Do you need Apostilled Documents?

Also known as Document Legalisation - An apostille is a stamp of genuine authority given to a legal company document by the Foreign & Commonwealth office.

This is usually required by non-UK based directors to enable another country to trust the company documents issued by UK establishments. A certificate of good standing confirming your company details is produced by request from Companies House, the UK public official body of Companies. An Apostille is then generated by an authorised representative of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office to confirm the validity of the document.

This could be to confirm that you have a UK limited company to an overseas authority. Overseas banks will often need this when opening an account for a UK company.

Certificate of good standing is a Companies house document proving that the company has been in continuous, unbroken existence since its incorporation and that no action is currently being taken to strike the company off the register and that it’s up to date with all its filings. A company might need this if an official in another country has asked you to provide a UK document and they’ve said it must be legalised. The Legalisation Office will check the document, including whether the signature, stamp or seal is genuine. They’ll legalise the document by attaching a stamped official certificate (an ‘apostille’) to it.

You cannot get documents issued outside the UK legalised using this service – they need to be legalised in the country they were issued.