Legalisation is a process whereby an official document is verified by a number of Ministries or departments which certify it in order to get a final certification by the Consular Relations Directorate at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
What is legalization?
Legalisation of documents differs from the official /certified/ translation, it is a document authentication implemented by the government of its issue. Whereas a sworn translator certifies with his/her signature the translation accuracy, the legalisation certifies the authenticity of the document itself. Documents are legalised in order to be recognised by the institutions of other governments. Accordingly, to use in Bulgaria documents issued by a foreign government, they have to be legalised – bearing an Apostille if the country is a party to the Hague Convention. The presence of an Apostille is a sufficient condition for a legalisation by the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
What is “Apostille”?
The “Apostille” is a unified method for certification of certain category of documents (public acts) to be used abroad – it is placed on the document itself or attached to it as a special certificate (apostille).
The “apostille” certification represents legalisation of the document by the competent authority of the issuing country. Documents bearing original “apostille” need no further certification or legalisation.
The competent authorities empowered to “apostille” Bulgarian public acts are
the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Apostilleis notrequired for:
Bulgaria has legal assistance contracts with some countries and for them the apostille is unnecessary. These countries are: Austria, Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Vietnam, Georgia, Italy, Yemen, Cyprus, North Korea, Cuba, Kuwait, Libya, Macedonia, Mongolia, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation, Syrian Arab Republic, Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Hungary, France, Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Documents bearing an apostille or issued by a country of the above list, have to be translated into Bulgarian by a licensed agency.
Documents issued by countries not parties to the Hague Convention and those which are not in the above list, shall meet the following requirements:
The document is required to be certified by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the government that issues it;
The stamp of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the foreign government shall be certified/ legalised by the Bulgarian diplomatic or consular mission in that state.
* Legalisation of Bulgarian documents is performed in compliance with the above requirements, as for the different documents there are specific requirements concerning how they are drawn up/issued.
* Nina Vachkova–NINA Translation Agency offers its assistance in the whole process of legalisation and putting an apostille on your documents- from the consultation on how document are required to be drawn up to the moment when the client receives them legalised.
How to send a document to translate online?
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Capture or scan your document
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Receipt of the translation - in our office, electronically - via email and by sending it by courier with specified date for receipt of the translation, city, address and courier company.