But people who immigrate to the Netherlands know better-- they associate "legalization" (and "apostille") with an image more like this:
But it does not have to be that frustrating if you take the time to understand the why and how of legalization. That's what this entry is about-- so sit back and read.
What is legalization? In the context of your immigration procedure, you will have to prove certain things about life events that have occurred in your home country: birth, marriage, divorce, death, etc.
In your home country, you will have obtained a document from some government agency or court proving that any one of these life events happened. This document will be on watermarked paper, or have some kind of stamp or raised seal on it that lends it an air of authority and authenticity. Within your home country, no one will doubt the validity and veracity of this document.
But when you leave your home country and try to use these documents with a government agency in another country, the Matrix will suddenly be revealed to you-- it will be revealed to you that the "realness" of these documents was all just an illusion. "But that court decision had an actual stamp on it from the court!" a friend of mine recently complained to me, after trying and failing to get his divorce judgment from a court in the United States registered with the city hall of the town he lives in in the Netherlands.
"So what," I could have answered him, playing devil's advocate. "I could get a stamp made that looks just like that and put it on a document, does that make it a valid court judgment? And who's to say that anyone's supposed to know what or where the Kalamazoo County Court is and why they should be trusted?"
The process of legalization can be compared to vouching for a friend whom you want to introduce to another friend in a city they are visiting. If Friend #1 approached Friend #2 directly, Friend #1 would simply be a stranger to Friend #2, who would have no reason to trust them. But if you call Friend #2 and say "you're going to get a visit from Friend #1-- this is someone I trust", then Friend #2 can trust Friend #1 as well. And then Friend #2 can vouch for Friend #1 to one of their friends, someone you don't even know, and so the chain continues.
With legalization, the comparison is even more apt than you would think. Because legalization is actually about a chain of people vouching for each other. Every legal act that is issued by a government agency or a court does not just come out of a machine: it is signed by a person, a civil servant who is acting on behalf of that agency or court. Since that person is a public employee, their name is going to be on a list somewhere as a known civil servant. So you can ask someone at a level of government above that agency or court to verify that your document was signed by someone who was known to them. And then ask someone who is familiar with the name of that person who signed the verification that their name is known to them, and so on.
Traditional legalization
With traditional legalization, there are usually three links in the chain:
1. The first link is the civil servant who signed the original document.
2. The second link is typically the ministry of foreign affairs of that country (sometimes the ministry of justice)-- you bring the document to the legalization department of the ministry, and a civil servant there looks up the name of the person who signed the document. Once they have verified that the person who signed the document was authorized to do so on behalf of that agency or court, they will put a stamp on the document and sign their own name on that stamp.
3. The final link is the embassy or consulate of the destination country in the country of origin. You bring the document with the first legalization stamp on it to the embassy. That embassy has first-hand contact with the ministry of foreign affairs of the country of origin. The consular worker in charge of legalization at the embassy will be able to verify that the person at the MFA who signed the legalization stamp is known to the embassy as an authorized representative of the government of the country of origin. So the consular worker puts their own stamp or sticker on the document with their signature.
Now the document is valid in the country of destination-- if you bring that document to any government agency or court in the country of destination, it will be considered to be valid, since someone from an embassy or consulate of the country of destination vouched for the person who signed the legalization stamp, and they in turn vouched for the person who originally signed the document. Got it?
This is why an embassy or consulate of the country of origin in the country of destination usually cannot help with this process. If you already have brought the (unlegalized) document from the country of origin to the country of destination, and you bring it to the embassy or consulate of the country of origin, they generally will not have the necessary first-hand knowledge of whether or not the original document was signed by a known civil servant, and so they can't vouch for that person. Their business is diplomacy and consular services, not keeping track of all of the civil servants of all of their government's agencies and courts back home.
Apostille
A number of countries decided that the traditional legalization process was too cumbersome, and signed a treaty to be able to abolish the requirement of legalization for certain documents, by placing a so-called apostille on them (this is not pronounced "apostle", but more like "apo-steel"). This is actually still technically a form of legalization, but it cuts the final link out of the chain, thus reducing the hassle considerably. What was agreed upon by the signatories of the treaty was the following: if the second link of the chain verifies that the first link was a known civil servant, the second link can merely attach their verification in a standard format, a square with ten standard fields on it (this is usually in the form of a sticker placed on the back of the document, or a separate piece of paper stapled to it-- less commonly a stamp, despite the fact that some people refer to "the apostille stamp"). Then this can be directly accepted as valid by any government agency in the destination country.
The process of getting a document apostilled is often a source of much moaning and groaning and gnashing of teeth, but that can be avoided if you just keep two or maybe three things in mind (and of course-- be sure to count yourself lucky if the country the document comes from is a signatory to the apostille treaty-- it would be much worse if you had to go through traditional legalization):
1. You usually have to do it in the country of origin. If you're already in the country of destination, it's too late, and I guarantee you that the embassy of the country of origin will probably not be able to do it for you. (However: you rarely have to go in person to get a document apostilled in the country of origin-- you can do it by postal mail, or have a family member or friend in the country of origin get it done for you.)
2. The document has to be an original. By "original", I mean directly issued by a government agency in the country of origin, not a photocopy. (This is sometimes confusing for people in the case of birth certificates, where they think they have to have the actual original birth certificate, the one that was issued at the time of birth. No. It just has to have been directly issued by a government agency.)
3. If the country of origin has a federal structure (i.e., is composed of separate states that are each in charge of keeping track of their own vital records, as in the United States or Mexico), then it will generally be an office of the state of origin, not of the federal government or of any other state that will be responsible for apostilling a document.
For most states in the US, the responsible state agency is the Secretary of State of that state-- which in that role exercises a sort of vestigial function of being a "ministry of foreign affairs" for that state as a technically sovereign entity. The Department of State of the United States in Washington-- which is the real "foreign ministry" of the United States-- does have some authority to apostille documents, but only if they were issued by a federal government agency, so things like FBI criminal background checks, naturalization certificates, and federal court judgments.
So if you live in California, but you were born in New York, you have to have your birth certificate apostilled by the Secretary of State of New York. (And on that note: New York City is a special case altogether, being something of a "state within a state", so if the document comes from there you will also have to go through an extra step with the City Clerk.)
[NOTE: Do not make the mistake, either with traditional legalization or with apostilling, of thinking that a notary is essential to any part of this process, at least for vital records. YES, you can get a notarized document apostilled, as a notary is a sort of public servant whose name should be known to the government agency that does the apostilling. And that means that as a notarized statement, it will then be valid as such in the country of destination (i.e., it will be considered to be a valid statement by the notary that so-and-so made a statement at such-and-such a time). However, many people make the mistake of thinking that if they take their birth certificate or court judgment and have a notary make a notarized copy of it, they can apostille that copy and use that in the country of destination. No. That is breaking the chain of trust that is required for the document to be valid. The notary can only be trusted to say "I saw the original, and this is an accurate copy of it"-- but the notary does not have any authority to say "the original document was signed by an authorized civil servant", since the notary does not have access to that information.]
Translation
So you have your document and it's been legalized or apostilled, so it's valid for the Netherlands. But you might not be all the way there just yet. In the Netherlands, any valid document that is in English, French or German (and sometimes Afrikaans) will be accepted without a translation by any Dutch government agency. However, if it's in any other language, it will have to be translated by a certified translator; otherwise you have a valid document of which the content is unknown.
But beware of another trap: if you have it translated into English, French, German or Dutch by a certified translator in the country of origin, then you run into the problem of validity all over again. (I.e., a Dutch government agency would say, "who is the person who did this translation and why should I trust them?") If you have it translated by a certified translator in the country of origin (in some countries, a notary can perform certified translations), then you also have to have the translation legalized or apostilled. And that's a whole 'nother round of hassle.
My recommendation: always have the translation done by a Dutch certified translator for that language, i.e. one who is sworn in to a Dutch court. Then their seal will be directly accepted as valid by any Dutch government agency. Note: a certified translator does not need to see the original of the document, because a certified translation will have the translation stapled or sealed to the copy that the translator used. This copy can always be compared to the original to prove that the contents are the same as the original.
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