Certification of foreign public documents by apostille is used where a foreign document needs to be used in Slovakia, or a Slovak public document needs to be used abroad. It is sufficient for the certificate to bear the certification clause – the apostille, so no further certification by any authority is required.
For an apostille to suffice for certifying a foreign public document, the foreign country must be a party to the Hague Convention. In some cases, however, foreign documents do not even need an apostille. This is so where the state whose authorities issued the document has agreed an exemption from certification with the Slovak Republic through bilateral international treaties, as is the case with the Czech Republic and Poland.
The Slovak Republic has not been party to the international Apostille Convention since its inception, but only since 1999. Thanks to the Convention, all certification of public documents is now much simpler and quicker. The Slovak text of the Convention also includes a model of the certification clause containing the apostille. Before this Convention was adopted, public documents had to undergo superlegalisation. The apostille is a special clause attached to public documents, which replaced superlegalisation on 5 October 1961.
Example: birth certificates issued to Slovaks born abroad are certified with an apostille.
Whether you need an apostille from domestic state authorities or from abroad, for your company or for yourself, you can make use of our apostille services. For further information, please get in touch via our contact form.
