Birth Certificate Apostille - South Africa

The Apostille  certificate is an official government issued certificate attached to public documents so these documents can be valid for use internationally. The Apostille was introduced as an alternative to the old and long legalization process through The Hague Convention of October 5, 1961.  

It is an intergovernmental convention which set about establishing a simplified system to allow documentation originating in one member country to be easily recognized as authentic in another member country. The norms were established at The Hague Convention of 6 October 1961.

As a general rule of thumb, apostille certificates are necessary when a document from one country has to be used in another country’s legal proceedings. For example, you may be a citizen of South Africa who is seeking residency in a European country like France. In order to get the residency status you want, you may need an apostilled version of your South African birth certificate to prove your identity.

Any country that is a member of the Hague Convention will accept an apostille certificate from South Africa without further legalisation.

In South Africa, Apostilles certificates  are provided by the South African High Courts and the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) located in Pretoria.

If you apply for our standard service we can legalise your document in 2-4 working days. We also offer a same day- Express apostille service. Read about it here

• High Court Apostille : R 650.00 per document
• Translation + Apostille: R 850.00 per document

When legalising a South African issued birth certificate we recommend having the apostille issued on the Unabridged birth certificate. The Unabridged birth certificate is the document that contains the parent’s names and is generally requested by most overseas authorities rather than the short version. However, this is ultimately your preference and we are able to legalise either the Abridged or Unabridged birth certificate.

In most cases, yes. Depending on the document, you may need an original sent to us or there are times we can work with a copy. But it is usually not a problem to receive your apostille on a South African document, no matter where in the world you are located.