Procedure for apostille of Belarusian documents for citizens living abroad

What is an apostille and where is it affixed in Belarus?

Apostille is a special stamp confirming the authenticity of seals and signatures on documents. An apostille can be affixed only in the country where the document is issued. Currently, there are 3 ministries that can affix apostilles in Belarus:

• Ministry of Justice (Main Department of Justice) affixes apostilles to the documents from courts and notaries.
• Ministry of Education apostilles/legalizes state education documents.
• Ministry of Foreign Affairs (the rest of the documents, for instance Registry Office certificates, Police Clearance certificates, etc.)

We would like to explain the apostille procedure for foreign citizens in detail. Due to changes in legislation, citizens living abroad cannot contact the consulate of the Republic of Belarus to affix an apostille. One also cannot draw up a power of attorney for apostille in these consulates. Consequently, if the bearer of the document has NOT drawn up a power of attorney from a Belarusian notary with a clear indication of the authority to apostille a document (general powers of attorney often aren’t suitable for it) beforehand, then the owner of the document has to come to Belarus first.

Thus, the apostille procedure for Belarusian documents currently looks like this:

• The bearer personally applies to the corresponding ministry for apostille.
• The bearer personally draws up a power of attorney to a person who could submit the documents in their place. Additionally, the power of attorney can only be drawn up by a Belarusian notary (notaries from the Russian Federation are not suitable).
• The authorized person submits documents to the ministry for apostille of the document by appointment.

Information for persons residing in the Russian Federation or for the citizens of the Russian Federation with Belarusian documents

At the moment, there are no mechanisms for any exceptions in the apostille procedure for persons residing in the Russian Federation or citizens of the Russian Federation. If you reside in Russia and you need to apostille a Belarusian document, you will need to come to Belarus to draw up a power of attorney. Moreover, if you are a bearer of a passport of a citizen of Russian Federation, you will need to have a certificate of citizenship change. All preliminary procedures can be done within a workday. Once you draw up a power of attorney, we can launch the process. We will send the finished document with an apostille back to you by courier services.

It is important to know that if you have a Russian passport, and you need to apostille a Belarusian document related to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, then it cannot be apostilled in the National Centre for Marketing, but only in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This affects the timeframes for apostille, which as of today is, on average, 2 months.

You can contact our translation agency in advance to organize the entire process.

Document requirements

• The documents must be of the latest issue
• All seals on the documents must be legible
• The document must not contain any erasures or corrections
• The document must not be laminated
• The document must contain an official seal and a signature with the name of the signatory.

You can also send photos of your documents to us via messengers so that we could check whether they fit the criteria!

Timeframes for apostilling Belarusian documents

• Ministry of Education – 2-3 workdays
• Main Department of Justice – 2-3 workdays
• Ministry of Foreign Affairs – 2 months (this is the queue waiting time, the apostille itself is affixed in one day)
• National Centre for Marketing – on average 5 workdays from the day of the document submission

Where to begin?

If you live abroad, you will have to come to Belarus in any case.

You can contact us in advance so that we could:

• check your documents on whether they are in order and whether duplicate copies have to be made.
• make an appointment for you with the notary on the specific day of your arrival
• make an appointment to submit the documents in advance

You can contact us right now via phone numbers +375291030191 or +375292571458 and get detailed advice and start the process!