Apostille and Authentication

One of the main reasons why citizens of different countries register their marriage in Georgia is to receive a marriage certificate that is valid worldwide. After registering your marriage, you will receive a Georgian marriage certificate issued by the Ministry of Justice of Georgia. This certificate requires legalization for submission to other countries.

The marriage certificate and its translation you receive can be certified with an apostille certificate or, depending on the country to which you want to submit it, can be legalized as usual. For the convenience of couples, the following is a detailed explanation of the types of approvals for marriage certificates so that you can use the marriage certificate you receive from Georgia in your destination country.

Many countries require the verification of the authenticity of foreign documents, in a procedure called legalization, for the document to be legally valid there. This legalization is generally a chain of certifications by one or more authorities in the country where the document was issued and in the destination country. The first authority certifies the document’s issuer, and each subsequent authority certifies the previous one until the final certification is made by an authority of the destination country that can be recognized by the final user there. For example, to be accepted in Georgia, a document like a divorce decree from Qatar issued by a court family must then be certified by the Qatar Ministry of Foreign Affairs Department of State, which must finally be certified by the Embassy of Georgia in Qatar.

In many cases, the legalization procedure is simplified or exempted altogether. For example, some states have agreements eliminating the legalization requirement for certain documents issued by each other, such as between Soviet Union countries between parties of the Convention on the Issue of Multilingual Extracts from Civil Status Records, and between parties of the Convention on Legal Assistance and Legal Relations of the Commonwealth of Independent States. The European Union also has a regulation eliminating the legalization requirement for certain documents of its member states to be accepted by each other.

However, the most important Convention between countries for legalizing documents issued by these countries is the Hague Apostille Convention, which has approximately 127 member countries, and over time, other countries have joined it.

The Apostille Convention, drafted by the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH), is intended to simplify the legalization procedure by replacing it with a certification called an apostille issued by an authority designated by the state of origin. Ideally, the apostille would be the only certification needed, but in some cases, additional certifications in the state of origin may be required before the apostille is issued. In any case, after the apostille, no certification by the destination state is required.

The list of countries below are members of the Hague Apostille Convention, meaning each of these countries accepts an Apostille.

Finally, in order to obtain an apostille certificate, it should be noted that both the destination and origin countries must be members of this Convention. Georgia is a member of the Hague Apostille Convention. Therefore, if you want your marriage certificate in the country you submit as a member of the Convention, then ultimately, we will deliver you the marriage certificate with an apostille certificate. If the destination country is not a member of this Convention, for example, you want a marriage certificate for the GCC countries (Qatar, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, and others), then ultimately, you will receive a regular legalization document. It should be noted that if you receive legalization and if the destination country has an embassy or consulate in Georgia, we can also obtain the approval of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the destination country for you as an additional service.