What is an apostille

An apostille is a stamp placed on an official document which confirms three things: that the signature on the document is genuine, that the person who signed it does hold the office stated, and that the seal or stamp on the document matches the specimen held by the authority. An apostille does not translate the document, does not assess its contents and does not confirm the facts set out in it — it certifies only the signature, the seal and the authority of whoever signed or certified the document.

The apostille comes from the Hague Convention of 5 October 1961 abolishing the requirement of legalisation for foreign public documents. Russia has been a party since 1992 as the successor to the USSR, which acceded in 1991. The purpose of the apostille is to replace a long chain of certifications — notary, ministry, embassy — with a single stamp that every other contracting state accepts without further confirmation.

What an apostille looks like

The form is fixed in the annex to the convention: every country uses a stamp of the same model, and only the language of the entries and the printing of the form differ. The stamp is square, with sides of at least 9 by 9 centimetres. At the top is the heading in French: ‘Apostille (Convention de La Haye du 5 octobre 1961)’. Below it are ten numbered fields: the country of origin of the document; who signed the document; the capacity in which that person acted; the seal or stamp of the body whose official signed it; the town and date of issue; the authority issuing the apostille; the apostille number; the seal of that authority; and the signature of its official. The apostille may be placed on the document itself, on its reverse, or on a separate sheet attached to it — this depends on the authority and on the type of document.

Apostille or consular legalisation

Both procedures answer the same question: is this Russian document genuine. The difference is the number of steps. An apostille is one stamp from one authority. Consular legalisation is a chain: a notary, then the territorial body of the Ministry of Justice, then the Consular Department of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and finally the consulate of the destination country in Moscow. The apostille works for states party to the Hague Convention; legalisation is for countries that have neither that convention nor a separate treaty on legal assistance with Russia.

When no apostille is needed

No apostille is placed on documents that stay inside Russia. Nor is one needed if the document goes to a country that has a treaty on legal assistance with Russia: the document is then accepted with no legalisation at all, sometimes with a translation. This is how it works with Kazakhstan under the Minsk Convention of 1993, for example. Which of the three applies — apostille, legalisation or nothing — is set out on Do I need an apostille and in the country table.

Which authority issues an apostille in Russia

The procedure is governed by Federal Law No. 330-FZ of 28 November 2015 on affixing an apostille to Russian public documents intended for use abroad. There is no single office: the apostille is issued by the authority that either issued the document or is responsible for that category of documents. Regional civil registry offices (ZAGS) certify birth, marriage, divorce, death and name-change certificates; regional education authorities, acting for Rosobrnadzor, certify diplomas, school certificates and academic transcripts; territorial bodies of the Ministry of Justice certify notarial, corporate and court documents; the Ministry of Internal Affairs certifies criminal record certificates; the federal and regional archives certify archival statements; the Ministry of Defence certifies military service records; and the Prosecutor General's Office certifies prosecutorial documents. Each type of document is set out on Where to obtain an apostille.

How long an apostille lasts

The Hague Convention sets no expiry date for an apostille: once affixed, it does not lapse. The receiving institution, however, almost always has its own requirements about how recent the underlying document must be. A criminal record certificate, for instance, is often accepted by consulates and universities only within a limited period from the date the certificate itself was issued, not from the date of the apostille. The shelf life therefore has to be checked against the requirements of the particular institution and country on the date of submission; there is no single rule.

Whether the apostille itself is genuine is a separate question from whether the document is still current. The authority that issued the apostille keeps a register with its number and date, and those details can be checked against that register. This procedure has nothing to do with whether the document has gone out of date.