Legalisation of documents
Legalisation of documents
Legalisation of documents allows official documents originating from one country to be recognized when presented in another country.
Legalisation of document is a verification of the signature, the position of the signatory and the stamp in the document in cases of bearing the stamp applied on the document. Legalisation of document is carried out by Ministry of Foreign Affairs and diplomatic representations or consular posts of the Republic of Lithuania.
Following official documents can be legalised:
- issued by government or municipal institutions or officials, also by prosecutor, court official or person implementing court decisions
- administrative documents
- notarial acts
- official confirmations of documents signed by natural persons
- notarial transcripts of official documents
Documents have to be orderly and readable. If the document consists of few pages, they have to be affixed or sewn together.
Each document is approved separately (e. g. diploma and its appendix are two (2) separate documents). When submitting documents for legalisation, the following elements are to be included:
- the document, original or a notarised copy (in case of documents originating from Lithuania), to be legalised;
- valid passport or other identity document of the person submitting the document for legalisation;
- the original document proving that an aplicant belongs to the consular district of the Embassy (Finland) (this document should also be submitted beforehand via e-mail consul.fi@urm.lt);
- a free-form request (an application letter including following information: country in which the legalised document is to be submitted and applicant’s contact details (e-mail address and telephone No);
- consular fee for legalisation of one document - 20 EUR. Payment is by card only.
Upon legalisation of documents the applicant is notified using contact data from respective request / free form application letter as laid out above.
Documents should be submitted in person only, directly to the Embassy or to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania (address J. Tumo-Vaižganto g. 2, LT-01108 Vilnius).
Documents issued in Finland are to be certified with an Apostille by a notary at the local magistrate (maistraatti).
ATTENTION! The Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania in the Republic of Finland can legalise documents issued by the countries to which the Embassy is not accredited and which have not joined the 1961 Hague Convention on the Abolition of Legalisation of Foreign Public Documents, provided the following criteria are met:
- the foreign national providing the document is a legal resident in the Republic of Finland;
- the foreign national is presenting the documents in person for himself or herself or for members of his or her family (husband, wife, parents, children and adopted children);
- the document submitted have already been legalised by the diplomatic mission of the issuing country in the Republic of Finland.
Documents issued in countries with which the Republic of Lithuania has not established diplomatic relations shall not be accepted or legalised at the Embassy. There are currently five such countries: Bhutan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Papua New Guinea, South Sudan and Equatorial Guinea.
If the documents submitted to the Embassy do not meet the above criteria, the Embassy will not accept them. Such documents must be submitted for legalisation directly to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania, in accordance with the procedures laid down by the Ministry - https://keliauk.urm.lt/en/consular-services/legalisation, or to the diplomatic missions of the Republic of Lithuania where these criteria are met.
The foreign national submitting the documents must register in advance for a visit at the Embassy in the registration system, and may arrive to the Embassy only after receiving a positive confirmation. Please also note a new requirement when registering for a visit in the registration system: when registering for one of the two types of visits - "Legalisation of a document issued in Lithuania" or "Legalisation of a document", the person must provide a copy of the document to be legalised in the mandatory field "Copy of the document you wish to legalise". The possible formats for submitting the document are jpg, git, heic, pdf.
IMPORTANT! Documents issued before 11 of March of 1990 with symbols of Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic are not legalisable. The latter documents must be presented in their renewed contemporary issue.
Legalisation of documents is not required when the documents are drawn up and / or issued by diplomatic representations or consular posts of foreign states resident in the Republic of Lithuania.
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