Apostille from South Korea

Schmidt & Schmidt offers the legalization of documents from South Korea by apostille.

South Korea acceded to the Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalization for Foreign Public Documents in 2006. Therefore, no diplomatic authentication or consular legalization of documents from South Korea 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 are the following institutions:

• Ministry of Justice - for documents issued by authorized private entities (private medical institutions, courses, etc.), a notarization of such documents is a prerequisite for submitting the documents at the Ministry.
• The Passport department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs - for documents issued by state and governmental establishments (including educational institutions), no prior notarization is required

Public documents drawn up in Korean or English and issued by the authorities or authorized private entities can be apostillized.

Legalizing public documents in South Korea 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. In South Korea, the electronic apostille is available.

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
• Notarized copies of documents
• Notarized translations
• Further notarized 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 public 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 South Korea 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.