
Schmidt & Schmidt offers the legalization of documents from Finland by apostille.
Finland acceeded to the Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalization for Foreign Public Documents in 1986. Therefore, there is no diplomatic authentication or consular legalization of documents from Finland required for the successful 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.
As a rule, the issuance of an apostille certificate can be exectuted in any of the 9 local registration offices, regardless of which region of Finland the document was issued in.
Responsible for issuing the apostille are the following institutions:
- Registries
- Notaries
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.

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)
- Trade register excerpts
- 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 should not contain alien markings or labels.
Additional services
In addition to the legalization of your public 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 Finland including apostillization 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.
Service | Price incl. German VAT 19% | Price excl. VAT |
---|---|---|
Price for an apostille for a document from Finland without international shipping | from 178,50 € | from 150,00 € |