(a) the number and date of the certificate; (b) the name of the person who signed the authentic instrument and the capacity in which he acted or, in the case of unsigned documents, the name of the authority which affixed the seal or stamp. documents issued by diplomatic or consular agents; Where a treaty, convention or agreement between two or more Contracting States contains provisions making the certification of a signature, seal or stamp subject to certain formalities, that convention shall prevail over those provisions only if those formalities are stricter than those referred to in Articles 3 and 4. However, the formality referred to in the preceding paragraph may not be required if the laws, regulations or practices of the State in which the document is presented, or an agreement between two or more Contracting States, have repealed or simplified it or have exempted the document itself from legalization. Four types of documents are mentioned in the Convention[1]: Technically, an apostille never expires once it has been issued. However, certain factors can render an apostilled document unusable in certain situations. If you plan to use a document or certificate on which you purchased an apostille outside of convention, you may need to edit the document again. For example, if you`re applying for a work permit in China, the apostille on your documents must have been issued within the last six months to be valid for your application.[15] This Convention shall apply to authentic instruments issued in the territory of a Contracting State and to be filed in the territory of another Contracting State. documents emanating from an authority or official associated with the courts of the State, including those emanating from a prosecutor, registrar or bailiff; The Hague Convention on Exemption from Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents is an international treaty developed by the Hague Conference on Private International Law. It lays down the procedures according to which a document issued in one of the signatory States may be certified for legal purposes in all the other signatory States.

A certificate according to the provisions of the Convention is called apostille (from Latin post illa then French: marginal note) or Hague Apostille. [2] This is an international certification comparable to a notarial certification under national law and usually complements a local notarial certification of the act. If the convention applies between two countries, such an apostille is sufficient to certify the validity of a document and eliminates the need for double certification by the country of origin and then by the recipient country. Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, Sao Tome and Principe, Serbia, Seychelles, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Suriname, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Ukraine, United States of America, Uruguay, Vanuatu, Venezuela Each State Party shall take such measures as may be necessary to prevent the implementation of legalization by its diplomatic or consular agents; where this Convention is exempted. For the purposes of this Convention, authentic instruments shall mean: (a) documents emanating from an authority or official associated with the courts of the State, including those emanating from a prosecutor, registrar or bailiff; (b) administrative documents; (c) notarial acts; (d) official certificates affixed to documents signed by private persons, such as official certificates attesting to the registration of a document or its existence at a given time, as well as official and notarial attestations of signatures.