Apostille or Legalisation for Germany 2026: What Your Country's Documents Need

Apostille or Legalisation: Which One Do You Need?

Both do the same job: they prove to a German office that a foreign public document is genuine, meaning the signature and seal are real and the person who signed had the authority to. The difference is who does it. An apostille comes from the issuing country itself. Legalisation is done by the German mission in that country, as the Federal Foreign Office explains. Three questions, in this order, tell you which you need:

One thing that trips people up: the rule follows the issuing country, not your passport. A Jordanian with a degree from a Turkish university needs a Turkish apostille for the degree and Jordanian legalisation for the birth certificate.

Countries Where Germany Doesn't Accept the Apostille

This is the part most guides get wrong. A country joining the Apostille Convention isn't enough: every existing member can object, and the Convention then doesn't apply between those two countries. Germany has objected to several accessions that matter to people moving here, according to the Hague Conference's official status table:

Germany has also objected to Viet Nam, Rwanda, Senegal, Mongolia, the Dominican Republic, Burundi, Kosovo, Liberia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Objections do get withdrawn (Azerbaijan and Moldova in 2026, Kyrgyzstan in 2024), so check the status table on the day you start.

How Legalisation Works, Step by Step

If your country isn't an apostille country for Germany, and isn't on the "no legalisation" list, this is your route. The details below come from the Federal Foreign Office's legalisation FAQ:

1. 1

   Get a recent original from the issuing authority. Copies are generally not legalised, even certified ones, and documents with only an automated signature first need a handwritten signature or manual certification from the issuer.

2. 2

   Have it pre-certified at home. In most countries that means the foreign ministry, sometimes with a court or another ministry first. The German embassy can only legalise a stamp whose signature it has on file, so an incomplete or unreadable stamp sends you back.

3. 3

   Submit it to the German embassy or consulate in the issuing country, often through TLScontact or VFS. The fee is €28.11 to €37.41 per document, plus the provider's service fee.

4. 4

   Get the German translation, ideally after the stamps so they're translated too, from a translator the embassy recognises or a sworn translator in Germany.

You don't have to travel for this. A relative or friend in your home country can submit with a power of attorney and a copy of your passport, which is how most people already living in Germany do it. If the embassy refuses because a document turns out to be false, you still pay a processing fee of up to the full legalisation fee.

Egypt, Morocco, Syria and Other Arab Countries: The Exact Route

Each German mission publishes its own rules, and they differ more than you'd expect. Here's the current route for the countries we get asked about most, from each embassy's own page:

Sources per country: Cairo, Amman, Rabat, Tunis, Beirut (Syrian documents), Riyadh, UAE and Baghdad. Bahrain, Oman and Türkiye are apostille countries without a German objection, so their apostille is enough.

When Germany Won't Legalise: Document Verification

The Foreign Office keeps a list of 57 countries (as of May 2025) where German missions have found too many false or wrongly issued documents to legalise them. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and Ethiopia are among them. For some countries, such as Algeria, Libya, Syria and Tunisia, only certain document types are affected and civil-status documents can usually still be legalised.

For the rest, the replacement is a verification (Urkundenüberprüfung). Two things about it surprise people:

For Iraq, Yemen, Sudan, Afghanistan and Somalia, among others, the Foreign Office says even verification is currently impossible. The German authority then decides for itself how much weight to give your document, and can order a forensic check of the paper. The move I'd make: ask that authority in writing, early, what else it accepts (older documents, a passport, witness statements), rather than waiting for a rejection.

Documents From EU Countries: Often No Stamp at All

If your document comes from another EU country, start with the EU public documents regulation. Since 16 February 2019 it has abolished the apostille for public documents on birth, name, marriage, registered partnership, domicile and the absence of a criminal record. You can also ask the issuing office for a multilingual standard form, which often saves the translation.

Germany also has bilateral treaties on documents with Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Austria and Switzerland, which can exempt documents from legalisation. And from the UK, the US or Canada, you're in the easy group: they're apostille countries without a German objection.

Mistakes That Cost Months

• Paying for an apostille from a country Germany objected to (India, Morocco, Tunisia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Algeria).
• Stamping a laminated original or a copy. Most missions legalise originals only, and Amman explicitly refuses laminated documents.
• Using an old foreign-ministry stamp. Cairo wants it no older than a year, and many registry offices in Germany expect civil-status documents to be recent.
• Getting the certification from your country's embassy in Germany. Beirut won't accept certifications from the Syrian embassy in Berlin, and Rabat doesn't legalise documents issued by Moroccan missions abroad.
• Names spelled differently on the passport, the birth certificate and the degree. Get it corrected or officially confirmed at home before anything is stamped.
• Translating before the stamps. The translation should cover the pre-certification and legalisation too.

For translations done in Germany, the justice portals of the federal states run a database of court-sworn translators, searchable by language and area. Ask the German office first whether it accepts a translation made abroad: the Cairo embassy warns that some don't. For what each visa type needs on top of the stamps, see our visa documents checklist, and for degrees, the recognition guide, since recognition offices set their own document rules.

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