Is it your first time to go abroad? Did you know how to get your documents attested? Certainly, travelling abroad for any reasons like work, education, or temporary residency will be legally valid and easy if you know how to authenticate your documents. The authentication indicates that the documents or certificates are genuine. This process is called certificate attestation. So! You may have to get your educational certificates, birth certificates, marriage or single status certificates, and commercial documents attested.
This blog will guide you through the complete process of certificate attestation in India, covering the types of certificates, stages of attestation and apostille, and authorities involved.
What is Certificate Attestation?
As aforesaid, certificate attestation is a step-by-step process to verify the originality of your documents. This can be proved by various government bodies, like a registrar, that sign and seal them. Their signs and seal transform them into legitimate proofs, which foreign authorities readily accept.
The documents are considered as the type of documents you need to be attested. Typically, these are categorised as:
- Educational Certificates: Degree certificates, transcripts, diplomas, and mark sheets, and school leaving certificates, which can help in obtaining a student visa, work visa, or employment abroad.
- Personal Certificates: Birth certificates, marriage certificates, and single status affidavits or certificates; divorce certificates; death certificates; and affidavits for family visas, resident visas, and immigration purposes.
- Commercial Certificates: Invoices, memoranda of association, and other business-related documents, powers of attorney, articles of incorporation, etc. are usually legalised for business or trade purposes.
Why is certificate attestation required?
Considering its significance, attestation proves the genuineness, originality, and validity of a document. So, the existing papers are verified by competent authorities with a purpose. Overall, this service will be necessary if your goal is any of these:
- Educational Purposes: If you are likely to further study at a foreign university, you need to get your academic documents attested to prove your eligibility for admission from eSanad.
- Employment Visa: If you’re likely to temporarily shift abroad for employment, get your educational and personal papers ready to attest to prove your eligibility for an employment visa.
- Migration: If you’re migrating abroad, this service will be required to authenticate your personal documents such as a bachelorhood certificate or marriage certificate, birth certificate, etc.
- Business Establishment: Another purpose to seek attestation service in India is to set up or scale up your business abroad. For sure, it won’t be complete without showcasing the attested commercial documents, such as power of attorney and commercial activity or business documents.
Steps Involved in the Certificate Attestation Process
The process of legalising documents in India involves multiple-stage authentication, with each requiring the approval of competent authorities from the state and central government. Here is a step-by-step guide to understand the process of certificate attestation.
Step 1. Notary Attestation
To begin with, you need to visit the court or the office of notary public. The notary public officer will certify that the presented documents are genuine. He or she thoroughly examines the signatures on papers and verifies their originality. The applicants are requested not to self-attest the documents before reaching its office.
Step 2. Home Department or SDM Attestation
As the process of notarisation is over, you need to visit the home department for attesting your educational certificates. Alternatively, you can visit the offices of the Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) or District Magistrates (DMs) for the same purpose, whose offices are regionally available. You may discover the DM located in your area from this list and contact them online.
Step 3. Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Attestation & Apostille
The final stage of attestation is the MEA, or Ministry of External Affairs attestation. As the state authority, SDM, or DM verifies, the documents are presented at the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) office. The competent officer stamps on the document with a seal of authentication so that your documents are accepted worldwide. There is a vital tip associated with this point, which you can read below.
Apostille is another type of document legalisation step, which is an alternative to normal attestation. For it, the authority will be similar, but the attestation will be valid in the Hague Convention, 1961 countries. And once apostille the document, the applicant does not need to go to the embassy for further attestation.
- Embassy Attestation
For this step, you should know which embassy to reach out to. Click this list to discover the most appropriate consulate office. You need to choose the one where you are likely to travel or work and get your documents attested from there.
Timeframe
Every step takes its own duration.
- Notarisation: It may take 1 or 2 days, depending on the availability of the officer.
- Home or SDM Attestation: This legalisation can be 1 to 3 weeks long.
- MEA Attestation: This attestation can be a 2-week-long procedure.
- Embassy Attestation: It requires an appointment to be set prior, which may be a 1 to 4 week long process.
Cost
The cost of attesting documents or certificates is decided on the basis of their types, the state of origin, and the fee asked by concerned authorities. This is an estimate on the basis of the recent fee structure associated with the overall process.
- Notarisation Cost
- Standard Notarisation: INR 100 to INR 500
- Complex Document Notarisation: INR 500 to INR 2000
- Affidavits & Power of Attorney Notarisation: INR 100 to INR 500
- Agreements and Contracts Notarisation: INR 200 to INR 1000
- SDM Attestation Cost: INR 50 to INR 200
- MEA Attestation: INR 50 to INR 200 (attestation fee) + INR 500 to INR 2,000 per document (service charge)
- Embassy Attestation: INR 1,000 to INR 5,000 (standard fee) per document + INR 500 to INR 2,000 (service charges) + INR 500 to INR 2,000 (translation fees) + INR 300 to INR 1,000 (courier charges) + INR 1,000 to INR 5,000 (agency fees) + INR 2,000 to INR 10,000 (expedited processing fee)
Validity
The attested or apostille documents are valid for a certain period. So, you need to ensure that your attested certificates will be presented by the time it is prescribed.
Possibility of Delays
Some bureaucratic procedures or missing documents may delay the attestation of your documents. To get rid of it, you must compile all requisite documents in order and double-check if all requisites are there for the attestation.
Sometimes, the format of your document, such as an affidavit or transcript, may not be standard, and the required information might be missing there. These issues can lead to rejection. So, keep your documents complete and properly formatted.
Professional Attestation Services
Since India is divided into states and union territories, the process of attestation services may differ. So, you must consult the process with a consultant like Services2NRI so that navigating these variations won’t be challenging. Also, the MEA does not entertain individual requests from the applicants directly. So, you need to hire a consultant in this case who must be authorised to get your documents attested or apostille. With his support, the end-to-end process of document/certificate attestation would be smooth and fast. Besides, he can guide you through the complexities involved in notarisation and other steps as well.
Why to Use Professional Services?
For sure, the benefits are multiple. You may notice these advantages:
- His support can save time and effort.
- The risk of errors or rejections will be minimal.
- Your documents or certificates will be processed within the required timeframe.
- You can easily track the status of your attestation process online, which makes it a more preferable and more convenient alternative.
Conclusion
Certificate attestation is a lengthy process, involving a lot of steps. These steps start from notarisation to embassy attestation. Each step involves a different competent authority to verify and attest. Accordingly, they take time and charges to attest or apostille the document for via and immigration.
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