Schmidt & Schmidt offers the legalization of documents from São Tomé and Príncipe by apostille.

São Tomé and Príncipe has joined the Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalization for Foreign Public Documents in the year 1975. Therefore, no diplomatic authentication or legalization of documents from São Tomé and Príncipe is required for the legal communication with another member state of the convention. The documents only need to be stamped with an "apostille" by the issuing state's authorities in order to be valid in the state of destination.

Responsible for the apostille in Sao Tome and Principe is the Department of Consular Services of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Documents issued by authorities and other officially authorized bodies of Sao Tome and Principe, published in Portuguese can be apostilled.

The legalization process for documents in Sao Tome and Principe includes verification of their origin and authenticity by authorized officials. After this procedure, the document is affixed with a special stamp - an apostille. Usually the apostille is placed on the back of the document, or on a separate sheet, after which the document is stitched.

The apostille is a stamp of rectangular shape. It should be filled in in the official language of the issuing authority. The heading "Apostille (Convention de la Haye du 5 octobre 1961)" written in French is a necessary requirement for the apostille's validity.

The following documents can be authenticated by apostille:

• Certificates of civil status (certificates of birth, death, marriage and divorce)
• Education documents (school reports, certificates, diplomas)
• Trade register excerpts
• Judicial decisions
• Notarially certified copies of documents
• Notarially certified translations
• Further notarial documents (authorizations, last will, declarations)
• Commercial documents legalized by a state organ of registration (articles of incorporation, registration certificates, tax registrations etc.)

Requirements for the documents:

An apostille can be issued exclusively on an original document. Therefore, the latter must be in an apparent good condition, all stamps and signatures have to be clear and readable. Furthermore, it must not contain alien marking and labels.

Additional services

In addition to the legalization of your documents, we can provide you with high quality translations.

If you want to bring company information before the court, it needs to be legalised as well. We are therefore offering extracts from the commercial register of São Tomé and Príncipe including apostille and translation.

Usually, processing the documents takes us 14 days.