Apostille makes authenticating documents faster and easier.

If you need a document from one country for official use in another country, you may need to have it apostilled.

Apostille meaning is the international certification of a document under a treaty known as the Hague Apostille Convention. It is comparable to a notarization.

It certifies that the signature or seal of the person or authority that appears on a document is authentic and it certifies the capacity in which the signature or seal was made.

Through an apostille, someone in one country can rely on a document issued in another. The apostille is enough to certify a document’s validity if two countries are parties to the treaty.

Until recently, the Philippines was not a member of the Hague Apostille Convention.

This meant that, every time some official document needed to be used across borders, there would be a laborious process to authenticate it before either the Philippines or the foreign country would accept the document as authentic.

The process required a double-certification, by the originating country and then by the embassy of the receiving country.

This has changed with our accession to the Convention.

Since May 14, 2019, a Philippine public document that you need to present in a foreign country

no longer has to be authenticated by that country’s Embassy or Consulate here.

Authentication by our Department of Foreign Affairs is enough if that country is also a member of the Apostille Convention.

Likewise, a document from outside the Philippines no longer needs to be “red ribboned” or authenticated by the Philippine embassy there before it can be accepted in the Philippines as genuine.

The DFA no longer admits walk-ins so your appointment must be scheduled by emailing the DFA Office Of Consular Affairs website and/or the satellite offices.

In the Philippines, it is the Department of Foreign Affairs that does this.

Countries that are party to the Hague Apostille Convention designate the competent authority who can issue an apostille.

The apostille of this foreign competent authority – it might be their Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the Office of their Secretary of State – is enough for this foreign public document to be accepted as genuine in the Philippines.

Because 118 countries are parties to the Apostille Convention, the Philippine membership makes document authentication a lot easier all over the world.

The only exceptions to this benefit among the member countries are Austria, Finland, Germany and Greece.

These countries have submitted reservations to the Philippine accession which, under the terms of the Convention, means that apostille cannot be resorted to between them and the Philippines.

For these countries, as well as those which are not treaty members — such as Canada, Thailand, China, Taiwan, and Saudi Arabia — the old process of authentication still applies between them and the Philippines.

This means that, aside from the internal certifications required in those countries, foreign documents still have to be authenticated by the Philippine Embassy or Consulate in them before they can be used in the Philippines.

And vice versa – for a Philippine public document to be accepted as authentic in those foreign countries with whom the treaty does not apply, their embassies here need to first authenticate that document.

Always bring your Special Power of Attorney along with the copy of owner’s valid ID and your ID if you are a representative.

Certain documents can be brought for apostille directly to the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Others require intermediate steps before the DFA will issue an apostille on them.

For example, if it is a notarized document, the seal of the notary alone will not suffice. The DFA will also require that you present the notary’s CANA — his Certificate of Authority for a Notarial Act.

The CANA is issued by a Philippine court to which the notary public reports. You’ll need to obtain the notary’s CANA from the court with authority over him and bring it to the DFA.

If what you need to submit is a court document, for example a Philippines court decision or a court notice on the status of a case, there are also additional steps before you can get this apostilled

First of all, the court document needs to have been duly certified by the responsible court officer.

What’s more, the DFA further requires that you go to the Supreme Court and get a certification of the court officer’s signature from the Supreme Court.

Similarly, school documents which you want to have apostilled may have to be certified by the Department of Education or the Commission on Higher Education before the DFA will apostille them.

Getting these requirements takes some legwork and familiarity with the apostille process.