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Legalization of documents

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Aktualizované 21.07.2022
Publikované 21.07.2022

Public documents issued in one country (foreign public documents) should be legalized in issuing state before submitting in other country.

The Convention of 5 October 1961 Abolishing the Requirement of Legalization for Foreign Public Documents (“Haag Convetion”) stipulated for its member countries, that it is not longer necessary to legalize their public documents by difficult process of so called consular superlegalization, but it is possible to use apostille.

The Embassy and Consulate General of the Slovak Republic do not provide the legalization of U.S. documents since February 17, 2002. This documents will only need certification with the Apostille. With certification by the Hague Convention Apostille, U.S. documents are entitled for recognition in the Slovak Republic, and no legalization by the Slovak Embassy or other Slovak authorities is required.

After the document has been executed before a notary public, except for notarial equivalents (e.g. birth, marriage, death certificates, certified court judgments), the document have to be validated by the county clerks of the counties in which the notary (or equivalents) is commissioned. This step may be omitted if the Secretary of State will certify directly to the notary. The Secretary of State of the state in which the document is executed will then certify the document with the Apostille. The Secretary of State’s office is located in the state capitol.

Documents, which have been executed under a federal agency seal or certified by the U.S. consul require certification with the Apostille by the U.S. Secretary of State. For certification with the Apostille the document has to be sent to the U.S. Department of State, Authentication Office, 518 23rd Street NW, SA-1 Columbia Plaza, Washington, DC 20520.

Please note, that in Slovakia all documents in foreign language must be accompanied with a certified Slovak translation.