Schmidt & Schmidt offers the legalization of documents from Venezuela by apostille.
Venezuela acceded to the Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalization for Foreign Public Documents in the year 1999. Therefore, no diplomatic authentication or consular legalization of documents from Albania 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 Affairs.
In Venezuela, an electronic apostille containing an electronic signature and a verification code is available along with a traditional paper stamp. Some states of destination (for example, Spain and some countries of Latin America) require that Venezuelan documents be necessarily certified electronically (in particular, such conditions are put forward by the structures responsible for education in Spain).
Documents drawn up in Spanish and issued by the relevant authorities or other authorized structures of Venezuela can be apostillized.
Legalizing public documents in Venezuela 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)
- 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 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 Venezuela 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.
