What is Apostille?

It is a type of document attestation service, which legalises it to be accepted in all member countries of the Hague Convention. Being recognised internationally, a square-shaped stamp on your immigration documents makes them valid.  

India has been a member country of the Hague Convention since 2005. It was set up on October 5, 1961, removing the requirement of legalization of immigration documents. It makes all foreign public papers acceptable in member countries, which are 92 in all.

As India is its member, its citizens need no further attestation of documents if they are apostilled.

What are the types of documents apostilled?

• Personal documents, such as birth certificate, marriage certificate, NABC, single status certificate etc..
• Educational documents, such as transcript, mark sheet, degrees, provisional and many other ones.
• Commercial documents, such as compliance, company agreements & business deals etc..

The applicant should notarise all documents from the court. Then, they are attested by these departments:

• Home/ General Administration Department of the State/ Union Territory
• Education Department of the State/ Union Territory
• Chamber of Commerce of the State/ Union Territory

How to apostille documents in India

Here are a few steps on how to apostille documents in India

• Visit RAC

To get apostille sticker on your certificates, the applicant has to visit Regional Authentication Center (RAC). There are many centers located in different states here. You can check the address nearby your location here.

Then, the outsourcer should be contacted.

Note: There are only four agencies that legally collect your documents for this type of attestation. You can find their list here.

• Doc Submission

Upon figuring out the authentic outsourcer, the applicant should handover their duly notarized documents to the agent. Enclose all original plus photocopies of documents to verify.

• Outsourcer to Visit RPOs/ Branch Secretariat

As the outsourcing agent gets your documents, he forwards them to the branch Secretariat/ RPOs. He wisely selects the one that has jurisdiction over it. Once verified, the outsourcing agent is informed to collect the legalized papers. He again visits there to receive them.

• Deliver to Applicants

The outsourcing agent sends the legalized documents via a courier or in-person.

Can you personally get your documents apostilled?

No, it’s not possible. Since July 2012, no document is directly accepted at the Ministry of External Affairs Counter at CPV Division, Patiala House, New Delhi.

You need to submit the original document/true copy directly to any of the four outsourced service providers together with a photocopy of the document and a photocopy of the passport.

Are RPOs available all across India?

The government has decentralized apostille services to Branch Secretariat since January 2019. The applicants can approach any of the nearest one RPOs in 15 cities, which are Ahemdabad, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Chennai, Chandigarh, Cochin, New Delhi, Guwahati,, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Lucknow, Mumbai, Panaji, Raipur and Thiruvanantapuram.

How much does it cost to apostille a document in India?

• The MEA charges a fee of Rs 50 for Apostille of document via debit card or cashier cheque.
• The fee chargeable by the outsourced agencies per document for its collection and delivery is Rs. 90/- (Service Fee) and Rs 3 per page (Scanning Fee).

What documents should be enclosed with?

• Document
• Valid visa photocopy
• Original visaapproval notice, if any
• Original passport and photocopiesof first & last two pages

While wrapping up, the NRIs or any other applicant should keep into account that the Ministry of External Affairs legalises the documents upon recognizing the signature of the designated signing authorities of the State Government/Union Territory/Chambers of Commerce. So, it does not take responsibility of the contents of the documents.

For getting more concise reply of your query regarding apostille services from Services 2 NRI, call or contact.