When you apply for a Spanish visa, you may need to have certain documents legalised or apostilled. If you want to learn more about apostilles for Spanish visa applications, we explain below what an apostille is, how to obtain it and how apostilles and sworn translations work together.
Legalisation or apostille?
Legalisation means the verification and confirmation of a document by a government authority. An apostille is the type of legalisation used between countries that have signed the Hague Convention designed to unify these procedures (Spain is a signatory, and the United Kingdom too). Here’s a list of all the countries that have subscribed the convention.
What the government authority does with an apostille is to confirm that the signature or stamp/seal on a document is authentic. It can only do so for the signatures and seals of ‘public officers’ (this expression includes all sorts of government officials but also other professionals with public-related functions, such as doctors or notaries). The apostille does not confirm that all the content of the document is correct; it only certifies that the signature or seal is genuine.
How does an apostille look?
In the United Kingdom, the apostille takes the form of a sticker that is usually placed at the back of the document or page bearing the signature or the seal. This sticker follows a template provided by the Convention and is embossed with a seal from the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, which is the department that issues all apostilles in the UK through its Legalisation Office.
The UK authorities can only apostille documents issued by public officers from the United Kingdom. If, as part of your Spanish visa application, you need to submit documents originating in another country, the apostilling procedures may be different there. And, if the country in question is not a member of the Apostille Convention, then additional legalisation procedures may apply to documents issued in that country (e.g. if you need to submit a criminal record certificate from, say, the United Arab Emirates, this will need to be legalised by the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs and by the Spanish Consulate in the UAE).
How do you obtain apostilles for Spanish visa applications in the UK?
To get an apostille for your Spanish visa application documents, you have the option to liaise directly with the legalisation office or use a provider that processes the apostilles for you.
With physical documents, if you place your application directly with the legalisation office, you first need to place a legalisation request online and then send your physical documents to the said office, which is currently based in Milton Keynes. Once the apostilles have been added to the documents, the legalisation office will return them to your specified address.
An alternative to this is to engage the services of a provider offering apostilling or legalisation services. As well as specialised legalisation agents, there are several notary public firms that offer legalisation services. One of the advantages of using a notary public is that they can also assist if you need to have any of the documents notarised before it can be apostilled. While agents and notaries will charge a fee to handle the apostilling process, they can often offer a quicker turnaround as they may have access to the legalisation office’s express service for registered businesses who deal with legalisations on a daily basis.
What about e-apostilles?
More recently introduced, electronic apostilles or e-apostilles are a form of apostille legalisation available for documents that have been generated electronically. These documents must have a recognised form of electronic signature by the issuing authority. The e-apostille process results in an electronic-only document, which is not valid in paper form, so they can only be used where the requesting authority accepts documents in electronic format.
There are still many documents that cannot be legalised with an e-apostille, as they are only issued in original physical format. Typical examples at the time of writing, which are relevant for Spanish visas, are criminal record certificates (ACRO certificates) or birth and marriage certificates. For the time being, these need to be presented to the legalisation office in paper form to be legalised with a traditional paper apostille.
What Spanish visa application documents need an apostille?
You need to check the requirements for your Spanish visa type and the list of documents needed in your specific case. Typically, original documents issued by a UK authority would need an apostille before they are presented to the Spanish authorities.
By contrast, the Spanish sworn translation of the documents does not need an apostille. This is because an official Spanish sworn translator is directly recognised by the Spanish authorities. In fact, the UK authorities cannot legalise the signature or stamp of a Spanish sworn translator, because they are not a ‘UK public officer’ but a Spanish-appointed translator with official recognition in Spain.
Do the apostilles for a Spanish visa application need to be translated as well?
Usually, the apostilles themselves do not need to be translated. This is because they follow a standard format, as prescribed by the Hague Convention, and they should get direct recognition in between countries of the Convention.
Furthermore, the UK’s legalisation office currently issues the apostilles in trilingual format (English, French and Spanish) which would render a separate Spanish translation of the apostille redundant.
Despite the above, there are occasions in which certain Spanish authorities insist on a translation of the apostille to be included. For that reason, we also offer the translation of apostilles for Spanish visa applications where these are required. If you need the translation of an apostille, you just need to include the scan of the apostille when you send us the scans of the document to be translated and tell us that a Spanish sworn translation of the apostille is also required in your case. We will then factor in the apostille when we send you the translation quote. If you have any questions about translations and apostilles for Spanish visa applications, or to place an order for a Spanish sworn translation of your visa documents, you can email us at info@spanishvisatranslations.co.uk or fill in the contact form available on our Home Page.
If you have found this informative, you can find other posts on our blog about criminal record certificates, birth certificates, sponsorship letters, medical certificates, and more.