What is Legalized Document for Foreigners in Turkey? Where can I get it?

Simply, the concept of legalized document is used for documents that have been approved and officially validated by legal authorities in Turkey and around the world. In our country, an equivalent of this concept is the documents with an apostille annotation. The concept of legalize or apostille is the name given to the system that certifies the authenticity of a document and enables it to be used legally in another country. Your document, which is registered in the Apostille document approval system, becomes available for use in other countries as well, thus, it has the quality of an official document. Apostille rules are regulated by the Hague Convention and are valid only between member states and parties to the Hague Conference. If your document is apostilled, it becomes a document that you can use in all member states of the Hague Conference. In other words, apostille is required for international document validity.

In order for a document to have legalized document status, it must have certain elements:

Name of the country where the document was issued
Name and surname of the signer
Title or title of the signer
Authority information of the seal printed on the document
The place where the document was certified
Certification date
Authority issuing the aspostille
Apostille number
Stamp or seal of the authority issuing the apostille
Signature of the official who prepared the apostille

How to Apply for a Legalized Document in Turkey?

If you want to get apostille certification in Turkey, you can apply to the district governor’s office. In some countries, apostille certification can be obtained from the governor’s office, and for judicial documents, from the presidencies of heavy penal courts. In places where there are no heavy penal courts, apostille procedures can be carried out at the Judicial Council or the Justice Commission. Before applying an apostille annotation to a document, it must be translated by sworn translators and then certified by the notary public where the sworn translator’s oath is taken. In order to ensure the validity of the population registration sample abroad, the original document and the signature of the translator must be approved by the notary public after the sworn translation of the population registry sample is made by sworn translators. At this stage, by adding the signature and seal of the notary public, it is documented that your birth certificate has been approved by the Republic of Turkey. Then the district governor or governor’s office confirms that the signature and seal are genuine.

Fees for legalization transactions differ according to the stages. You have to pay a fee for your document to be translated and notarized. For example, if you are going to get an apostille approval on your marriage certificate, you have to pay the translation office for the translation process. When you submit the translated document for notary approval, the approval price is around 140 TL. According to the Hague Convention, no specific time has been determined for the validity of the apostille. The validity period of the documents is determined by the countries themselves and may vary according to the type of document approved. Approved apostille documents are valid for 6 months in some countries and indefinitely in some countries. When you apply to the consulate, you can get information about the validity period of your document from the relevant authority.

If you have questions about legalized documents, you can send them to us in the comments section.