Consular Legalization

1. Consular Legalization means verification of compliance of documents with the existing legislation of the host state, and implicates identification and certification of signatures of the public officers and seals in such documents for their use in foreign countries.

2. The documents and acts which do not comply with the legislation of the Republic of Abkhazia and which can damage the interests of the Republic of Abkhazia or contain information discrediting the honour and dignity of the Abkhaz citizens are not subject to legalization. 

Requirements for the Legalization of Documents and Acts 

1.Original documents issued or/and authenticated by competent authorities of foreign states shall be accepted for legalization in accordance with the established procedure

2. If legalization at a foreign diplomatic representative or consular institution requires translation from the state or official language into a foreign language, the notarized document can be legalized by the consular service of the issuing state along with its translation. The translation may be placed as a column at the right (with the text in the state or the Russian language at the left) or on a separate page. In the latter case, the translation should be fastened to the document.

3. Notarization of translation of a document into the Abkhaz or the Russian languages does not substitute the legalization of the document itself.

4. Documents and acts submitted for legalization should be written clearly and legibly, the signatures of the public officers and the imprints of the seals should be discernible. Blanks in the documents and acts should be struck through. Corrections and additions should be stipulated before signatures of the persons and repeated in the legalization inscription made in Abkhaz or Russian or, if necessary, in a foreign language. These corrections and additions should be done in a way which makes it possible to read all corrected and crossed out text. If corrections and additions are made in the legalized inscription, they should be stipulated and signed only by the officials who do the legalization.

5. In case there is no space for a legalized inscription, it should be made on a separate sheet, attached to the document or act and sealed and signed by the official who does legalization.

6.The documents issued by public agencies and local governments of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Abkhazia do not need legalization for presentation in these countries (in accordance with Article 9 of the Agreement on Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance between the Republic of Abkhazia and the Russian Federation of 17.10.2008).

Document Legalization Procedure

Legalization of documents is performed four days a week (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday). Documents are accepted from 9:30 to 12:30 and handed out from 16:00 to 17:00 (Wednesday, Friday).

The documents are accepted and handed out in turn, without appointment or speeded up procedure.

The period of legalization should not exceed 10 days form the date of submission of all the duly executed documents.

For legalization of documents, an applicant must submit the following documents to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Abkhazia:

application ( the sample is attached); identity document for private persons and power of attorney for representation of a legal entity (presented) for legal entities;

document (with a copy) issued with the assistance of public agencies of a foreign country and intended for use in the Republic of Abkhazia;

documents (with a copy) issued by the Abkhaz organizations and institutions and intended for use in a foreign country;

The documents submitted for legalization are required to:

include necessary details (number, date, signature, seal);

have no omissions, additions, crossed out words or other non-stipulated corrections, they should not be written in pencil. The text of the document should be written clearly and legibly, the signatures of the public officers and the imprints of the seals should be discernible;

Documents of more than one page should be should be fastened, numbered and sealed;

The Consular Service legalizes documents and acts issued by organizations and institutions of the Republic of Abkhazia in case there are authorized signatures and seals of state officials of the Republic of Abkhazia.