Schmidt & Schmidt offers the legalization of documents from Wallis and Futuna by apostille.
As a French overseas department, Wallis and Futuna is a member state of the Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalization for Foreign Public Documents. Therefore, no diplomatic authentication or consular legalization of documents from Wallis and Futuna 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.
Wallis and Futuna do not have the Court of Appeals of its own. Responsible for issuing the apostille is the court of appeals of New Caledonia.
Legalizing public documents in Wallis and Futuna 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.
An apostille is a stamp of rectangular shape. The heading "Apostille (Convention de La Haye du 5 octobre 1961)" must be in French. The stamp indicates the signature verified by the apostille, the date and the identification number of the apostille itself.
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
- Court decisions
- Notarized copies of documents
- 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:
An apostille can be issued exclusively on an original document. Therefore, the latter must be in an apparent good condition, all stamps and signatures have to be clear and readable. Furthermore, it must not contain alien marking 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 Wallis and Futuna including apostille and translation.
On average, processing the documents takes up to 14 days.
