Our Address
The Apostille Service, Union House, 111 New Union Street, Coventry, CV1 2NT
Contact our team
Email: info@apostille.org.uk
UK: 024 76103104
Overseas: +442476103104
working hours
HOURS; 9 am – 5 pm
OPEN: Monday to Friday
CLOSED: Saturday and Sunday
Get an update on your order!
Login to your account to find out when your document has arrived, is being processed and when it is completed and dispatched.
Our Office
Let’s Keep In Touch
Contact The Apostille Service. We aim to reply withing 2 working hours.
We are happy to answer your questions.
We have a team of trained legalisation experts, on hand to answer your questions. How to order? How much is the apostille? What documents need legalising.
Call us today
Chat online
Email us
Need to order an apostille? Visit the order apostille page.
Call Us
Email Us
Chat With Us
Use the online chat service.
When active, talk to a real person.
Live chat today.
FAQs – Frequently Asked Questions
No, embassy attestation and apostille are two different processes. Apostille (legalisation) is required in the process of attesting documents. Embassy attestation is completed after the apostille has been issued.
The time taken for embassy attestation varies depending on the country and the type of document being attested. It can take anywhere from a few days to several weeks. However, in general, it should take around 7 to 10 days to complete the entire process-
- Solicitor Certification
- Apostille
- Embassy Stamps
The process of embassy attestation typically involves getting the documents authenticated by the relevant authorities in your home country. The document must be prepared correctly by an authority such as a solicitor, notary public, registrar, court or recognised public official. It is then legalised with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; in the UK this is the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO). It is then submitted to the embassy or consulate for attestation.
The documents that require embassy attestation will vary based on the purpose of the visit. Commonly attested documents include educational certificates, marriage certificates, birth certificates, employment documents, and commercial documents. For example
Working Visa – You may need to attest academic documents, qualifications and criminal record checks
Spousal or Family Visa – You may need to attest marriage certificates and birth certificates
Conduction Business – You may need to provide documents confirming who owns the UK business, who operates the business and supply contracts.
*These are just examples and not advice
Embassy attestation is required for various purposes such as applying for a visa, work permits, residency in a foreign country, studying abroad, or for business purposes. Many countries will request your documents are correctly attested by their embassy in the country the document was issued before it will be accepted.
Embassy attestation is only needed if your document is being used in a country that is not a member of the Hague Convention. If your document is being used in a country that has adopted the Hague Convention for issuing and accepting apostilles then you will only need an apostille certificate. You can find a list of countries that accept the apostille certificate by clicking here.
Full embassy attestation can be a complicated process and it is important that documents are prepared correctly. We can assist you with our full embassy attestation service.
We have made ordering an apostille as simple as possible.
- Locate the apostille service you need – apostille only OR apostille with solicitor certification
- Order and pay online
- Get the order number
- Send your document with the order number
How to order when you do not want to order and pay online?
- Print and complete the order form
- Post the document to us with the order form
Alternatively, post your document to us with a letter. Include your name, phone number, delivery address, email address and brief details of the service you need. We will contact you for payment.
For more information visit our how to order page.
Some documents can be emailed to us. We legalise many UK company documents from emails or as downloads direct from Companies House. If you need advice please email a copy of your document to us.
We guarantee to issue the apostille on any genuine UK document that is correctly presented. If your document has not been signed, stamped or certified correctly we will work with you and provide assistance or advice to ensure we can legalise the document. If for any reason we cannot issue the apostille on your document we guarantee to refund the apostille fee.
In short, apostilles do not expire! An apostille may be accepted for many years after it has been attached to a document. All apostilles have an issue date, but they do not have an expiry date.
However, there are occasions when the apostille must be issued within a defined period of time.
For example, criminal records (background checks) and the attached apostille are normally only accepted up to 3 months from the date they were issued.
Some embassies will only recognise and accept an apostille that is up to 90 days old.
It is reasonable to suggest some documents should only be 3 months old as they are only correct at the time they are issued and the facts/circumstances may have changed since. Examples include background checks, statutory declarations, affidavits, certificates of no impediments and more.
We make document legalisation simple. Using our apostille and embassy attestation service is the quickest and most simple way of getting your documents legalised for international use.
Safely hand processing your documents and using secure couriers we liaise with solicitors, the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office and many of the embassies based in London. We do all the running around and include all costs in our charges.
Yes, you can order an apostille for more than one document, for more than one person. Simply add the correct number of services/documents to your shopping basket and checkout. When you checkout you can tell us what documents you are sending and who they belong to.
We only need the contact details for the person placing the order and one delivery address for the return of the documents. This makes ordering simple and saves you postal costs sending one set of documents in one envelope. If you have three or more documents we offer a discounted apostille service.
We complete most apostille orders in around 2 days. Hand delivering documents to the FCDO Legalisation Office we complete apostilles quickly.
If you need an apostille on the same day you will need to search for a ‘same day apostille service in London’. You will need to get the document to them first thing in the morning and pay a higher fee of around £150-200 per document.
An alternative is to use our apostille service. Completing apostilles in 2 days we can ship the document back to you in the UK or direct to an address overseas. if you need a document before a flight, do not worry. Order the apostille from us and we can dispatch this to your address in another country. This is cheaper than paying for a same day service and the costs of travelling to London.
Many documents have the apostille without any additional notarisation or solicitor certification. When a document contains a recognised official signature, stamp or seal, further notarisation/certification is not required and should not be added.
Common documents that DO NOT need notarising/certifying include –
Birth Certificate
Marriage Certificate
Death certificates
Adoption Certificates
Certificate of No Impediment to Marriage
Decree Absolute or Decree Nisi with ‘wet ink’ court stamps
Court documents & Probates with ‘wet ink’ court stamps
Certificates of Good Standing
Companies House Registrar signed socuments
HM Revenue and Customs letters signed by HMRC officer
Certificate of Residence documents signed by HMRC officer
ACPO, ACRO, NPCC, Police letters
This list is not exhaustive!
After many years of discussion, the UK government finally introduced the e-apostille, or electronic apostille, in 2022.
The e-apostille is a digital certificate that is added to a digital document that contains a recognised digital signature. The entire process can be completed online or in some cases partly online.
To explain the process, let us use a Companies House certificate as an example-
- Customer provides a PDF certificate this a downloaded from Companies House
- A solicitor will check a digital document to make sure it is correct
- The solicitor will then upload the document to a digital certification platform to add their signature
- An application is then made to the FCDO for an e-apostille. The digitally signed document is uploaded securely to the FCDO for checking and issue of a digital e-apostille.
- The document then has additional files attached with the digital authentication and e-apostille.
- This is then emailed to the customer on completion for use outside of the UK.
Not all documents can have an e-apostille. Please see our e-apostille pages for more information.
Sending Your Documents to Us
Your documents are important so we always recommend that customers use a guaranteed or secure delivery method when sending documents to our office. Royal Mail offer special delivery whilst other UK courier firms will offer a next day or ‘signed for’ delivery option. If you choose normal first class post please remember that you cannot track missing documents and there is no insurance. First class post can take several days to arrive.
Returning your documents to you
When we return documents we recommend clients choose one of our courier deliveries. At the time of ordering you can select from the following option for return delivery.
- UK First Class Post – Royal Mail should deliver your documents within 2-3 working days. This may not be suitable for urgent orders and there is no tracking available with this option.
- UK Courier – Items sent via our UK courier service will be delivered the next working day after dispatch.
- Airmail – International airmail takes typically 5-10 working days within Europe and approximately 2-4 weeks outside of Europe. This is not recommended for urgent orders.
- DHL – DHL is the fastest and most secure delivery option available for international shipments. Most deliveries are completed in just 1-2 working days to most locations.
*The delivery times quoted are estimates. Actual delivery times may vary depending on access to remote areas, the location of the address, regional differences in public holidays and unforeseen delays. We do not run the postal services and couriers.
We aim to complete all orders in around 2 working days. In some cases this may not be possible and delays could occur with your document although a member of the team will contact you to confirm this, and will advise how to proceed. Processing times will depend on when the documents arrive at our office and whether the document has been prepared correctly.
Occasionally some documents are delayed. This is normally because the document is not signed correctly or the signatory is unknown to the FCDO. Every effort is made to process all orders in 2 days, but this is not a guarantee due to problems with some documents and the FCDO processing times.
We recommend that clients with urgent orders use a guaranteed postal service when sending documents to us, this will help ensure the documents do not take too long in the post.
Some documents can only have the apostille on the original document (e.g, birth and marriage certificates, criminal record checks), whereas other documents can have the apostille on a copy (e.g. academic documents).
When you are ordering online we will ask for your preference as we do not want to stamp an original document without your permission to do so. If you ask us to do the original you must send the original document to us, if you do not your order will be delayed while we request the original from you.
For academic documents if you ask us to legalise the original it will damage/deface it a little as the solicitor certification and legalisation are stamped and signed on the actual document. We will try to do this to the back of the document where possible but it may still be visible on the front. If we make a copy and legalise the copy it avoids us having to damage a valuable original document.
If you select the option for ‘Other’ please specify your order requirements in the document details section of the checkout process. If it is not clear what is needed this can delay the order.
If you are unsure which version of the document requires the apostille please check this with the person or authority requesting your document.
The Apostille is an official document which is recognised in all members of The Hague Convention and also a number of other countries.
The apostille we provide is the official government issued apostille certificate. We work with the government to obtain the official apostille quickly for our customers.
The apostille is ultimately issued by the UK government, the Foreign Commonwealth AND Development Office (FCDO) based in Milton Keynes. They no longer open their doors to the general public although do still deal with orders placed through the post. We are a service provider that is recognised by the FCDO. We are approved for hand delivering documents to the FCDO each day to ensure a safe and fast apostille service.
You can apply directly to the FCDO and wait around 4 weeks for the apostille. Alternatively, you can use an apostille service, like us, for a faster service with free advice and customer support through the application.
We’re Here To Help You Get The Apostille
Apostilles, Embassy Attestation, Translations and More