Apostille for Portugal

How to get an apostille on Irish and UK documents for use in Portugal?

Docsbase Consular Services with offices in Dublin Ireland and London UK is specialising in the legalisation of all types of commercial, vital, government documents from Ireland and the UK for official use in Portugal. We can arrange reissuance of documents in the UK and Ireland, notarisation and apostille legalisation of Irish and UK documents as well as the Embassy legalisation in London and Dublin. We are familiar with the requirements of Portuguese authorities and can prepare your documents in a way that they will be accepted by the Portuguese authorities without any further legalisation. Docsbase Translation is our in-house translation department specialising in preparing a certified translation of English documents into Portuguese appropriately certified for use in Portugal. We also have reliable partners in Lisbon that can provide legalisation of Portuguese documents for use abroad, in particular in the Republic of Ireland and the UK.

APOSTILLE FROM PORTUGAL

At times, you may find yourself running into problems when it comes to using your Portuguese documents in another country. That’s where we come in. We specialise in providing Apostille and Consular Legalisation services to clients like you, who need to have anything from a birth certificate to a Land Registry statement certified for official recognition outside Portugal. Or perhaps your documents originated in a different country, and it’s imperative that you have them made officially recognisable in Portugal. We’re here to help with that too. We have found that it is very common for our UK and Ireland-based clients to have second homes in Portugal, so we have copious amounts of experience in dealing with Apostille issues in the country. It is one of our main geographical areas of focus, and we regularly deal with the Apostille of Contracts of Purchase and Sale, and Residency Documentation among many others.

WHAT IS APOSTILLE?

In 1961, the “Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents” was drafted, in a bid to create a simpler method for authenticating documents to be used in other countries. This is otherwise known as Apostille. Put simply, Apostille is a legal certification that makes a document from one country valid in another country, as long as both countries have signed up to the Hague Convention. Portugal was one of the earliest adopters of the Convention, with the Apostille coming into force in 1969.

WHAT DOCUMENTS CAN BE AUTHORISED BY APOSTILLE IN PORTUGAL?

There is a wide range of documents that can be authorised for use outside Portugal using Apostille. Where proof of identity or vital statistics are needed, a certified Portuguese Birth, Death, or Marriage certificate may be required, which would need to be subject to Apostille. Similarly, if you’re looking for a job and need to prove qualifications, you can submit education records to be certified. Or perhaps you have been pulled into legal proceedings, and you are able to provide legal evidence that originates in Portugal – those previous court proceedings can be submitted for certification also. It doesn’t just stop at Birth Certificates, education records, or legal documents, though. You can submit Articles of Incorporation for your business, last wills, tax registrations – the list goes on and on.

EMBASSY AUTHENTICATION ( CONSULAR LEGALISATION ) IN PORTUGAL?

It may be that you are going to use your documents in a country that does not mirror Portugal in being part of the Hague Convention. In these cases, the documents will have to go through a process known as Consular Legalisation. This is a much more complicated procedure, where one or more of the countries requires documents to be submitted to their local Embassy or Consulate, so that they can be put through a second layer of legalisation processes. This is much more complicated because this process needs to be carried out in person, often with the services being paid for with cash at the time of application. It also requires lengthy application forms to be completed and submitted, and this can lead to clients experiencing high levels of stress when trying to navigate the process on their own. Therefore, working with an agent will always be beneficial to you. We take the stress out of the process for you, giving you peace of mind that your needs will be met swiftly and satisfactorily, as we go through the process as your representative.

DOCUMENT LEGALISATION SERVICES THAT WE PROVIDE

We provide a number of services for clients both in Portugal and abroad. We offer certified translations which can be legalised quickly, as we operate our own translation company – certifiedtranslations.ie – which allows us to work efficiently and accurately on your behalf. We also have our own visa company – visaworld.ie – so we can provide all manner of visa services, including having documents legalised for use in visa applications. We also offer notarial services to our clients – anything from drafting and witnessing Powers of Attorney to certifying documents for immigration and emigration. This is alongside our Apostille services, including working closely with the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. If the country where your documents originated is not signed up to the Apostille Convention previously mentioned, then they will need to undergo Consular Legalisation before being deemed acceptable in Portugal and vice versa – we also provide services to ensure that this process runs as smoothly as possible for you. 

THE BENEFITS FOR YOU WHEN USING DOCSBASE CONSULAR SERVICES

There are several reasons why choosing us to help you with legalising your documents will be of benefit to you:

–  We are true experts in this field, keeping a constant eye on the changes in requirements and pricing around the world, which means we are always best placed to give you the information you need. Helping people like you every day allows us to build excellent strong working relationships with embassies around the world, making the whole process easier for you.

–  Due to our intimate knowledge of embassies and consulates around the world, we use only those approved certification providers who will definitely be accepted, making the entire process faster and more efficient. It’s not every firm who have this sort of knowledge and connection!

–  We’ve made it easier for you. We’ve made it faster for you. But we also make it cheaper for you. We do this every day, and we operate in bulk, which allows us to keep processing fees to a minimum.

–  We operate out of offices around the world, including Washington, London, and Dubai. This means we are usually just a stone’s throw away from the majority of the world’s embassies, making the whole process run much more smoothly for you.

–  We manage to complete our process 40% faster than the average firm, because we’re not wasting time building relationships, researching and setting up accounts. We’ve done all that already! This allows you to go from start to finish faster than you could have ever thought possible.