Ministry of External Affairs Branch Secretariat Chennai

The Ministry of External Affairs attests original documents//true copies of documents for use
abroad. Attestation done by the Ministry of External Affairs is of two types:
1. Apostille:
India, since 2005, is a member of the Hague Convention of October 5, 1961
that abolished the requirement of legalization of foreign public documents. Apostille
is acceptable in 105 member-countries of the Convention (For more info please visit
the website: www.hcch.net). Apostille is done for personal documents like
birth/death/marriage certificates, Affidavits, Power of Attorney, etc. and educational
documents like degree, diploma, matriculation and secondary level certificates etc.
Any document Apostilled in one member country is acceptable in all the other 104
member-countries, signatory to the referred convention of 1961 thus greatly
simplifying the process of attestation by making it needless to get the documents
attested in each or for each of the countries separately.
2. Normal Attestation:
This is done for all the countries which are not a member of Hague Convention and
where Apostille is not accepted.