Apostille and legalisation: which document needs what

A foreign authority that gets your Dutch birth certificate in its hands has no idea whether that paper is real. The apostille solves that: a stamp or sticker from the court confirming that the document and the signature on it are genuine. After that it is accepted in every country that belongs to the Apostille Convention — and there are many, including Australia and Spain.

But before you drive to the court with a pile of documents: first check whether you need one at all. More often than you think, the answer is no.

Within the EU: usually no longer needed

For whoever is going to Spain there is good news. A European regulation stipulates that governments in the EU must accept each other's public documents — birth certificates, marriage certificates, extracts — as genuine without an apostille.

Translating is often unnecessary too: from the issuing body (in the Netherlands: your municipality) you can request a multilingual standard form to put next to the document, instead of a sworn translation. So always ask your municipality for international or multilingual extracts — that saves an apostille and translation costs.

Outside the EU: apostille at the court

For countries in the Apostille Convention, such as Australia, you have the original document given an apostille at a court. This is how it works:

• Every court in the Netherlands may do it — you choose which one, regardless of where the document was issued. Only for court judgments do you have to go to the court that gave the judgment.
• On paper only. A digital document must first be officially on paper; a print of a PDF is not an original.
• At the counter it's usually done while you wait; by post you send the original along and pay on invoice. You pay a court fee per document — the current rate is on the court's page.

Some documents must first pass through another body. A diploma must first be signed by DUO before the court puts an apostille on it, and for documents from among others the Belastingdienst, the UWV and the SVB a comparable preliminary round applies. Whoever skips that makes the trip to the court twice.

For countries that do not belong to the convention there is the longer legalisation route via the Consular Service Centre — for our destinations (Australia, and the EU countries in any case) you don't need it.

When does Australia actually need it?

For the visa application itself usually not: Home Affairs works with colour scans of originals, and your assessing authority prescribes its own requirements — often certified copies or certified translations, no apostille. Where the apostille does come round the corner is life after arrival: marrying, buying a house, having a degree registered with a professional register. Those are exactly the documents you can still arrange easily now and later only by post from the other side of the world.

The rule of thumb: translate and legalise nothing "to be on the safe side", but ask each counter what it wants to see. Every body prescribes its own requirements, and an apostille nobody asks for is money thrown away — the same principle as with translations.