An Apostille Certificate authenticates the seal and/or signature of the public official or authority such as a notary issuing the document. Therefore an Australian public document must often be legalised or formally proved valid and genuine, before it is accepted by overseas businesses, governments or courts. The Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade usually issues an Apostille Certificates.
The Apostille is based on a multilateral treaty in force between Australia and approximately 115 other countries called ‘The Hague Convention of 5 October 1961, Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents’. In Australia the Convention entered into force on 16 March 1995. Here you can see which countries are parties to the convention. If the country you intend to use the notarial certificate in is a signatory of the convention, an apostilled notarial certificate will usually all you require. If the destination country is not on the list, please email us.
If you intend to make overseas use of the certificate notarised by an Australian Notary, the overseas recipient (a foreign court, a foreign government, a foreign administration, a foreign notary or business) will usually require the document to be legalised. We can assist you to obtain the Apostille Certificate.