Understand The Concept Of Apostille Better

By Author: Naman Vohra
Total Articles: 133
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The new world has opened up myriad opportunities for individuals all over the world. People are travelling from one part of the world to another in the hope of making the most of such opportunities opened up by various alliances of our governments. And all this is happening in a fast pace.

The international travel may have become the new sport but it comes with its own set of riders. While setting foot on a foreign soil you have to ensure meeting all the pre-requisites laid out by the foreign country’s Government. Yes, only with compliance to mentioned requirements can an individual finally end up in the foreign nation.

Generally all the rules and regulation related to travel to an overseas destination is needed to be learnt during the visa processing requirements. A visa stamp is an approval of a destination country’s government for the purpose of entering their nation.

Though there are many processes known to be pre-requisites for visa processing, countries have now resorted to opt from primarily two processes- attestation and apostille. Attestation is the process of bearing witness to the document’s ...
... authenticity resulting from the signatures of entities bound by the document. In simple words, attestation, in terms of visa processing, is about getting the document in question stamped, sealed or signatured by the source of the document, by Human Resource Department (HRD), Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and finally by the concerned country’s embassy.

The process of Apostille of documents is also more or less the same. The difference lies in the origination and relevance of the process.

Origin- attestation is a preferred process in selected countries like the nations in the Middle East, few parts of the United States, Australia and Europe. However, apostille is now being accepted by an increasing number of countries. All those countries becoming member of the Apostille Convention is required to accept apostilled documents. One needs to understand that a country being a member of Hague Convention may or may not be part of Apostille Convention.

Requirement- attestation is one process that would need to be done every time an individual goes from one country accepting attestation to another country with same requirements. However, generally the visa processing only require attestation stamp from the new destination country’s embassy. On the other hand, apostille is required to be done for a given document just once.

With these concepts clear in your mind, the processes are expected to be smooth for your next trip.

~ Naman is associated with a leading Gulf Attestation & Apostille company which specializes in Document Attestation & Apostille services