Apostille and consular legalization of documents in Germany

Schmidt & Schmidt provides apostille and legalisation services for public documents issued in Germany, including their subsequent certified translation and delivery to anywhere in the world.

Suppose a German citizen is planning to get married abroad and needs to submit her birth certificate and a certificate of marital status to the civil registry office in that country. The receiving official does not speak German and cannot independently verify which authority issued the documents or whether the signatures and seals are genuine. It is precisely for situations like these that the apostille exists — a standardised confirmation of the authenticity of an official document for use abroad.

An apostille confirms the authenticity of the signature, the capacity (authority) in which the person signing the document has acted and, where appropriate, the authenticity of the seal or stamp on the document. An apostille does not certify the content of the document itself. The procedure is established by the Hague Convention of 5 October 1961 Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents.

Germany acceded to the Hague Convention on 15 December 1965, and the Convention entered into force for Germany on 13 February 1966. To date, 130 states are party to the Convention. As a rule, documents apostilled in Germany are recognised in the other contracting states, subject to the applicable conditions, and do not require consular legalisation.

For a German document to be submitted to foreign authorities or courts, you will usually need an apostille together with a certified translation into the required language. The specific set of requirements depends on the type of document, the requirements of the receiving authority, and the international treaties in force.

Which documents can be apostilled in Germany

An apostille is affixed to German public documents — those issued by government authorities, courts and notaries. Private documents can be apostilled only after they have been notarised.

Specifics of apostille certification in Germany

Germany has no single apostille authority. Responsibility for issuing apostilles is divided between federal and state (Land) authorities and depends both on the type of document and on the federal state in which it was issued. As a result, the procedure may involve several steps, and processing times vary considerably from one state to another.

Electronic apostille (e-Apostille) in Germany

The handling of electronic documents in Germany is governed by Sections 371a(3) and 371b of the Code of Civil Procedure (Zivilprozessordnung, ZPO): documents issued by public authorities and signed with a qualified electronic signature are recognised as authentic — but only with respect to domestic German documents. Germany has not implemented the electronic apostille (e-APP) within its legal system: the act ratifying the Hague Convention recognises only the paper apostille, and any deviation from the conditions of the Convention, according to the position of the Federal Constitutional Court, requires a separate piece of legislation. Apostilles in Germany are therefore issued in paper form.

As a consequence, the recognition of foreign electronic documents and electronic apostilles in Germany is not regulated by law: such documents have no automatic evidential value and may require additional verification of authenticity, and in some cases may be rejected if the electronic document or signature is not treated as equivalent to paper form bearing a handwritten signature. This is why, for German documents, we arrange a paper apostille, which is recognised without such limitations.

Specifics of apostille certification for particular documents

Certificate of good conduct (Führungszeugnis)

The certificate of good conduct (Führungszeugnis) is one of the documents most frequently submitted for an apostille: it is required for employment abroad, for obtaining a residence permit, for marriage and for immigration. The certificate is issued by the Federal Office of Justice (Bundesamt für Justiz, BfJ) in Bonn on the basis of data held in the Federal Central Criminal Register (Bundeszentralregister). The official fee is €13; the document is issued in German only.

There are several types of certificate:

• the standard certificate for personal use (einfaches / privates Führungszeugnis);
• the extended certificate (erweitertes Führungszeugnis) — for example, for work involving children;
• the European certificate (Europäisches Führungszeugnis) — for citizens of EU member states;
• the official certificate (Behördenführungszeugnis) — for submission to a German authority.

New procedure as of December 2024

The apostille on a Führungszeugnis is affixed not by the BfJ but by the Federal Office for Foreign Affairs (BfAA). If an apostille is required, the application for it is submitted first online to the BfAA; once the fee has been paid, the BfAA issues an application number. The certificate itself is then ordered from the BfJ quoting this number — the BfJ produces it and forwards it to the BfAA for the apostille to be affixed, after which the BfAA sends the completed document to the applicant.

Required documents:

• a copy of the applicant's identity document;
• where an application is made through a representative — a power of attorney (apostilled and translated, if executed abroad);
• an indication of the country in which the certificate will be used.

Civil status certificates (Personenstandsurkunden)

Civil status documents include birth certificates (Geburtsurkunde), marriage certificates (Heiratsurkunde / Eheurkunde) and death certificates (Sterbeurkunde). They are issued by the civil registry office (Standesamt) where the event was registered. The apostille on such documents is affixed by the administrative authority of the relevant federal state.

For use in states party to the 1976 Vienna Convention of the International Commission on Civil Status (CIEC), the civil registry office can issue an international (multilingual) form (internationale / mehrsprachige Personenstandsurkunde), which is generally accepted without an apostille or translation. For countries that are not party to this convention, this form offers no advantage — an apostille and a certified translation will be required.

Required documents:

• the details needed to locate the record (full name, date and place of the event, information about the parents or spouse);
• a copy of the applicant's identity document;
• where an application is made through a representative — a power of attorney.

Educational documents

Educational documents issued in Germany — degree certificates (Diplomurkunde), school leaving certificates (Abiturzeugnis) and enrolment certificates (Immatrikulationsbescheinigung) — have no automatic legal force abroad. An apostille may be required, for example, when applying to a foreign university for a master's or doctoral programme, or when enrolling at a university abroad.

Responsibility for issuing apostilles on educational documents depends on the federal state: in some states the apostille is affixed by the presidents of the regional courts, in others by the state administrative authorities, and a number of states (for example, Baden-Württemberg, Brandenburg and Saarland) apply special rules. In some cases the original must first be pre-certified, which increases the processing time. To be apostilled, the document must be drawn up in German.

Required documents:

• a copy of the educational document;
• details of the institution, the field of study and the year of graduation;
• where an application is made through a representative — a power of attorney.

Recognition of the authenticity of public documents within the EU

Germany has concluded bilateral agreements with the following countries:

• Austria, Belgium, Greece, Denmark, Italy, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland.

Under these agreements, certain documents are exempt from the requirement of certification if they bear the seal of the competent administrative authorities.

Multilingual documents (CIEC Convention)

Civil status records and certificates of marital capacity issued by one of the contracting states in accordance with the model forms of the conventions of the International Commission on Civil Status (CIEC) are exempt from legalisation and other similar formalities otherwise required for the use of foreign documents.

States party to the Vienna CIEC Convention of 8 September 1976 (multilingual extracts of birth, marriage and death records):

• Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Germany, Spain, Italy, Cape Verde, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Moldova, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, North Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia, Turkey, France, Croatia, Montenegro, Switzerland, Estonia.

States party to the Munich CIEC Convention of 5 September 1980 (multilingual certificate of marital capacity, Ehefähigkeitszeugnis):

• Austria, Germany, Greece, Spain, Italy, Luxembourg, Moldova, Netherlands, Portugal, Turkey.

Regulation (EU) 2016/1191 of 6 July 2016 on public documents

Regulation (EU) 2016/1191 of 6 July 2016 removes the apostille requirement for a number of categories of public document (relating to birth, marriage, death, residence, absence of a criminal record, etc.) presented between EU member states, and introduces multilingual standard forms that in some cases also remove the need for a translation.

Consular legalisation of documents from Germany

If a document is to be used in a state that is not a party to the 1961 Hague Convention (for example, the UAE or Egypt) and no other international treaty applies, consular legalisation is used.

Special case: countries to whose accession Germany has objected

Even if a state has formally acceded to the Hague Convention, the apostille is not valid in relations with Germany if Germany has lodged an objection to that state's accession. For such countries, German documents require consular legalisation rather than an apostille. According to the Federal Foreign Office (Auswärtiges Amt, 2026), these include: Algeria, Burundi, Dominican Republic, India, Kosovo, Liberia, Mongolia, Morocco, Pakistan, Philippines, Rwanda, Senegal, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. This list changes over time, so check the current status of a specific country in advance.

Consular legalisation is the process of confirming the authenticity of a document so that it can be recognised in a foreign state, carried out by a diplomatic or consular representative of the country of destination.

This is a longer and more costly procedure: the document goes through several preliminary certifications and is then certified at the consulate of the country of destination located in Germany. Legalisation confirms the authenticity of the document for one specific country; to use it in another country, the procedure has to be carried out again.

Differences between an apostille and consular legalisation

What can go wrong when obtaining an apostille in Germany yourself?

At first glance the procedure looks simple: prepare the document, submit it to the competent authority and wait for the result. In practice, however, most difficulties arise before the apostille is even affixed — at the stage of choosing the authority, pre-certification, notarisation, translation or submission.

• 1

  The wrong competent authority is chosen

  Germany has no single apostille authority: the body depends both on the type of document and on the federal state in which it was issued. Submitting to the wrong authority leads to rejection and lost time — this applies in particular to educational documents and documents from administrative authorities, where the rules vary from state to state.
• 2

  Pre-certification (Vorbeglaubigung) is skipped

  Some German documents cannot be apostilled directly — the signature of the official must first be pre-certified by a particular authority. If this step is skipped, the document will not be accepted for the apostille.
• 3

  A private document without notarisation

  Powers of attorney, declarations, consents and copies are private documents and cannot be apostilled on their own. The signature or copy must first be certified by a notary (notarielle Beglaubigung) — only then does the document become eligible for an apostille.
• 4

  The wrong order for the certificate of good conduct (Führungszeugnis)

  The procedure changed in December 2024: the apostille must first be ordered online from the BfAA (which issues an application number), and only then is the certificate ordered from the BfJ quoting that number. Doing it the other way round — ordering the certificate first — means the apostille cannot be obtained under the new procedure, and everything has to be done again from scratch.
• 5

  Problems with the document's validity period

  No expiry period is set for the apostille itself, but the receiving authority often requires a "recent" document — as a rule, no older than 3–6 months, with the period counted from the date of issue rather than the date of the apostille. This applies in particular to certificates of good conduct and documents relating to marital status: if the procedure is started too late, the document may "expire" before it is even submitted abroad.
• 6

  The destination country's requirements are overlooked

  Even a correctly affixed apostille does not guarantee that the document will be accepted: the receiving authority may have its own requirements as to language, format, date of issue and translation. A translation made in Germany is not accepted in a number of countries — it has to be carried out and certified in the destination country. And for countries to whose accession Germany has objected (for example, India, Pakistan and Vietnam), the apostille is not valid at all — consular legalisation is required.

Baden-Württemberg

Bavaria

Berlin

Brandenburg

Bremen

Hamburg

Hesse

Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania

Lower Saxony

North Rhine-Westphalia

Rhineland-Palatinate

Saarland

Saxony-Anhalt

Saxony

Schleswig-Holstein

Thuringia

Useful links: official German authorities

• Bundesamt für Justiz (bundesjustizamt.de) — ordering the certificate of good conduct (Führungszeugnis), including online;
• Bundesamt für Auswärtige Angelegenheiten (bfaa.diplo.de) — apostilles on federal documents and certificates of good conduct;
• Auswärtiges Amt (auswaertiges-amt.de) — international circulation of documents and consular legalisation;
• Handelsregister (handelsregister.de) — extracts from the German commercial register;
• HCCH (hcch.net) — the up-to-date list of states party to the Hague Convention and the competent authorities.

Procurement of documents from Germany

If civil status documents have been lost or damaged, or an up-to-date copy is needed, a duplicate must be procured. This is a common situation for people who have left Germany. Our service allows documents to be procured in Germany remotely: we request the duplicate from the competent authority (civil registry office, register court, educational institution), arrange the apostille and certified translation straight away where required, and deliver the completed package by courier to anywhere in the world. Your presence in Germany is not required.

Certified translation of documents from Germany

A certified translation will be required for submission to foreign authorities. Germany has the institution of the sworn translator (vereidigter / beeidigter Übersetzer), whose translation carries official status. Where necessary, the translation is produced taking into account both the text of the document and the apostille affixed to it.

Is the apostille affixed to the translation itself? A translation is not a public document — it is an expert service, so the apostille is not affixed to the text of the translation. Where necessary, the signature of the sworn translator can be certified separately, and an apostille can then be affixed to that certification. In some countries the translation into the local language must be produced and notarised in the destination country itself — check the requirements of the receiving authority.

Conclusion

Below is a summary table of the main documents: who affixes the apostille and what is required. Please note that the competent authority and the order of the procedure depend on the type of document and the federal state.

You can also order a certified translation of documents into the required language from us.