities in order to be valid in the state of destination.
The apostille is a stamp of rectangular shape. It should be filled in in the official language of the issuing authority. The heading "Apostille (Convention de la Haye du 5 octobre 1961)" written in French is a necessary requirement for the apostille's validity.
Responsible for issuing the apostille is the Department of Public Prosecution.
The following documents can be authenticated by apostille:
- Certificates of civil status (certificates of birth, death, marriage and divorce)
- Education documents (school reports, certificates, diplomas)
- Excerpts from the commercial register
- Court decisions
- Notarially certified copies of documents
- Notarially certified translations
- Further notarial documents (authorizations, last will, declarations)
- Commercial documents legalized by a state registration body (articles of incorporation, registration certificates, tax registrations etc.)
Requirements for the documents:
The apostille can be exclusively issued for the original document. Therefore, the latter must be presented in good condition, with all stamps and signatures clear and readable. Furthermore, it must not contain alien markings or labels.
Additional services
In addition to the legalization of your documents, we can provide you with high-quality translations.
Should you require company information for the court, it needs to be legalized as well. We are therefore offering extracts from the commercial register of the Azores including apostillation and translation.
On average, it takes 14 days to process the documents.
Courier services are charged and invoiced separately according to the courier service’s rates.
You can pay for our services by PayPal, bank transfer or credit card.
