The Government of Moldova has amended the Regulation on the Procedure for Issuing Apostilles, which had been in effect since 2007. The relevant legal act is published on the official government website.
How the apostille procedure has evolved in Moldova
The Republic of Moldova is a participant in the 5 October 1961 Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents, which established a simplified procedure for document legalization through apostille. Moldova acceded to the Convention on 19 June 2006, and the Convention entered into force in the country on 16 March 2007.
Germany objected to Moldova’s accession to the Hague Convention, and as a result, apostille recognition does not apply between the two countries.
In 2013, Moldova introduced an electronic apostille system. The electronic apostille (e-Apostille) is issued as a PDF file containing a digital copy of the document with the apostille, certified by the electronic signature of an authorized official.
Since 2022 it has been possible in Moldova to submit documents for apostille online using a digital signature. The service is provided through a dedicated platform on the government portal. It can be accessed with a mobile signature, electronic signature, or electronic identity card.
After authentication, the applicant can register a request, complete a special form, and upload scanned copies of the documents, which must then be signed via a dedicated application.
More recently, Moldova has also made apostille services available via smartphone through the EVO mobile app. To use the service, citizens need to install the app on their device and navigate to the “Government Services” section.
If the applicant has a digital or mobile signature (EVOSign), they can submit a request for document certification by apostille and attach copies of the documents directly through their device.
Apostille services in Moldova are in high demand. This is because Romania considers Bessarabia and Bukovina (Moldova, as well as parts of the Odessa and Chernivtsi regions of Ukraine) as its historical territories. For those who lived in these areas between 1918 and 1944, and their descendants, the Romanian authorities issue passports that allow them to live and work freely in the European Union and travel across its territory.
However, to verify an individual’s residence in Bessarabia and their familial ties to descendants, it is necessary to consult archives and civil registry offices in Moldova.
Given the significant number of attempts by fraudsters seeking to obtain Romanian passports through deception, official authorities in Bucharest now require all documents submitted for citizenship to be apostilled. Against this backdrop, the demand for apostilles in Moldova has sharply increased — both from local residents and from foreign nationals whose ancestors lived in Bessarabia.
Why Moldovan authorities are revising the apostille regulations
The Government of Moldova adopted Resolution No. 3 on 14 January 2026, amending the Regulation on the Procedure for Issuing Apostilles, which had been in effect since 2007.
The most significant change is that Moldovan authorities will no longer apostille civil status certificates issued before 8 February 2008, with the exception of death certificates. Previously, all civil registry documents issued from 1998 onward were certified with an apostille.
The authorities explained this decision by noting that, prior to 2008, civil status certificates and their duplicates were created with manually entered data, which posed a risk of unauthorized alterations after issuance. The format of civil status documents introduced from 2008 onward is more secure.
Additionally, in many documents from the late 1990s to early 2000s, personal names were written according to Government Resolution No. 523/1996, which was later repealed due to the lack of clear and detailed transliteration rules. As a result, civil registry documents issued during this period do not comply with current spelling standards.
This has led to numerous discrepancies with other documents, making it practically impossible to verify the issuance of certificates. The issue affects not only the document holders but also the officials who signed them. Variations in the spelling of first and last names significantly complicate authenticity verification against databases. In some cases, resolving these issues even required forensic handwriting analysis.
The specific date of 8 February 2008 was chosen because this is when the Civil Status Registration Service was established as a state institution with legal entity status (initially under the Ministry of Information Development, and later under the Ministry of Justice). From this date onward, a series of technical measures were introduced for record-keeping, control, and use of information resources in the process of issuing civil status documents.
Additionally, from this date, a more advanced process for using computer technologies in local government operations was implemented, eliminating the practice of manually filling out civil status document forms.
According to officials, setting this cut-off date will enhance legal certainty and help reduce the number of “problematic” cases, where citizens are denied certification of certificates or face difficulties in having them accepted abroad.
Now, holders of civil status certificates issued before 8 February 2008 will be required to replace them with documents in the current format, fully compliant with the latest regulatory requirements, before they can be apostilled.
In addition, the Regulation has been updated with several important technical clarifications. For example, the name of the authority was changed from “Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration” to “Ministry of Foreign Affairs.” The ministry is now mentioned less frequently — although it remains formally listed as an authority authorized to issue apostilles, nearly all functions for certifying documents in Moldova have been transferred to the Agency for Legal Information and Technology Resources of the Ministry of Justice, which exercises its powers through the State Services Agency.
According to the authors of the amendments, the new text of the Regulation will help establish institutional accuracy and ensure the effective application of the Hague Convention.
The Regulation has also been updated to include references to the electronic apostille procedure, which was introduced after the previous version of the Regulation came into force.
What is an apostille?
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