When applying for jobs abroad or looking to study outside of the UK, you may be asked to obtain an apostille on your academic documents.

How is a Degree Legalised with the Apostille?

• Your document must be certified by an FCDO-registered solicitor. They add a statement certifying the document, sign and date the copy.

• SEND ORIGINAL – The solicitor checks security features on the original degree. They make a copy, certify it, legalise it, and return both.

• SEND A COPY BY EMAIL – Send a clear scan by email. They verify your qualification with the university first before certifying the copy.

How is a Copy Degree Checked?

A copy of your degree will need to be verified. Solicitors will not certify a document without seeing the original document or conducting checks on your copy document.

There are several ways the copy degree can be verified as genuine.

• Ask someone at your university (tutor or admin) to email confirmation.

• Use a university portal that shares your documents with third parties.

• Pay a verification fee and sign a consent form; the service does the checking.

• Your document ‘may’ have a QR code that can be used to verify the document.

Sending the Original Document

This is often the fastest solution. The solicitor can check the document, certify a copy and begin the apostille service.

Remember to check the delivery times with your courier as this may impact your decision.

Sending a Copy Document

The speed of processing will depend on the verification:

1. University Emails us: How fast will they respond to your request for them to contact us?
2. Online Portal: if you can provide us access to the university sharing portal, we can access this the same day.
3. We Contact the University: This varies by university and the time of year. Some respond in a day or two while others can take more than a week.
4. QR Code on Document: If your degree has a security QR code, we can verify your degree quickly and easily with no delay.

If you are not sure how long your university will take to verify a document, you may want to send the original document to us.

 Check if a Copy Will be Accepted

Legalising a copy of a degree is standard practice for many countries. This means the certification and the apostille is added to a copy. Your original degree is not damaged/marked by the process. However, there are exceptions. Some organisations prefer to see the original document issued with an apostille.

Conclusion

It is common to add the apostille to a copy of a degree certificate. These can be emailed to us for verification or we need to see the original document. We provide a complete service with solicitor certification and apostille on a copy of your degree.