South Africans traveling abroad to study or work in foreign countries might need clarification with trying to figure out whether they need their official documents apostilled, attested, notarised, or authenticated for use outside of South Africa. This post looks at embassy attestation services, what they are, and who needs them.
Before we explore embassy attestations, it is important to understand that attestations are a form of document authentication.
What is document authentication?
If you’re legalising a document to use in a country that is not a signatory of the Apostille Convention (such as Taiwan, Vietnam, etc.), you’ll be required to follow a longer process than you’d need to have if you had been traveling to a country that forms part of the Hague Conference. Your legal South African documents must be authenticated and submitted to the relevant embassy for legalisation or attestation.
Documents that are authenticated may include:
- Civic Services Documents such as birth, death, and marriage certificates, as well as letters of no impediment
- Academic documents such as degrees, diplomas, and matric certificates
- Police clearance certificates
- Passport copies
- Notarised Power of Attorney (POA) forms
- Divorce orders
- Contracts and trade documents
What is an embassy attestation?
Embassy attestation refers to the authentication process of South African documents that are to be used in countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Kuwait to name but a few. Although an embassy attestation follows a slightly different route than authentications, it is a similar process and requires documents to be attested for South Africans looking to use their documentation legally in certain countries that do not form part of the Hague Convention.
Documents that usually have to be attested include:
- Civic certificates including birth, death, and marriage certificates, as well as letters of no impediment
- Academic documents such as degrees, diplomas, and matric certificates
- Police clearance certificates
- Medical reports
- Passport copies
- Notarised Power of Attorney (POA) forms
- Divorce orders
- Contracts and trade documents
Before being attested, documents can be notarised and verified at:
- A Notary Public and the High Court
- SAQA, the Departments of Basic and Higher Education and Training (DHET) and Umalusi
- The Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA)
- The Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO)
How does embassy attestation work?
Before you can have documents attested, the embassy requires you to apostille or high court authenticate the documents. Thereafter, you can have it taken by us to the embassy in question.
The embassies all have different fees and turnaround times. These fees vary from time to time based on demand and currency fluctuations. Sometimes, the fee is very expensive and worth noting well in advance to prepare monetarily.
Here is an infographic showing the embassy attestation and legalisation process of documents
Embassy Attestation process in South Africa, including apostille
Final thoughts
As you can see, attestations and authentications are very similar, both being some form of verification for South African documents that have to be legalised before they can be used outside of the Republic. Although the fastest and most convenient option is to have your documents apostilled, these kinds of documents can only be used in some. Your verification process might vary slightly depending on the country you are traveling to.
There are many countries where you will need to have your documents legalised via attestation, and our team has become experts in attesting documents for the below countries:
- Vietnam
- Thailand
- Kuwait
- Ethiopia
- Mozambique
- Taiwan
- Lebanon
- Singapore
- Malaysia
- Canada
Should there be any questions regarding attesting documents, please get in touch with us on any of our contact forms.
Good day, I need to get my trade papers, marital certificate and matric certificate attested for Qatar. Need your help.
Yes, we can assist, please email or call us to start right away. Also have a look at this page: Attestation.