Consular legalisation and multilingual certificates for use abroad

Consular legalisation (also called legalisation through diplomatic channels) is the procedure that gives a Spanish public document validity in a country that has NOT signed the Hague Convention of 5 October 1961. Instead of a single stamp (the apostille), it requires a chain of stamps with no shortcuts: if one intermediate link is missing, the document is rejected.

The Hague apostille is a single stamp that every signatory country to the Convention recognises, and it replaces legalisation. Consular legalisation, by contrast, chains three validations: the competent Spanish body, the Legalisation Service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation (MAEUEC) and, lastly, the consulate or embassy of the destination country in Spain.

What decides which route to use is not the document, it is the country where you are going to present it. Managora identifies the correct route and avoids the most common mistake: sending an apostille to a country that does not accept it and seeing it rejected.

There are three routes depending on the destination. First: if you present the document in a European Union country, many public documents need neither an apostille nor a translation, thanks to Regulation (EU) 2016/1191, and for Registro Civil (Spain's civil registry) records there is also the multilingual certificate between the signatory States to the Vienna Convention.

Second: if the country is outside the EU but has signed the Hague Convention, the apostille is enough. Third: if the country has NOT signed the Hague Convention, the only valid route is consular legalisation, with its full chain of stamps.

Before starting anything it is worth confirming which situation the destination country is in, because the list of signatory States changes. Managora checks it and tells you the exact route for your case.

The multilingual or international certificate is an extract from the Registro Civil (birth, marriage or death) drafted at the same time in the languages of the signatory States to Convention No. 16 of the International Commission on Civil Status (CIEC), done at Vienna on 8 September 1976. Between those States it is exempt from legalisation, from the apostille and from translation.

It is the most convenient solution when the document is a Registro Civil record and the destination country has signed the Convention (16 EU countries and some outside it, such as Switzerland, Turkey, Serbia or Cape Verde). You request it from the Registro Civil of the place where the event happened, by post or through the electronic office of the Ministry of Justice, and it is free.

You can see the detail and the price of the service on the application page for the international birth certificate. Managora requests it and hands it to you ready to present.

Regulation (EU) 2016/1191, applicable across the EU since 16 February 2019, removes the requirement of an apostille between Member States for certain public documents (among others: birth, marriage, registered partnership, death, domicile or residence and absence of a criminal record).

To avoid translation, the Regulation creates the multilingual standard forms: they are attached to the national document as a translation aid. When the document comes with that form, the authority at destination should not require a sworn translation (traducción jurada), unless it considers that the information in the form is not enough to process the document.

The difference with the multilingual certificate under the Vienna Convention is twofold: the Regulation only applies between EU countries, but it covers more types of document; the multilingual certificate only works for Registro Civil records, but it is also valid in signatory countries outside the EU.

Legalisation at the MAEUEC is free: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs charges no tasa (official fee) for legalising. The Registro Civil certificate, including the multilingual one, is also free. What does have a cost is the fee charged by the consulate of the destination country (it varies from one country to another) and, where applicable, the sworn translation.

The price of the Managora service (managing and walking the chain for you) is shown on the service page for consular legalisation; check the current amount there. Timescales depend on the number of bodies involved: the online Registro Civil certificate takes between 1 and 15 working days and legalisation at the MAEUEC is usually resolved the same day.

The full chain (prior body, MAEUEC and consulate) can take several days or weeks depending on each consulate's timings. Managora groups the steps together to shorten the wait.

The underlying rules stay the same: the Hague Convention of 1961 for the apostille, CIEC Convention No. 16 (Vienna, 1976) for the multilingual certificate and Regulation (EU) 2016/1191 for the circulation of documents inside the Union.

The relevant operational change is the MAEUEC security seal: a transparent security sticker is placed over the official's signature, protecting the last link of the chain. As of July 2026 the Legalisation Service works on a first come, first served basis (appointment booking is temporarily disabled), from 9:00 to 14:00, at calle General Pardiñas 55, Madrid.

These operational details can change; Managora checks the state of the service before presenting your document.