Legislation of Documents in the Member States of the EU

Public documents of Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Denmark, France and Latvia are not required to be legalised or certified by an apostil in Estonia (and Estonian documents in the listed countries) after this date. The convention does not cover the need for translation.

Public documents regarding EU undertakings (companies and other entrepreneurs) and EU citizens are:

— documents about their legal status and representation;

— civil status certificates (e.g. about birth, death, name, marriage, registered partnership and adoption);

— documents certificating place of residence, citizenship and ethnic nationality;

— documents relating to immovable;

— documents relating to intellectual property rights;

— documents that certificate that there is no entry in the punishment register.

The Apostille Convention, which has more than 100 contracting states, came into force in November 2011 in Estonia. According to the convention, the authenticity of a document must be certified and the document can be used in another contracting state if the competent agency of the issuing country affixes an appropriate certification (apostil) to the document. In Estonia, apostils have been affixed by notaries since 2010.
It is important to know that an apostil does not certify the content of a document or that the document has been issued in accordance with legislation. An apostil only certifies the competence of the issuer of a document to issue the document and the right of the signatory to sign the document.