Legalisation of documents

How to legalise a document.

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Legalisation


Official documents are not automatically recognised in other countries. In the past, the document had to undergo a legalisation procedure in order to give it validity in another country. For many countries and documents, this is no longer the case. For all countries that have signed the Apostille Convention, such as Belgium and Hungary, only a Hague Apostille is required for the legalisation of the document in many cases. Find out which states have signed the Apostille Convention. If you have a document from a country that does not appear in this list, you must have it legalised by the Belgian or Hungarian representation in the country of issue.

However, for some official documents from EU countries such as Belgium or Hungary, the Apostille is no longer necessary if these documents are to be used in another EU country. As of February 2019, many official documents no longer require an Apostille. You can see a list of these newly exempted documents at European e-Justice

Via the search criteria you can make an additional check on the need for legalisation by Apostille. It is quite possible that your document still needs to be submitted to the Apostille for use in another country, as is the case for diplomas.


Belgian document for use in Hungary


If you need an Apostille for a Belgian document in order to use it in Hungary, you can only go to the Legalisation Department of the FPS Foreign Affairs. For any question you can contact them at elegalisation@diplobel.fed.be or make an appointment via the online appointment system. 


Hungarian document for use in Belgium


A Belgian consul is not authorised to apostille Hungarian documents to be introduced in Belgium. For this, please contact the authorities mentioned on this page.

Please note!

For some documents, especially diplomas, the original document has to be legalised at another institution before it can be submitted to the Apostille.

For Hungarian documents, see Interim over-authentication of the Ministry of Human Resources (State Secretariat for Education, Customer Service) or the intermediate over-authentication of the Education Office

For Belgian documents, see Legalisation by the competent Belgian authority
 

Sworn translation


Before or after your document is legalised by Apostille, it is best to have a sworn translator translate the document in order to avoid language problems. It is advisable to choose a sworn translator from the country where you will use the document. Do you have to do anything extra with the translation? There are four possible situations:

For a Belgian document to be used in Hungary:

  • The translator is sworn in Hungary. The translation is automatically valid in Hungary;
  • The translator is sworn in Belgium.The translation still needs to be legalised. See Legalisation of sworn translations

For a Hungarian document to be used in Belgium: 

  • The translator is sworn in Hungary. The translator's signature must first be legalised by a Hungarian notary (where the translator's signature has been deposited).
  • The translator is sworn in Belgium. The translation must be legalised by the court of first instance where the translator is sworn in.

You can find a list of sworn translators in Hungary on this page and sworn translators in Belgium at the courts of first instance.