Published on: September 23, 2024 | By: @rprasanth_kumar
Apostilled personal civil documents are required for many purposes, when you are moving a foreign country. Without the apostille stamp, some Indian documents will not be recognized outside India. For example, France requires it for various purposes such as social security, housing subsidy from CAF, resident permit renewal, French citizenship application, etc.
The following documents must be apostilled before leaving India. However, they are not required for the visa application.
- Birth Certificate (BC)
- Marriage Certificate (MC, if married)
Other documents such as your degree certificates, etc. do not have to be apostilled, except when explicitly asked.
Prerequisites
Before starting the apostille process, you must verify a few things on the documents. First check, if your full name and other details are exactly the same in your BC/MC and your passport.
- If yes, go ahead and follow the apostille process.
- If not, you should either correct the BC/MC or the passport. If this is not possible, get an affidavit stating that both the names are yours. Get it from your local notaire/lawyer. An example affidavit, Affidavit for Indian Birth Certificate Issues – An Example.
- This Affidavit must be apostilled and translated too.
- If your name is missing in your BC, it’s better to add the name in your BC and then do the apostille process. An affidavit may not work in this case.
- In the absence of a Birth certificate (old people), an affidavit can be obtained in India from a notary public. But, it must be apostilled too.
Apostille Process
The apostille process in India involves verification of documents by both the state and central governments. The relevant stamps, seals and stickers will be done on the back side of the document.
Apostille process can only be done in India for Indian documents. So, It cannot be done by an Indian Embassy or Consulate located outside India.
Step 1: State govt seal by Regional Authentication Centers (RACs)
- First, the documents must be verified and attested by the respective state governments or union territories.
- For example: I was born in Chennai city in TamilNadu. So, I visited the Public Department (Foreigners section) office of my State Secretariat in Chennai, with my original Birth Certificate.
- The certificate was verified and attested with a stamp, as shown in the example at the end.
- If it’s not possible for you to do the same, you can check with the outsourced agents mentioned in the list below. But they will add more cost to the process.
- Without the state government’s stamp from the concerned City/District authority, the apostille document will not be accepted.
Step 2: Central govt seal by MEA
- The Indian Ministry of External Affairs thereafter, legalizes the documents on the basis of the signature of the designated signing authorities of the State Government or Union Territory.
- This step is outsourced to 5 private Agencies across India. So, you can submit the original documents to them, pay the fees and get back the apostilled documents.
- It can take 2-3 weeks approximately and cost on average Rs.2000.
Details of the Five Outsourced agency centers,
Apostille of documents by E-sanad centralised portal
- E-sanad is an online service for verification & attestation of documents of Indian Citizens.
- Currently, People from Tamil Nadu state can use it to apostille their BCs & MCs completely online on esanad.nic.in. It costs approximately Rs.100.
Translation
- For France, the apostilled documents must be translated to French language.
- Translations from Alliance Française offices in India or other translators may or may not be accepted in France. There have been so many cases of rejections by French administrative services.
- So, it is highly recommended to do the translation via an official translator “traducteur assermenté” in France. This can be done when you are in India or even after reaching France.
- Translators usually take 2-3 working days and can cost 30-50€ per document.
- Here is the city-wise list of officials including translators available on Traducteur Assermenté: List of official translators in France.
Passport Based Birth Certificate from Indian Embassy
If you had reached France without an apostilled birth certificate. Don’t worry because there is a temporary solution until you can get an apostilled birth certificate from India.
- Passport based Birth Certificate is issued by the Indian Embassy on the basis of the information present on your valid Passport.
- Prior to applying for it, please verify with concerned French organization as to whether this certificate will be accepted in lieu of an apostilled Birth certificate. It is not accepted by all the French services.
- The process is handled by VFS and applications can be submitted at Paris or Marseille office. More info is available on vfsglobal.com
- Here are the forms and the checklist explaining the required supporting documents.
It is not a replacement for an apostilled birth certificate. So, this type of birth certificate can be rejected too and there have been so many cases of rejections by CPAM, CAF, etc. It cannot be used for French nationality applications.
Example of a complete apostilled document
A proper example of an apostilled Birth certificate with the State government seal and the Central government seal by the Ministry of External Affairs, on the back side.
Example of an incomplete apostilled document
If you had apostilled your documents directly via an outsourced agent, the state government seal part is often ignored.
When you submit these incomplete apostilled documents for your French nationality application, you will be asked to resubmit your apostilled documents with the following notification on ANEF website.
The Indian civil status certificate must be legalized by the District Commissioner (or District Magistrate) of the city of the event, then by the Home Political Department (Home Ministry) of the Indian state of issue of the certificate, before finally being apostilled. Please do the necessary and send your birth certificate compliant FRONT AND BACK.
If your apostilled documents were rejected for the above reason, try to ask for a refund or a discount in the new application. The agents knew the apostille process completely and should have explained when providing the quote for their services.
Sources & References 📕
- Hague Convention of October 5 1961, Apostille Section – HCCH
- Countries under Hague Convention (HCCH Members)
- Enclosure: Issuing and Accepting Apostilles
- More details about the apostille process can be found on mea.gov.in
