As of June 2022, the Hague Convention on the apostille has entered into force in Indonesia. This is good news for anyone planning a move to work, live, or study in Indonesia, as it means there will be fewer steps involved when preparing documentation to be used in the country. But how exactly has the process of document legalisation changed, and what does this mean for you?
Until recently, the majority of countries in South and Southeast Asia have continued to use the double-certification method of legalisation, whereby a document has to be certified by the authorities of both the country of origin and the destination country in order to be legally recognised. The Philippines signed the Apostille Convention in 2018, and since then several other countries have followed suit, or made plans to in the near future – among these were Singapore and Indonesia in 2021 and Pakistan in 2022 (due to come into force in 2023) – marking a trend towards a more universal approach to document legalisation.
Since October 2021, Indonesia has been transitioning from the system of double-certification to the apostille system. The Hague Apostille is an international certificate which allows documents from contracting countries to be recognised in other contracting countries without the need to be certified by embassies or consulates. Prior to joining the convention, all U.K. documents being used in Indonesia would have to go through a process of embassy legalisation, or attestation, after being legalised by the UK FCDO legalisation office.
Embassy attestations can be complicated, time-consuming and often prone to delays. Attestation at the Indonesian embassy generally takes between seven and ten working days, not counting Islamic holidays. Removing the requirement for this step has the potential to save a lot of time in the overall document legalisation process.
Now that the convention has entered into force, clients with documents for Indonesia can expect a much simpler process of notarisation (when required) followed by legalisation with an apostille at the UK FCDO legalisation office.
At Pardus Bloom, we offer an express apostille service for time-sensitive matters, which can be completed same or next working day, as well as two alternative services to suit your timeframe and budget. Unlike with embassy attestation, the fees for apostilles are the same for both commercial and personal documents, which means that our corporate clients may find that preparing their documents for Indonesia is now less costly than in the past.
One thing to bear in mind, however, is that these changes can take time to fully set in and it is not unusual for some businesses and institutions in recently acceded apostille countries to continue to request embassy attestation in addition to the apostille. We would expect to see this happen on occasion, as some institutions will be accustomed to the old system. If you find this is the case, there’s no need to fret – the Indonesian Embassy still accepts applications for attestation for the time being and Pardus Bloom is happy to help arrange this for you when necessary.
If you have documents going to Indonesia, we would always recommend that you check with the receiving party about whether they will accept the apostille on its own, especially in these early days. Once you know which processes you require, feel free to get in touch via email, phone, or live chat and we can handle the rest.