Legalisation of a document is typically required where there is a need to present an official document or certificate to a country other than the one that issued the document.

The purpose of this process is so that your UK documents will be recognised and accepted overseas. This would include applying for a Visa, Drivers Licence, Passport, Medical Registration etc outside of the UK.

This process is not usually needed if you are applying to an overseas British authority such as a British embassy or High Commission, for example when applying for a replacement passport to your own embassy. If in doubt you should check the requirements with whoever you need to present the document to.

In most cases we will require the original document to legalise it. For documents such as educational certificates and commercial documents, we will usually then certify the original and carry out legalisation on the certified copy. In most cases, we can carry out legalisation on the original if this is preferred, but please note that this is not a legal requirement.

You can, but some issues may occur. For example, delays can be experienced if your solicitor’s signature isn’t held on the FCO’s database of recognised sample signatures. In cases such as these, the FCO will ask your solicitor to send a copy of their signature so they can add it to their database, which naturally leads to a delay in processing. Our solicitor’s signature is stored at the FCO’s system so the FCO recognises their signature and the legalisation process can go forward without delay.

There are some reasons why the Foreign and Commonwealth Office would not stamp a document. These include:

1. It’s a foreign document. As a UK-body, the FCO will only stamp UK-issued documents.
2. The Educational Institution that produced a qualification isn’t an officially recognised body. Please see our Legalization page for more details on how to verify whether your issuer is accepted.
3. Registrar/Solicitor/Signatory is not registered within the FCO’s database. If that’s the case, further steps will be needed to obtain a sample signature before the document can be validated.

Certificates produced by governmental bodies such as Birth, Marriage or Death Certificates, Decree Absolutes, Wills etc cannot be legalised if they have been laminated. In this case, we would need have an new copy reproduced so the work is carried out on that one instead.

In the case of Educational Certificates, or any document that requires certification by a solicitor, certified copies will be always be produced and the work will be done on those copies so your original document remains clean. As such, lamination will not prevent us from legalising your document(s).