Schmidt & Schmidt offers the legalization of documents from India by apostille.
India acceded to the Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalization for Foreign Public Documents in 1966. Therefore, no diplomatic authentication or consular legalization of documents from India is needed for 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.
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 Ministry of Foreign Affaires. Before submitting documents for apostille, they must be pre-certified by the authorized bodies of the respective territorial administrative units (the General Affairs Department of the local government is responsible for personal documents; the Education Department authorizes educational documents; the Chamber of Commerce and Industry are responsible for commercial documents). In each of the above bodies, only a few specially authorized officials are entitled to pre-certify public documents.
Public documents drawn up in Hindi, English or other official languages of India and issued by the Indian authorities or authorized bodies can be legalized by apostille.
Legalizing public documents in India implies authenticating the origin of the document and the authority of the officials who have affixed the signature, seal or stamp on the document. After such verification, a special stamp - the apostille - is affixed to the public document or its certified copy. The apostille is usually placed on the back of the underlying public document or on a separate attached page.
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
- Judicial decisions
- Notary certified copies of documents
- Notary 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 underlying document 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 documents, we can provide you with high-quality translations.
Should you require company information for use in court, it needs to be legalized as well. We can therefore provide you with extracts from the commercial register of India including the apostille certification and translation into the language of the document's state of destination.
On average, processing the documents takes up to 14 days.
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 India without international shipping | from 357,00 € | from 300,00 € |
